Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#441

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 2:13 AM UTC

ls15 wrote: post #312

shadowgovt wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany's entire threat model, at a cultural level, is 100% different from the US due to differing histories. Germany is concerned about how networks of tattle-tale can be used by fascists to organize oppression. Americans are concerned about how crime flourishes in the unobserved corners of urban environments. These are both, basically, bogeymen. But the German bogeyman is the Nazis returning and the American bogeym…

> These are both, basically, bogeymen. But the German bogeyman is the Nazis returning and the American bogeyman is the transient murderer. Eastern Germany had another authoritarian surveillance state after the Third Reich. I have no good reason to be confident that it will not happen again. It could as well happen in the US, considering recent history. An authoritarian surveillance state that is paired with digital s…

> It could as well happen in the US

It already has.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

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Post by hansvm » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 2:21 AM UTC

hansvm wrote: post #112

techdragon wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For bonus points they can then point the finger at the local thieves that happily try to identify and then shadow Amazon delivery contractors and steal valuable looking parcels based on whatever gut instinct they have for value based on size/shape/weight of the packages. Amazon proves the delivery and now it’s the local Polive Department’s problem. They are literally selling customers an excuse they can use later aga…

In a lot of jurisdictions the seller is liable for the package till the consumer receives it, often explicitly calling out doorstep delivery as being insufficient to remove that liability. The seller might separately have a claim against a carrier or thief, but the law is on the side of the consumer regardless of whatever else plays out. Plus, legalities aside, it's usually cheaper to satisfy the consumer than to tak…

Contradicting myself a bit, I did once have a rather unpleasant experience where I required 4 encounters with Amazon customer service before they would stop charging me for a delivery they failed. It was eventually not a problem, but the hours spent weren't substantially less than a lawsuit for the same (the costs were drastically less at least).

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

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Post by balderdash » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 2:26 AM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #38

unfocused wrote: post #31

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…

If your houses are close together I don't think it's reasonable to have an expectation of privacy on the driveway or front porch. After all sound at normal speaking volume can easily travel 100 feet on a quiet day, if there's nothing in-between.

Laws are the lowest common denominator of social behavior. Not illegal - does not mean it’s not anti-social behavior.

I also the think there is a practical difference between occasionally/potentially being observed when entering/leaving your property, and having your comings and goings surveilled 24/7/365

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

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Post by allset_ » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 2:37 AM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #181

karaterobot wrote: post #8

> “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…

My view on this is that we're not going back and it would be silly to try to do so. Once you have the technology to record, track, and ultimately apprehend criminals, simply not doing so in the name of ideological purity becomes increasingly obscene. What we need are courts that understand the technology, prosecutors who fear censure for overreach, and fair laws about standards of access to the data. It's here to sta…

> We just need good rules around its use.

Rules change. The people in power change. They may say "fuck those rules" in the future. The only way to prevent abuses like this is to not surveil unnecessarily.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#445

Post by aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 2:38 AM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #425

themitigating wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When there's a mysterious box that does some vague thing that you don't care about, it's safe to hate it. It's not helping you in any observable way, so opposing its existence is a safe, easy decision" This sounds like the justification of stupidity. If you don't know what it does it ignoring may or may not be safe. If you can't observe a benefit to you (I assume you mean obvious and causual observation) doesn't mea…

I didn't read it as justifying the stupidity, but explaining why people feel OK engaging in it. It came across as a good explanation of why so many people are so happily thoughtless. “Thinking is hard work. That may be the reason so few engage in it.”—Henry Ford

Henry Ford is someone I would never consider a great thinker.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#446

Post by balderdash » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 2:39 AM UTC

jrumbut wrote: post #73

MichaelZuo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your houses are close together I don't think it's reasonable to have an expectation of privacy on the driveway or front porch. After all sound at normal speaking volume can easily travel 100 feet on a quiet day, if there's nothing in-between.

Incidentally overhearing a conversation and recording 24/7 then uploading anything interesting to a third party's servers for them to do who knows what with it feels very different. I'm curious what others think of the ethics of a non-internet connected camera? Does that really resolve the issue or do you still consider it wrong to have residential security cameras that capture the sidewalk/street outside the house?

I think it’s not as bad as it removes many of the worst elements, but I also think there is a question of how limited/incidental the surveillance is of other people: e.g. I think there is a difference between picking up people on the sidewalk on the 20ft or so directly in front of your house, vs having the camera also pickup wide angle view of the whole street and all of your neighbor’s comings and goings.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#447

Post by balderdash » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 2:44 AM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #76

doublerabbit wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its more than reasonable. It's called respect. Their house and their drive and just because voice could travel 100-feet sill doesn't mean they have the right to record it. If the speed limit is twenty and someone is driving thirty, does that give you the right to drive thirty too?

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 the parent is wrong that they do have the “right” (really more it’s not-illegal) but don’t think it doesn’t mean it’s not unreasonable and obnoxious.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#448

Post by balderdash » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:00 AM UTC

Tangurena4 wrote: post #389

unfocused wrote: post #31

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 asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway, just theirs. and they lost their shit. My sister has cameras on the outside of our house. When neighbors asked her to point them away from their houses, my sister also lost her shit. Even when the police came by, she got so upset that the police re-aimed her cameras when they got her distracted. For some reason people who ge…

Holy crap - that’s not the rAndom porch pirate!

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#449

Post by jiveturkey » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:02 AM UTC

unfocused wrote: post #31

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…

Why not take some active measures? Bright IR light directed at the camera. Maybe there's an ultrasonic noise that would effectively disable the mic. I assume there's an auto gain control so a loud enough (but inaudible to us) sound might do it.

Re: Amazon admits giving police Ring camera footage without consent

#450

Post by danielheath » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:25 AM UTC

themitigating wrote: post #356

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that one of those things has a benefit. When there's a mysterious box that does some vague thing that you don't care about, it's safe to hate it. It's not helping you in any observable way, so opposing its existence is a safe, easy decision. But the Ring camera is providing him with a benefit, so evaluating whether to oppose it requires putting a cost on "spying on us" and weighing that against the…

"When there's a mysterious box that does some vague thing that you don't care about, it's safe to hate it. It's not helping you in any observable way, so opposing its existence is a safe, easy decision" This sounds like the justification of stupidity. If you don't know what it does it ignoring may or may not be safe. If you can't observe a benefit to you (I assume you mean obvious and causual observation) doesn't mea…

Human minds navigate the world through heuristics; applying logic is an exhausting method that - for most people - must be reserved so it's available for high-leverage situations.