141–150 of 532 posts
Please if you want to surveil your property and people nearby, choose devices that capture it locally or to your private cloud. You can then choose to hand it over to police when warranted.
> “If there is the infrastructure, if there is the channel by which police can request footage without a warrant or consent of the user, under what circumstances they get it is out of our control. I worry that because it’s decided by the police and by somebody at Ring, there will be temptation to use that for increasingly less urgent situations.” Many people (I would argue anybody with common sense) predicted Ring wo…
So moved into a newly built house, by default everyone gets a smart doorbell in this house. They looked at me like I was crazy when I said I didn't want it or any of the other the "smart" devices. This was the exact reason.
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yeah my personal view is that these cameras do nothing except widen police surveillance capacity but I'm somewhat interested in what the people who buy them think they are doing.
Personally, I was motivated to get a Ring camera after a couple instances of porch theft. In the years since it has never happened again. So there is some deterrent value. I would never install a smart device INSIDE my home. But I don’t see why people are freaking out about door/driveway cameras.
Anyway I had a few packages thefts over a few years and did nothing about them at all. I haven't had any in about a year though so clearly it's working.
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So moved into a newly built house, by default everyone gets a smart doorbell in this house. They looked at me like I was crazy when I said I didn't want it or any of the other the "smart" devices. This was the exact reason.
I live in a community like yours and IMO you're just hurting yourself. Your home is probably already covered by everyone else's cameras and they can just pull the footage from them. It seems like the only person that doesn't have access to recordings of their own home now is you.
But also because for me the minor inconvenience of not constantly videotaping my house is overwhelmed by the opportunity to stand on a principle. Sure it doesn't do much to Amazon or anyone else but at least I know I am not participating in the Orwellian surveillance state. It also gives me the opportunity that when people notice and ask about it, to inform them about it. A lot of people didn't realize that this information was available to the government to use at their discretion as well.
My next door neighbor (we share a wall) had their bicycles stolen twice, so they installed Ring (floodlight) cameras in both the backyard and the front porch. After a year, the cameras have yielded no added security, or caught any "bad guys" as far as I can tell and from what they told me. What I realized, is they use it to keep track of their kids, funny cat videos that trigger the recording, and most importantly, a…
In terms of decreasing crime I live in Oakland in a duplex. Downstairs was empty and crooks broke in and stole a bunch of stuff over several hours earlier this year. We only had a camera doorbell for our upstairs unit and I have footage of one of the crooks walking around the corner with a crowbar, seeing the camera and immediately turning around and walking away. The camera was a huge deterrent for them and I believe the only reason our upstairs didn't get broken into where we were fast asleep.
We now have cameras on every door + a floodlight in the backyard.
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Amazon used to get stuck holding the bag. Now they can make the customer hold the bag.
I mean, the customer should hold the bag in that scenario. Amazon completed the delivery.
Ultimately, this is all a zero-sum BS game until we start talking about actual solutions, but I don't know enough about what Amazon offers to have an opinion about who needs to do better. If Amazon offers porch locker delivery and convenient central locker locations, sure, let's push customers to use them -- but if Amazon refuses to deliver to porch lockers and offers central lockers that are 20 miles away and open 10am-3pm, let's push Amazon to do better.
My next door neighbor (we share a wall) had their bicycles stolen twice, so they installed Ring (floodlight) cameras in both the backyard and the front porch. After a year, the cameras have yielded no added security, or caught any "bad guys" as far as I can tell and from what they told me. What I realized, is they use it to keep track of their kids, funny cat videos that trigger the recording, and most importantly, a…
I worry less about the police than I do about Amazon having this surveillance in the first place. The former head of the NSA sits on the board of directors and they have multi billion dollar contracts for services to the intelligence agencies. Please if you want to surveil your property and people nearby, choose devices that capture it locally or to your private cloud. You can then choose to hand it over to police wh…
That's just being worried about the police with extra steps. An F15 doesn't stand on a street corner and a surveillance dragnet doesn't kick in your door.
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You're comparing apples and oranges. One is legal and the other isn't. They absolutely have the right to record audio that is audible on their property. It used to be the norm that if you don't want your neighbors hearing you the onus is on you to speak quietly in a private place. With the increase in such devices the norm too will shift to "know that a device is recording audio in certain zones"
I agree but to a point. I am curious how this plays out when what is recorded wouldn't necessarily be audible or intelligible by the human ear but is able to be picked up and amplified via post processing or more sensitive devices. Will we then just have to always assume that a device is recording audio in all zones? Countermeasures will be figured out, but it's an interesting thought process.
Sure, one can have laws, but these kinds of laws are incredibly hard to enforce when it becomes trivial for everyone and their grandmother to break the law. It's frankly much easier to police Lyft/Uber usage than this.
[1] Cone of Silence from Get Smart...?
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Ha, you'd hate me. I have cameras pointing out the front of my house that record my driveway, the road, and incidentally the neighbor's driveways and front yards and such. No audio, though. But they're all cool with it, so there's that.
I wouldn't hate you! :) Clearly you've engaged your neighbors if they are cool with it. You also mentioned no audio. I even told them it's fine with audio, now that I understood how the system works. Alas, no audio is obviously better as I don't have to ask my friends to walk further away from the line of side of the camera.