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Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

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Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#341

Post by notepad0x90 »

jeffrallen wrote: post #249
notepad0x90 wrote: post #234

I don't think people grasp the gravity of the situation. I see everyone talking about how to stop using products. I even thought about legislation that could help. But that's just it, none of that is possible. You can't even employ a "torches and pitchforks" approach. For any of this to be possible, people would have to coordinate. The means by which people communicate and coordinate are under the influence and contr…

It is not yet illegal or dangerous to call for a general strike. Only by shutting down the ports, the rail, the trucks and the delivery services will people create enough economic disruption that the billionaires will call their political toadies to heel and get them to start fixing this shit. We still have the power to panic the billionaires, and they have the power to get what they want. If what they want is tempor…

How do you convince people to participate in a general strike when the tiktok, facebook (and as a result threads, instagram), and twitter are controlled by the whitehouse and are actively taking down such posts?

Even if you want to inform people the old fashioned way, or organize in person, a few might, but you need majority of voters, how can you reach them when they only want to be reached by mediums controlled by the white house?

> We still have the power to panic the billionaires

Yeah, and making them lose a few billions of dollars isn't it. Even criminal punishment is useless, they'll get pardons, and if not they can just flee to any country that would protect them for their money. there are ways to make them scared for real though.

> Only by shutting down the ports, the rail, the trucks and the delivery services

This is the right track for sure, but the problem is scale, you need coordination to do that. But more than that, you need lots of people agreeing to do without nice things like a good and stable economy, mass layoffs, and dire consequences that aren't worth mentioning here. Matter of fact, the one group of people in the world that could have the most impact are all gathered here on HN :)

For the extreme measures that need to be taken by the people to actually be taken, the people need to understand that those measures are neccesary, and actually be informed of the strategies behind those measures and have some awareness of some of the tactics available to implement those strategies.

The problem is, there is no one even considering any unconventional means. Anyone with power to act is waiting for elections and campaigns. Why can't people just read history and learn from it? Why do we need tragedies to keep teaching us the same lessons again and again. The people in charge are not idiots. they also know elections are ahead. They're actively ignoring courts and making clear and public threats of subverting elections. Why do people have to wait until that actually happens to plan ahead of time?

Americans are still in a catatonic state of "that could never happen here where I live", despite things that could never happen in America continuing to happen every day. The answer is the same as my original post: communications and media are controlled where they matter now.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#342

Post by cheschire »

mmooss wrote: post #325
kakacik wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a nice outrage wave, but I have very hard time believing this will be a major topic in 2 weeks. People simply don't give a fuck en masse. Accept that many folks are built differently than you and me and stuff like actual freedom you may be willing to lay your life for may be meaningless fart for others, especially when its not hurting them now . For example US folks voted current admin willingly second time and e…

These comments appear everywhere, as if people never made changes. Look at the enormous changes prior generations have made. Look at the changes from the conservative/MAGA movement, #metoo, and the George Floyd protests. The claim doesn't stand up to any examination. Comments like these are a distraction. All we need to do is get to work. If people took action every time they felt like posting these comments, we'd ge…

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels ... upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"

Well, except that you have debts like mortgages and car loans to pay off. And your kids need to participate in extra-curriculars so they can get into a good school, and those cost money. And theaters are out of fashion now, so you'll need to buy that 80" TV with the surround sound so you can have a theater at home. And your shows are now on 6 different streaming services so that'll cost a little extra each month. And life really is easier with AI, but they all have strengths and weaknesses so you'll probably want to pay for 2, if not 3 of them. And your fast fashion gets threadbare after 20 or 30 washes so you'll need to regularly order 3 or 4 replacement shirts so you can send back the 2 that don't fit quite right.

Anyways back to the gears and whee.... oh look a squirrel!

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#343

Post by mschuster91 »

mmooss wrote: post #325
kakacik wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a nice outrage wave, but I have very hard time believing this will be a major topic in 2 weeks. People simply don't give a fuck en masse. Accept that many folks are built differently than you and me and stuff like actual freedom you may be willing to lay your life for may be meaningless fart for others, especially when its not hurting them now . For example US folks voted current admin willingly second time and e…

These comments appear everywhere, as if people never made changes. Look at the enormous changes prior generations have made. Look at the changes from the conservative/MAGA movement, #metoo, and the George Floyd protests. The claim doesn't stand up to any examination. Comments like these are a distraction. All we need to do is get to work. If people took action every time they felt like posting these comments, we'd ge…

> Look at the changes from the conservative/MAGA movement, #metoo, and the George Floyd protests.

Which changes? metoo certainly didn't change much, the George Floyd protests also led to nothing, just look at how ICE has been executing US citizens in the last months. In 2025 alone, before Renee Good and Alex Pretti, ICE murdered 32 people with zero accountability [1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/...

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#344

Post by ipython »

pocksuppet wrote: post #336
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Video Rental Protection Act (1988) >we don't seem to want to Congress protects only itself and its actual constituents — wealthy corporate persons. ---- Citizens United (2012) and the surveillances themselves make this monitoring self-capturing: the only way to prevent it is to convince most people to not install, but most people want the installed benefits. Even getting your neighbors to re-position their Ring ca…

The Video Rental Protection Act was passed when a video rental employee blackmailed a congressman and there was no law against it. So it's clear how to make congress write new privacy laws.

Psst anyone at Covenant Eyes[0] want to sign up for the obvious assignment here??

[0] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mike-joh...

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#345

Post by logicchains »

mmooss wrote: post #327
StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like it a lot better without the mention to the "West", which, as usual, is a code word for: "I want to pretend my point extend outside the USA but I have absolutely no knowledge of how true that is. I don't intend to do any research because that would demand efforts from me so bear with my casual imperialism". Queue the purely American historical lesson following.

Universal human rights is a very widespread belief and concept, extending to all continents and many, many cultures. It's not hard to understand why.

No it's not. There are no human rights for the lowest castes in Hinduism, there are no human rights for polytheists in Islam, there were nothing like the modern idea of human rights in Japan or China before they westernized. That's why the west was able to leapfrog other nations economically (and hence militarily), because it was the first place where people had enough rights for something resembling a modern economy to develop.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#346

Post by dylan604 »

hermannj314 wrote: post #252

We have a branch of government called Congress, here are some things they used to do that made it a crime to read your mail or listen to your phone calls. 1. Postal Service Act of 1792 2. Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 Anyway, Facebook can read your DMs, Google can read your email, Ring can take photos from your camera. We can very easily make those things a crime, but we don't seem to want to d…

Don't confuse the public's want with the current situation controlled by the power and money being used to prevent these things from being a crime

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#347

Post by torben-friis »

BoneShard wrote: post #294
torben-friis wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you that Facebook (the network, not meta as a company) is still minimally relevant ? I haven’t logged in in about a decade.

Facebook (if you don't use newsfeed) is a very useful product. Local events - check Local groups - check Small time music bands/artist/performances/etc - check Buy nothing groups where I can get rid of something I don't use - check Groups for mom with kids to get organized for some kids event - check A library having a read together event for a kids book author - check I'm happy I don't have to use FB, but my wife us…

Is that in the US?

I’m genuinely asking, it wasn’t rethorical - none of that exists in my corner of Europe anymore. Businesses, indie stuff and local stores use instagram, groups are WhatsApp, second hand stuff has its own app.. facebook seems to be just the >60 year old crowd.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#348

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

pocksuppet wrote: post #336
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. Video Rental Protection Act (1988) >we don't seem to want to Congress protects only itself and its actual constituents — wealthy corporate persons. ---- Citizens United (2012) and the surveillances themselves make this monitoring self-capturing: the only way to prevent it is to convince most people to not install, but most people want the installed benefits. Even getting your neighbors to re-position their Ring ca…

The Video Rental Protection Act was passed when a video rental employee blackmailed a congressman and there was no law against it. So it's clear how to make congress write new privacy laws.

That doesn't appear to be accurate, at least from the Wikipedia article.

Robert Bork (sorry to add my personal commentary but an absolute shit stain of a human being) was nominated for the Supreme Court (which, thankfully, he always not confirmed), and a reporter went to a video rental store and asked for his rental history, which there was no law against. The published article didn't include much, as Bork hadn't rented any particularly salacious material, but there was bipartisan outrage that this had occurred.

Just goes to show how far we've fallen when there was once bipartisan outrage over accessing your Blockbuster rental history, when tech giants now have 10 times as much surveillance on you - your 1 am "shower thoughts" in your search history, all the websites you've visited, all your social media posts, and even social media posts about/including you posted by someone else, everything you've ever commented on a blog forum, your location history, etc.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#349

Post by ted_bunny »

wordsunite wrote: post #32

I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. Tell everyone you know to stop using their products. They have all been acquiring and amassing surveillance for years through their products and now they're just double dipping with AI training to sell you more of it. The more you can get people to realize and disconnect the better. I wish more people would use AI to build alternatives with a cl…

As if these tech giants are an aberration? Any company filling their niche will be under the same pressures.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#350

Post by Galanwe »

m348e912 wrote: post #154
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>enable end-to-end encryption between the camera and your phone. So… exactly not the part I care about? Cool, it’s encrypted on transit to me… now what about at rest with them? Is it encrypted and they absolutely can not view or hand that footage to police/gov? No.

> Cool, it’s encrypted on transit to me… now what about at rest with them? Is it encrypted and they absolutely can not view or hand that footage to police/gov? No. Technically yes, e2e encryption means video hosted on their servers is only viewable by devices with decryption keys. So if the police/gov brought a subpoena to request the video, Ring could only offer them the encrypted video. They would have to take poss…

I used to work for a well known communication app, the kind everyone here used. Couple things I learnt about "end to end encryption":

- You can call your service e2e encrypted even if every client has the same key bundled into the binary, and rotate it from time to time when it's reversed.

- You can call your service e2e encrypted even if you have a server that stores and pushes client keys. That is how you could access your message history on multiple devices.

- You can call your service e2e encrypted and just retrieve or push client keys at will whenever you get a government request.

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