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Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

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Re: Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

#321

Post by Johnny555 »

Schiendelman wrote: post #311
Johnny555 wrote: post #197

This should be a wakeup call for users of all cloud connected cameras that once they send their video to the cloud provider, they have no real control over how it's used. Ring does support end to end encryption (which disables most of the cloud features), but users are still at the mercy of Ring to trust that it really is e2e encrypted and not the "fake" end to end encryption that some marketers have used to mean "We…

Not ALL cloud connected cameras. Be careful saying things like that, there are large differences in the trust levels between them. For instance, if you're using homekit, I believe Apple doesn't even have the keys to the e2ee encryption, regardless of your "icloud advanced security" mode.

I stand by what I said -- If you don't control the software stack, you have no control over whether or not your footage is available to the cloud provider (or law enforcement) no matter what the provider says. As I said in my post, you really don't know if they have a secret software toggle that disables e2e encryption for law enforcement demands.

Re: Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

#322

Post by baby_souffle »

dyauspitr wrote: post #57
baby_souffle wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yep. Anyone got alternatives? The self-hosted and home-automation and home-assistant subreddits are _full_ of discussion threads on this. The good news is that you have a TON of options to pick from. The bad news is that they're all deficient in one way or another so you really do have to spend a bit of time to figure out who executes best on the things you care most about. If you don't mind the lock-in, Unifi is n…

Any non-Chinese, plug and play systems? Does simplisafe offer on premise video surveillance?

Unifi is it, really.

Re: Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

#324

Post by hackable_sand »

camillomiller wrote: post #64
dylan604 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cloud connected doorbells must die as well as dragnet surveillance. I'd disagree and restate that cloud services willing to make these kinds of deals must die, painfully, in a fire after being stung by a million killer bees, after receiving a million paper cuts and having lemon juice poured all over them. It is possible for a company to charge a monthly fee to provide a service and only that service without attempt…

No it is not. Your mandate is to grow your company’s revenue and profits, not act according to your conscience as an executive, especially if something is not illegal. This is why regulations are extremely important. There need to be a strong enough counterincentive or companies will eventually always follow the path of least resistance to growth. Ethics when present may create some form of friction along some specif…

Wrong reality

Re: Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

#325

Post by DANmode »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #269
King-Aaron wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I no longer carry a cell phone. I'm not quite there yet, but after Netanyahu made that comment like "if you have a phone you're carrying a little piece of Israel with you" right after the pager attack stuff.. I keep the phone in the back of my backpack away from my meat bits.

>no cell phone A one-way beeper allowed me to phase out mobile phone usage. Obviously presents inconveniences, but I'm semi-retired with no rush to be anywhere. Bonus health points: no locally-generated EMRadiation. [•] My provider (USA): https://pagersdirect.net/ > If you use numeric-only paging, bots haven't figured out how to SPAM, yet. Also available is alphanumeric email-to-page; two-way pagers also exist (but w…

Longer battery life than phone, no microphone to access via baseband.

Re: Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

#326

Post by mlrtime »

cjrp wrote: post #261
mlrtime wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What privacy am I giving up? You start with all these judgement questions without explaning.

An internet-connected device in your home which is always listening.

Like a phone?

Re: Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

#328

Post by noduerme »

fragmede wrote: post #222
noduerme wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like, thank you. Obviously. This is why I don't want to start a public facing business and why it's almost impossible for a person with some good ideas and a modest savings account who could build something better to do it without putting themselves in a compromised position by taking investment. If you go it alone, you basically have to put your entire net worth on the line to see whether something works, and then t…

> Any of which I could conceivably code and profit from if I wasn't afraid to spend 6-12 months on it and thought it could survive the regulatory environment and everything else that might come with releasing it onto the world. The problem is, you have to be young and dumb and oblivious enough to think that your idea is golden, while also being old and wise enough to be able to implement the idea. You don't want to w…

Friend, while I was driving a taxi in 2001, I conceived of a system that would let anyone directly order a taxi driver from a pool of drivers who signed up through a central SMS messaging system and updated their zip code when they were waiting for a fare. The main problem with that idea was that it was completely illegal because it was outside the licensed taxi system.

When Bitcoin emerged, I wrote a gambling site. That also was illegal in America, so I kept it closed to the US but tried to get my original games licensed in Nevada, which was a fool's errand since it takes $500k just to get them to look at a game and there's a 3 year waiting list, mostly Bally. And look where we are now with online gambling.

The lesson of my life isn't that I need ideas with a bigger moat. It's that being able to code my ideas well is meaningless compared to having half a billion dollars to buy off a legislature. I'm a coward, I guess, because I never wanted to break the law. Now I live in a timeline where every major company in those two sectors achieved market dominance and legality because the people who started them were willing to flout the law, raised enough capital and fought off lawsuits long enough to bribe their way into legitimacy.

I have a fantastic idea for an AI service, too, and it wouldn't be hard to implement... but it will almost certainly raise dozens of legal issues until someone with more balls than me comes along and just does it. Money is nice but I don't need that kind of trouble. That's why those ideas stay on the wall.

Re: Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

#329

Post by akimbostrawman »

Schiendelman wrote: post #313
akimbostrawman wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point me to the source code i can run on the device? Otherwise it's just another pinky promise for a blackbox by a company that can change at any time even for individual user.

So basically, you have no evidence that there's an issue but you won't assume anyone isn't lying?

Yes i take the billion dollar company with a blackbox is lying over blind trust. and like i said before even if they do not do it now they can at anytime change it for anybody silently.

Re: Ring cancels its partnership with Flock Safety after surveillance backlash

#330

Post by Schiendelman »

akimbostrawman wrote: post #329
Schiendelman wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically, you have no evidence that there's an issue but you won't assume anyone isn't lying?

Yes i take the billion dollar company with a blackbox is lying over blind trust. and like i said before even if they do not do it now they can at anytime change it for anybody silently.

I'm suggesting that you can see clear differences in incentives between the big tech companies, paying attention to their business models and the differences in what they claim, in writing, shows you quite a bit of information about how they treat your data.

If you decide that everyone is lying to you all the time, you can't build a useful model of objective reality. You just end up frustrated and not taking simple actions you can to make improvements for yourself and others. Don't fall into that trap.

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