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Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

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Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#111

Post by lambdadmitry »

toss1 wrote: post #48
Santosh83 wrote: post #2

It is not the technology that is dangerous but the scale and manner of its deployment. Patented, opaque, closed source, championed by mega-corporations closely allied with powerful governments, entirely beyond the analysis or oversight of the vast majority of citizens, completely connected realtime to various other systems, automated, eternally slurping up data for indefinite storage... these are the real concerning…

This. The difference between individual human watchers doing surveillance, face recognition, etc. and at-scale watchers doing the same thing is key. The difference is no less than the old corner stores every few blocks vs Amazon's automated warehouses & shipping. An ordinary drive with a bit of speeding here and there everyday goes from perhaps a ticket or two every decade, to 6 tickets every trip. A meaningless wron…

> An ordinary drive with a bit of speeding here and there everyday goes from perhaps a ticket or two every decade, to 6 tickets every trip.

Can it be that the best way of avoiding that is avoiding speeding? It's interesting that you are lumping together objectively dangerous, even if prevalent in the US, public behaviour (deliberate speeding) with honest mistakes (making a wrong turn).

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#112

Post by lambdadmitry »

lozaning wrote: post #86
JohnFen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if I have video footage of someone approaching my door, not knocking and just looking aroud to then leave; and I'm given the option to track if that person shows up again in future video footage, you bet I would use that option." This sort of thing is one of the reasons why I fear these systems. A world where this is common is a world where it's no longer safe to take a stroll through your own neighborhood.

You've got all the rights in the world to walk by my house on the sidewalk and doing so an unlimited number of times will raise no suspicion from me. The minute you cross onto my property you're going to show up on multiple cameras that are pointed right at the boundary line. You rights to do whatever you want stop when you cross that line. I dont think you could convince me that this makes you any less safe.

What kind of hellish warzone do you live in with that kind of mentality (or even the need to have multiple cameras pointed somewhere)?

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#113

Post by toss1 »

lambdadmitry wrote: post #111
toss1 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The difference between individual human watchers doing surveillance, face recognition, etc. and at-scale watchers doing the same thing is key. The difference is no less than the old corner stores every few blocks vs Amazon's automated warehouses & shipping. An ordinary drive with a bit of speeding here and there everyday goes from perhaps a ticket or two every decade, to 6 tickets every trip. A meaningless wron…

> An ordinary drive with a bit of speeding here and there everyday goes from perhaps a ticket or two every decade, to 6 tickets every trip. Can it be that the best way of avoiding that is avoiding speeding? It's interesting that you are lumping together objectively dangerous, even if prevalent in the US, public behaviour (deliberate speeding) with honest mistakes (making a wrong turn).

Yes, an obvious almost tautological suggestion, which often does not apply, and can actually increase the danger of situations even while technically reducing your chances of a ticket.

I regularly drive on highways with relatively dense traffic all going 10-20mph above the speed limit; in these conditions, it is objectively MORE dangerous to attempt to go the speed limit. I've seen the whole pack drive right by a state cop at 80+, and he'll do nothing because just to turn on his lightshow will likely cause a major wreck.

Outside of residential/school/congested areas with non-vehicular traffic & obstacles, it is NOT any numerical speed that causes issues, but the differential in speeds. Going too much faster -or too much slower- than surrounding traffic is what will cause accident situations (obviously, up to the limits of conditions, car preparation, driver skill & attention, etc.)

The Autobahns are regulated as an excellent example of this. In rural areas very high speeds are permitted, and lane discipline is rigorously enforced. You'll get busted way harder for driving slow in the left lane than for driving 300kph. And, in the more congested zones, the speed limits come down. And the safety records exceed those of the 65MPH US highways.

Speed does not kill, but rather driver ignorance does. A safe fast driver is better than an unsafe slow driver any day. And most US drivers are never taught even the basics of how to actually drive. I know otherwise very intelligent people who balked at taking their teens to driver safety & skills classes taught by SCCA and others (which objectively reduce accident rates) because they thought that teaching these skills (car control, balance, braking & turning at the limits, etc.) would give them wrong ideas...

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#114

Post by drb91 »

Shivetya wrote: post #60
drb91 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is paranoid to think that the people outside your house want to rob or kill you. It is not paranoid to see that the “wrong context” is just a matter of time.

There is no more paranoia in having a camera security feature than locking your door. if people are checking out your house repeatedly then you might have a problem so a precaution is fine. considering that it is easy to surf news sites and find video captured by home surveillance systems showing people taking packages, trying to get in, or having broke in, it is not unreasonable to install such a device. the issue i…

Well, a lock does a great job at not letting people into my apartment. Why not put the camera inside the door?

It is trivial to find videos of people committing crimes, but that does not imply anything about its likelihood. Meanwhile the state has an excellent record of abuse of power for ends that are unrelated to the reasons given for the power. See: the use of “terrorism” to justify militarizing domestic law enforcement, or parallel reconstruction.

The issue is that this idea that centralization of information will somehow avoid the pattern of abuse of centralized power in the hands of people with perverse incentives.

This video stream should be considered private property IMHO which requires a warrant like anything else.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#115

Post by lozaning »

lambdadmitry wrote: post #112
lozaning wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got all the rights in the world to walk by my house on the sidewalk and doing so an unlimited number of times will raise no suspicion from me. The minute you cross onto my property you're going to show up on multiple cameras that are pointed right at the boundary line. You rights to do whatever you want stop when you cross that line. I dont think you could convince me that this makes you any less safe.

What kind of hellish warzone do you live in with that kind of mentality (or even the need to have multiple cameras pointed somewhere)?

I travel out of the country for multiple weeks at a time for work, and want to ensure that all my worldly possessions are secure.

Im working for full 100% coverage of the entirety of my house, inside and out. The goal being able to control my smart house via gestures anywhere I am on the property via some machine learning and computer vision.

Also WYZE cams are 20 bucks a pop, and easily reflashed to do you own bidding. So it's not like this is some super expensive undertaking.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#116

Post by ep103 »

SCHiM wrote: post #20
ep103 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYPD was using this during Occupy. Everyone complained that Occupy lacked organization. But what was happening on the ground was that the NYPD was identifying who potential leaders were by using face recognition technology and (we believed) cell phone tracking to identify people who consistently showed up to different meetings. They would then use the same face identification technology to pick these people out of cr…

I have never heard of this, do you have references to this? If this is true, and even if you (or someone) made it up but it is a practical possibility, then it has truly horrific consequences for social organization and the peaceful transition of power (democracy). I've written about that before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15110645 This is bad. If you take away more and more ways to (relatively) peacefully…

I mean, you see a camera pointed at a crowd, then they stop on one person, and cops push through to arrest a specific person, its pretty easy to figure out what's going on. They used a lot of techniques, honestly, that until that point I thought were in the realm of Hollywood speculation, not actual reality. This was not the most concerning thing that happened, by a long shot.

I think you're right, for the exact reason that you stipulated in your other post. I also think that our society is embracing technology in a way that makes this an increasingly difficult problem going forward. I don't want to put Kaczynski on a pedestal, as I significantly disagree with both his actions, and the conclusions he came to, but I think he and others were right to identify this as _the_ issue for western society going forward, when combined with wealth inequality.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#117

Post by JohnFen »

lozaning wrote: post #115
lambdadmitry wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of hellish warzone do you live in with that kind of mentality (or even the need to have multiple cameras pointed somewhere)?

I travel out of the country for multiple weeks at a time for work, and want to ensure that all my worldly possessions are secure. Im working for full 100% coverage of the entirety of my house, inside and out. The goal being able to control my smart house via gestures anywhere I am on the property via some machine learning and computer vision. Also WYZE cams are 20 bucks a pop, and easily reflashed to do you own biddi…

All the surveillance in the world won't keep your stuff from being stolen. At best, it might allow the thief to be apprehended later -- but you probably still won't be getting your stuff back.

By the way, I have had my home pretty thoroughly automated for about 20 years now. I do recommend that (as long as you aren't using third party services -- that's a security risk all by itself). It's a lot of fun, not incredibly expensive, and pretty useful.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#118

Post by someguydave »

JohnFen wrote: post #117
lozaning wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I travel out of the country for multiple weeks at a time for work, and want to ensure that all my worldly possessions are secure. Im working for full 100% coverage of the entirety of my house, inside and out. The goal being able to control my smart house via gestures anywhere I am on the property via some machine learning and computer vision. Also WYZE cams are 20 bucks a pop, and easily reflashed to do you own biddi…

All the surveillance in the world won't keep your stuff from being stolen. At best, it might allow the thief to be apprehended later -- but you probably still won't be getting your stuff back. By the way, I have had my home pretty thoroughly automated for about 20 years now. I do recommend that (as long as you aren't using third party services -- that's a security risk all by itself). It's a lot of fun, not incredibl…

>All the surveillance in the world won't keep your stuff from being stolen.

Maybe not but if the thieves are recognized automatically the police have a much better chance at recovery.

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#119

Post by someguydave »

throwawaysea wrote: post #77

In my neighborhood, we are impacted by constant property crime - burglaries, car break-ins, mail theft, porch pirates, you name it. After being a victim myself, I can say that it does indeed cause an increase in anxiety, especially the sense of helplessness that comes with it. The police department here is woefully understaffed and has been ordered to not focus on property crime because their staffing only leaves roo…

Completely agree. I’ve seen several legitimate instances of theft and porch piracy on my local Nextdoor and the government police seem to do little about it. Something like this would support private policing which is desperately needed in many areas of the US

Re: Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door

#120

Post by haidut »

ep103 wrote: post #7
nonamechicken wrote: post #4

In my state Kerala in India, police seems to have started using face recognition. There was a huge protest recently in a famous temple called Sabarimala. Police had installed 12 cameras in the temple compound. If I understood correctly, the system compares live video feed against a database and alerts the police if anyone in the database was caught in the camera. Quoted from the below link: >"The cameras are equipped…

NYPD was using this during Occupy. Everyone complained that Occupy lacked organization. But what was happening on the ground was that the NYPD was identifying who potential leaders were by using face recognition technology and (we believed) cell phone tracking to identify people who consistently showed up to different meetings. They would then use the same face identification technology to pick these people out of cr…

As bad as these tactics sound, they were still laughably benign compared to the plot to kill Occupy leaders by snipers. https://www.chron.com/houston/article/Occupy-Houston-assassi...

The FBI refused to release documents or identify the group that had snipers tracking Occupy leaders in Houston but if you read the redacted documents it becomes quite clear it was a government agency. The redacted documents contain lines that basically said the sniper "group" would take out any Occupy leaders "if deemed necessary". That latter language is used to describe government agency activities, not some renegade alt-right group who decided to take out Occupy by force. If the FIB has knowledge of ANY criminal group ready to take out people on-demand "if deemed necessary" there would be quite a few arrests, even if no murders took place. The fact that FBI arrested nobody in that plot speaks volumes about who the snipers were. Either the FBI itself, the Houston SWAT team, or some 3-letter agency that officially does not exist.

Those same forces that were ready to take out Occupy leaders are the same forces that killed MLK. Most people, even African Americans, do not know that MLK's biggest threat to the established order was not his campaign for racial equality. It was his campaign for economic equality. As soon as he made the issue class instead of race, he was killed. MLK planned something called "Poor People's Campaign" and envisioned a million-people-strong demonstration in DC with the goal of non-violently interfering with government business and "occupying" the capital until the demands of the poor people are heard. Does it sound eerily similar to the Occupy group? Where do you think the Occupy leaders got the idea from? It was a re-incarnation of the MLK campaign from the start. And just like back in MLK's days, the government stood ready to murder the inconvenient leaders. Thankfully, it did not get to that point but it is quite obvious that individual rights and the law in general in the Western capitalist "democracies" are long gone.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/obery-m-hendricks-jr-phd/why-... "...Yet in December, 1999, after hearing the testimony of over 70 witnesses, including the owner of a restaurant close to the murder scene who admitted his complicity in the plot to kill King, an interracial jury in Shelby, Tennessee unanimously concluded that King’s murder was the result of a conspiracy of unnamed “GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES.”

It is way overdue that we ALL wake up and realize the truth - we ALL live in an international fascist dictatorship that knows no boundaries and obeys no laws. The laws are just for us, to keep us from disturbing the status quo. And no matter how hard organizations like ACLU et. al fight for the rights of the common person, it is a lost cause from the start as these secret entities do NOT follow laws. They cannot be reformed. President Kennedy said the same thing about the CIA (that it cannot be reformed) and he was killed a month later. I think it is rather obvious where this whole process is going.

Unfortunately, history repeats itself, even for the people who learn from it.

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