A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live • Hacker News Board

Re: A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live

#241

Post by laumars » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 10:57 AM UTC

fabatka wrote: post #234

kortilla wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you are okay with fining cyclists for riding on sidewalks, failing to come to a complete stop at stop signs, failing to signal turn direction, failing to yield, etc as well. Same with pedestrians for jaywalking. You can’t be intolerant of vehicle mistakes and allow for others if you actually care about safety.

Actually when you drive a car, you have a lot more responsibility. It is easier to cause serious harm to someone while driving a multi-ton vehicle, than when riding a bike.

I'd say both points are complimentary rather than contradictory. Yes, cars do require more responsibility, however they are not exclusively responsible for road safety.

For example cyclists have caused serious harm and even kills pedestrians before. Also pedestrians and cyclists have caused serious accidents to motorists when causing car drivers to react suddenly, to swerve or break harshly which has resulted in those drivers colliding with other motorists.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying the level of responsibility between pedestrians, cyclists and motorists are equal; clearly they're not. But there is still some shared responsibility when talking about road safety.

Re: A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live

#242

Post by laumars » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 11:10 AM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #215

rconti wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the vast majority of traffic collisions require 2 parties to not be paying attention, but only one of whom has to actually make a mistake; I wouldn't consider the 2nd person failing to avoid the accident as a matter of luck.

This is part of why the "share the road" and "all have a role to play" narratives are so offensive to people who cycle and walk. The people choosing these active transportation options are already overwhelmingly the ones picking up the slack and preventing driver inattention and carelessness from becoming serious crashes. We don't get a choice in this— we do it because the alternative is being killed in the street, a…

> We don't get a choice in this— we do it because the alternative is being killed in the street

Is this commonplace in the US? In the UK most streets are safe to walk down (even some country roads which don't have pavements/sidewalks). In the UK there isn't such thing as jaywalking (etc) so it is the drivers responsibility to give way to pedestrians even when those pedestrians aren't following the highway code themselves.

Re: A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live

#243

Post by Mirioron » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 11:21 AM UTC

lopmotr wrote: post #227

anongraddebt wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an argument that is sometimes made in this debate, and it concerns the gradual nature of the change to our privacy rights (or just privacy). It is an old argument. It took a number of years for me to convince myself that it was right. But it is a correct argument. In a round about way, the argument ends up concluding that we are, in fact, on some version of a slippery slope. We can see that slope quite clear…

I think it's a particularly American idea to want to cripple the police. They don't trust their government or their police, and perhaps rightly so, I don't know. Where I'm from, I would be happy if the police could use cameras everywhere to catch all the horrible petty crimes. People get their lifetime collections of things trashed and stolen during burglaries. It's quite upsetting for the victims. The police usually…

I don't think it's uniquely American at all. It's weird to me that some places don't feel this way. Remember that every state-caused atrocity is aided by the police in some way. Even if you're okay with the police right now, you might not be in 30 years.

Also, I think the chance of the police (as a group) not being corrupt is about the same as politicians (as a group) not being corrupt - essentially zero. The incentives just aren't there for there to be no corruption in law enforcement. And even if there's no corruption in law enforcement and your government is great, you still have to remember that police officers generally aren't the cream of the crop of society. They make mistakes and there usually isn't much recourse.

Re: A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live

#244

Post by laumars » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 11:35 AM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #233

laumars wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reporting someone for minor traffic offences if they caused an accident is the right thing to do but reporting people for the sake of reporting people is a little unsympathetic. I've lost count of the number of times I've misjudged a situation because kids were screaming in the back of the car, I'm stressed about something at work and had the briefest laps in concentration; or even times when I just have a complete b…

> I've lost count of the number of times I've misjudged a situation because kids were screaming in the back of the car, If you can't concentrate due to screaming kids at the back of a car then you need to pull over until they stop. You have no right to endanger other people's lives just to get somewhere a bit faster.

As a hard rule no sane parent would drive if I don't feel safe to (and that includes their ability to concentrate) because they'd be risking their children's lives too. So we're not talking about people who are "endangering other people's lives just to get somewhere a bit faster".

The point about kids is just an illustration of a distraction you might not be able to control and which might be timed badly. It could also be a dog in the car which barks at the wrong moment or countless other things.

It's also a little optimistic to assume that it's as easy as "pulling over until they stop" in the cases where kids are generally being loud. There are as many examples of why that might not be practical as there are occasions when it's good advice. From experience I can tell you that no parent wants to drive while kids are screaming in the back and will readily pull over if that's likely to help. Sometimes though, it's not safe to do so or pulling over wouldn't make any difference to their behaviour (eg when they're hungry and there is no food in the car). But no decent person would ever want to put their family nor other pedestrians at risk so I can assure you it's really not the case of drivers endangering other people's lives out of a selfish desire just to get somewhere a bit faster.

Re: A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live

#245

Post by laumars » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 12:00 PM UTC

kaikai wrote: post #182

laumars wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reporting someone for minor traffic offences if they caused an accident is the right thing to do but reporting people for the sake of reporting people is a little unsympathetic. I've lost count of the number of times I've misjudged a situation because kids were screaming in the back of the car, I'm stressed about something at work and had the briefest laps in concentration; or even times when I just have a complete b…

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter whether it was a moment of distraction or purposeful bad driving. The reason it didn’t cause harm is just luck. I ride a bicycle and a motorcycle, and have had more close calls due to distracted drivers than I can count. I DO NOT CARE if it’s because you’re stressed out, you have screaming kids in the backseat, or it was just a “complete brain fart.” If you hit me with your giant meta…

I've been a cyclist for 30 years and have had my fair share of accidents too. So I've seen both sides of the argument. However as a motorist I have never ever hit another driver, cyclist nor pedestrian; anything in fact. In fact the vast majority of motorists haven't despite the fact that literally every driver will have made a minor traffic offence on a semi-regular basis (even if that's just forgetting to indicate when changing lane on a motorway).

I also don't agree it's exclusively a matter of luck whether human error results in an accident. It's usually experience and good reactions whether you're able to recover from human error fast and safely enough to prevent an accident. Much like how cyclists have to learn to read the road and pedestrians have to learn how to safely cross busy roads, motorists should learn how to handle shitty situations. Please remember that sometimes those situations happen for reasons outside of the motorists control such as jaywalkers, animals in the road, other motorists making mistakes or even cyclists not following the rules of the road. This absolutely means motorists have a significant responsibility to drive safely but also means that it's not just a matter of luck whether someone forgetting to indicate results in fatality; that's simply not the reality of things.

I agree there is a possibility but it's not even common likelihood (for the reasons I described above). I also agree (as I've also said above) that drivers do have a significantly greater responsibility to drive safely and I'm absolutely in favour of penalising people who have caused accidents....however penalising everyone for every minor mishap doesn't help improve road safety. It effectively just becomes another road tax. If you want to penalise bad drivers then go after bad drivers; but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Re: A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live

#246

Post by throwaway_tech » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

take_a_breath wrote: post #101

throwaway_tech wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ring cameras are basically being used as a gigantic police-partnered dragnet: Isn't that sort of like saying humans are basically used as a gigantic police-partnered dragnet...seeing as our entire criminal system is primarily driven by eye witnesses of crimes? Only what we know is eye-witnesses often have conflicting testimony, some will refuse to assist police officers (out of concern for their own safety or they j…

==seeing as our entire criminal system is primarily driven by eye witnesses of crimes?== Do you have a source for this? In my yearlong experience on a Federal Grand Jury, the vast majority of evidence we deliberated on was "hard". By that I mean video evidence, financial transactions, text messages, emails, cell phones tower pings for location, etc. Eye witness testimony helps solidify a case, but you typically need…

>By that I mean video evidence, financial transactions, text messages, emails, cell phones tower pings for location

Yes, you are right, the majority of criminal convictions at trial are based on physical evidence (of course 9 out of 10 cased do not go to trial). But none of that evidence comes in without a witness that can introduce it.

So perhaps not an eyewitness to the crime itself, but a mandatory witness to introduce the "hard evidence". So for example take any DUI, before any video of the suspect or breathalyzer evidence can be introduced the officer needs to testify to the facts of the initial stop, then a witness needs to introduce the breathalyzer (make, model, has is been calibrated regularly, is/was the officer properly trained, did the test results get handled through the proper chain of custody, etc...).

>Even in your example, the video is what identified the suspect and lead to arrest not eye witnesses.

A video can't be introduced without a witness (now they don't need an eyewitness to the events depicted on camera, the store manager/records custodian will generally get the video in, but a good defense attorney might get it thrown out, so the eyewitness to the abduction becomes the key evidence in the case itself).

This is why "red-light cameras" failed constitutionality tests in many cases, because many jurisdictions tried to introduce the video without a witness...which violates the defendant's right to cross examine.

Or take the OJ case...all the physical evidence in the world from bodied, to murder weapon, to bloody glove...and no conviction.

Re: A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live

#247

Post by homonculus1 » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #195

HarryHirsch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just the sheer scale of data collection by the Ring public-private partnership is worrisome already. Some of us worry about the amount of information held by Facebook, even those that do not have a Facebook account . The same principle applies here.

If it is legally filmed footage (for example on public spaces or in a private residence), then there is no legitimate expectation of privacy.

Expectation of privacy was defined in an era when recording was expensive, on the assumption that there was a certain degree of anonymity in public just from the sheer impossibility of tracking everybody.

There is no reason that our rights should be limited to what was found necessary to protect in the past. There must be a new category of expectation of transience, that Jeff Bezos and the FBI won't keep a permanent record of your every waking moment.

Re: A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live

#248

Post by pc86 » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 3:04 PM UTC

megablast wrote: post #148

pc86 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in one case an indication that they would be unable to charge the person unless I also had a face shot of who it was in the driver's seat. Because it's the truth. A driver receives a citation, not a vehicle. And a vehicle owner is under no legal obligation to say who was driving a given car at a given time. So based on those two facts alone, I don't see how you think the police can just drop citations in the mail b…

What a stupid law. Some states are ridiculous.

Can you explain why you think it's ridiculous that a person should have to receive a citation and not an inanimate object?

Remember that our entire legal system was founded on the belief that you are innocent until proven guilty. Not "we think it was probably you" or "statistically it was probably you," but proven. So if my vehicle went through a red light that doesn't qualify as proof that I ran a red light. It qualifies as proof that something a computer thinks was probably my car was in an intersection at a particular moment in time. The state still has to prove I did it to ticket me (in reasonable states, anyway).

Re: A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live

#249

Post by pc86 » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

UncleEntity wrote: post #202

allannienhuis wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Red light and speeding cameras are used in a lot of places. I think the idea is that the regulations are modified to allow this specific type of citation to the vehicle owner, or that they 'force' the owner to prove they weren't driving to avoid the ticket. They're pretty controversial, but it's nothing new. I suspect that the bigger issue might be that this type of footage supplied by citizens might not be considere…

> Red light and speeding cameras are used in a lot of places. I think the idea is that the regulations are modified to allow this specific type of citation to the vehicle owner, or that they 'force' the owner to prove they weren't driving to avoid the ticket. My neighbor('s wife) got one of those red light tickets and they mailed the picture to him (as registered owner) asking him to identify the driver so they could…

Spousal privilege covers them mailing a picture and saying "is this your wife?" It doesn't cover "who is this?"

In general though, "don't talk to them" is broadly the best (and really, the only good) advice when dealing with the police.

Re: A podcast that hacks Ring camera owners live

#250

Post by recrudesce » Fri, Dec 13, 2019, 3:31 PM UTC

stallmanite wrote: post #230

34679 wrote: post #159

Luckily, if you click on the link to the original article near the beginning of this article, there's a video clip from a local news outlet that offers a sure-fire way to avoid being hacked, from tech security "expert" Michelle Bordoff: "Wired cannot be hacked." "Someone has to be in your home, hardwired to your modem to see anything on your network." Someone should let the world's governments and financial instituti…

If she hadn’t mentioned the word modem I’d be on board. An old fashioned analog camera wired directly to a VHS recorder would be a bitch to hack remotely right?

But they are modems. Some of them are just built into routers.

VDSL and cable connections require modems to function.