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Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

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Re: Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

#111

Post by jahlove »

jerf wrote: post #90
tensor wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are numerous logistic issues with this approach. How would you implement a feature where users could log in to view the footage while away from home? They would need the decryption key, and if the server doesn't have it how would they get it? The only secure option is from the device itself, which is a pretty big UX challenge. However, worse, features that use AI to detect movement/people/etc can't be implement…

"How would you implement a feature where users could log in to view the footage while away from home?" The "decryption key" can be a password-like object rather than an AES key, though that does require some security, and browsers are, if not quite ready to decrypt a stream and then render it as a video file, getting pretty close to that. However, any client provided to the user by the video company itself, web or ap…

> The hardware to do this locally isn't that expensive

Wyze cams do "edge detection" AI in-camera, and those cameras are only $20-25. It seems to work pretty well to me. Although, the company that developed the AI is pulling out of the contract with Wyze. Nonetheless, it shows that it can be done cheap.

Re: Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

#112

Post by reaperducer »

ogre_codes wrote: post #105

My big problem with IoT devices is trust. When a third party has control of my data, I have to trust the company is going be a responsible steward for my data. This is particularly telling since few of them (none?) have binding terms of service which protect the rights of the buyer. So you have situations like this where abuse happens or companies like Canary which made a rather big and infuriating change to their po…

I avoid the ones that require an account to sign in or rely heavily on cloud services.

This is the best IoT advice I can give anyone. I've had at least a dozen "smart" lightbulbs orphaned by two different companies. One went out of business, the other just decided not to support them anymore.

The amazing thing is with the first group of bulbs, the IoT company actually pushed out a software update bricking the controller box before it went out of business. This was a box that could have functioned forever because there were several tinkerers who had reverse-engineered the protocol and seemed close to releasing open source integrations.

Naturally, there was no notice. The only way I found out was when the bulbs wouldn't respond anymore and I went to the company's web site where there was a notice.

You know what doesn't always work? Smart light bulbs.

You know what always works? Dumb light bulbs.

Re: Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

#113

Post by jahlove »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #45
hooande wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have none. a tv crew could set up outside your house and record indefinitely. or even go through your trash. People are allowed to record public spaces. It's just bad behavior and the consequences are social

Sounds super illegal and not GDPR compliant. You're not allowed to tape my private property without my consent. At least in Europe.

OP lives in the US.

Re: Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

#114

Post by rococode »

choward wrote: post #79
embeddedpro wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upcoming /s- It would really suck if someone could watch my front door. Like, they might know when my package arrives? Or what if someone checked my naked footage? /S I really don't care. Should I care?

The only reason you had to explain it was sarcasm is of course you should care. You sound like one of those "I have nothing to hide" people even though having something to hide is completely irrelevant. You're being spied on and you don't see any problems with that? And by the way, everyone has something to hide whether they know it or not.

There's that one TED talk about privacy where the guy says something like, "People say they have nothing to hide, but do any of you want to give me access to your private email account right now? No? Right, no one's ever taken me up on that".

I've always thought that was a bit of a strawman. In the case of my front door, I really wouldn't mind even if it were livestreamed for the whole world to watch. I agree that "I have nothing to hide" is generally a poor argument, but I think when it's more specific it can be a valid statement, e.g. "I have nothing to hide when it comes to things that go on outside my front door". I can't recall in my entire life a single event outside my front door that I would care about other people being able to watch. Can I imagine a scenario where I might want privacy at my front door? Sure. Maybe my friend becomes a fugitive and comes to me looking for help. Maybe I become a CIA informant and they come to secretly meet with me. But in the few situations I can think of where I would actually care about total privacy around my front door, I'd hope I would have the prescience to pop out the batteries in advance. I legitimately cannot think of a single case in which I might care that someone is watching my front entryway.

Of course, I don't feel the same way about other camera positions. But I think I'm a pretty security-conscious guy (my in-home security cameras are airgapped and streamed to a local server) and I have a Ring on my front door and have no qualms about it.

Re: Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

#115

Post by SilasX »

chrisballinger wrote: post #6

Whenever end-to-end encryption is not used, scenarios like these are bound to happen eventually. As far as I know, the only home surveillance products that use E2EE are ones that support HomeKit Secure Video [1]. 1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210538

Can't wait for (scalable) homomorphic encryption, where providers can serve you without ever knowing what's in your data.

Re: Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

#116

Post by Kocrachon »

dmitrygr wrote: post #93
crmrc114 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I worked at Amazon and I know how seriously they take data security.

And yet, literally, this article shows that you cannot.

Huge difference... Chinese company wouldn't fire them, it would give all of that data to a whole bunch of people in the government.

Re: Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

#117

Post by nerdjon »

chrisballinger wrote: post #6

Whenever end-to-end encryption is not used, scenarios like these are bound to happen eventually. As far as I know, the only home surveillance products that use E2EE are ones that support HomeKit Secure Video [1]. 1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210538

I am curious if there are others.

But as soon as a camera came out that supported this I finally got one (flat out refused to get one before... even though I wanted to get one).

It feels pretty good knowing its stored encrypted in my iCloud and all of the processing happens on my devices (HomePod and Apple TV)

Re: Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

#118

Post by Kocrachon »

JohnFen wrote: post #60
booleanbetrayal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My neighbor, across the street, has a Ring camera aimed directly at my house, since that is where their front door faces. What is my recourse for preventing my private property from being recorded?

> What is my recourse for preventing my private property from being recorded? Either put up a visual barrier or move. This sort of thing is why I consider products like Ring to be terrible and highly antisocial. I would avoid even going into a neighborhood that had many of these installed, let alone live in one. Also, am I the only one who thinks that the prevalence of these devices in a neighborhood is a very strong…

What's the big deal if it's ring, or me with a bunch of chinese-made POE cameras and blue iris as a local server? shouldn't people have the right to set up surveillance on their own house for protection and deterrence?

saying people are paranoid for having cameras is ridiculous, people also have security systems. It's a deterrent and doesn't necessarily mean high crime. if you live in Major City like I have my whole life, it's just a fact of life that you're going to want stuff like this.

Re: Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

#119

Post by criddell »

bluejekyll wrote: post #49
jiveturkey wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, and Ring has already proven its model. If privacy were an actual problem, Ring would not have made it this far.

This might be an education gap. That is, people really like the cameras and the way they work/ease of use, but they may not be aware of how non-private the recordings are. If they were, their opinion might be very different.

For some portion of their customer base, I'm sure that's true.

Ring's biggest product is their doorbell and I'd be willing to bet that a big chunk of their customer base isn't that concerned if somebody accesses their doorbell video. I'm not sure I'd care...

Re: Ring fired employees for watching customer videos

#120

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #53
coralreef wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easiest way to keep someone out is to lock the door. You can create penalties, punishments, hire security guards to watch the door. But the most efficient and effective way is just a lock.

That's absolutely not true. Most doors are trivial to pick and as easy to break down. The main, and usually only, real reason for the lock on the door is to serve as a physical symbol which establishes a particular legal status of the property behind the doors, with associated consequences for unlawful entry. The legal apparatus - penalties, punishments - is what deters crime. Lock is an XML tag made of matter. (The…

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