Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

theverge.com

51–60 of 407 posts

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#51

What backlash? "People voiced concerns" turns out to be 9 people if you follow the link. Where exactly is this backlash and why can't I smell it?

I found out that on Reddit people go there and ask things like this (someone asked recently): "My girlfriend and I are looking for something to do. Are there any protests going on today we can go to?" Can you imagine people actually searching things out like that? These "people voicing concerns" are like that. Someone has to find something to be enraged about for the sake of finding something to do.

What an absurd take.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#52

Amazon has a very bad track record in this area. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/amazon-is-wagi...

> joseffritz

As an Austrian I have to wonder, is this name a homage to Josef Fritzl, one of the most well known Austrians of modern time?

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#53
post #17

that advert is just so horribly manipulative it's borderline evil how can normal people go to work and produce this output? (I suppose everyone that is prepared to work at Amazon corporate is... a certain type of person)

You pay a third party to make something like this for you. They can best be described as nihilists.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#54

That ad gave me a visceral shudder of revulsion, not so much for the specific functionality on display as for the timing, which absolutely could not have been accidental. They might as well have just put 'and we're working on automatic alerts for ICE!' in the ad.

"Helping abusive husbands find their escaped wives."

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#55

Bullshit. The only people worried are the ones that were already concerned and never bought a Ring. I guarantee the vast majority of people LOVE this new feature.

Bullshit to you sir. I have a ring and have cancelled my subscription because of their scummy behavior

Thank you for that. But please consider taking down the camera, too; it's just as much of a problem without a subscription, because you are the service being sold, not just the customer. Get one that stores and processes video entirely locally instead.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#56
post #20

The Dark Knight was released in 2008. In that movie, Batman hijacks citizens' cellphones to track down the Joker, and it's presented as a major moral and ethical dilemma as part of the movie's overall themes. The only way Batman remains a "good guy" in the eyes of the audience is by destroying the entire thing once he's done. Crazy to think that less than two decades later, an even more powerful surveillance technolo…

Pulled from IMDB, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox voices the consternation perfectly:

> Batman: [seeing the wall of monitors for the first time at the Applied Sciences division in Wayne Enterprises] Beautiful, isn't it?

> Lucius Fox: Beautiful... unethical... dangerous. You've turned every cellphone in Gotham into a microphone.

> Batman: And a high-frequency generator-receiver.

> Lucius Fox: You took my sonar concept and applied it to every phone in the city. With half the city feeding you sonar, you can image all of Gotham. This is wrong.

> Batman: I've gotta find this man, Lucius.

> Lucius Fox: At what cost?

> Batman: The database is null-key encrypted. It can only be accessed by one person.

> Lucius Fox: This is too much power for one person.

> Batman: That's why I gave it to you. Only you can use it.

> Lucius Fox: Spying on 30 million people isn't part of my job description.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#57
post #2

Amazon also had the ad about Alexa killing you. Not sure what they were thinking exactly.

It was some attempt at reductio ad absurdum. If you are concerned about letting Alexa into your home, you must be as irrational as Chris Hemsworth. Edit: I'm misusing reductio ad absurdum, but somebody will please tell me what the fallacy here is called.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#59

What backlash? "People voiced concerns" turns out to be 9 people if you follow the link. Where exactly is this backlash and why can't I smell it?

I found out that on Reddit people go there and ask things like this (someone asked recently): "My girlfriend and I are looking for something to do. Are there any protests going on today we can go to?" Can you imagine people actually searching things out like that? These "people voicing concerns" are like that. Someone has to find something to be enraged about for the sake of finding something to do.

So instead of drinking or shopping they want to support a cause?

My god how do they live with themselves.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#60
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to not become disillusioned with our industry when most of it is just the manifesting of that Torment Nexus tweet. It's like no one in the tech world actually understands any piece of fiction that they have ever consumed.

I knew plenty of people growing up who thought Fight Club was just a fun movie about guys who like to fight and make a club to do so and it gets a little crazy, then cut to credits. They then theorized making their own such club. This to say, yeah, I think sometimes the audience can be overestimated in their ability to understand deeper meaning in art.

And some extreemist are using fight clubs to gather followers, emulating the movie in the other direction. So-called "active clubs" are springing up using "fitness" to gather young angry males to the cause. Most join without realizing. Even gym owners are surprised to discover thier facilities have become clubhouses.

https://www.jfed.net/antisemitismtoolsandresources/neo-nazi-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Clubs

Post reply on HN