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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

#561

Post by mmooss »

3form wrote: post #485
kortilla wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The industrial revolution is quite well documented

And any leapfrogging done there hardly has anything to do with human rights I guess, so I'd say the poster above has a really bold claim here

It's not an unusual claim: Freedom breeds innovation - people are not only free to think for themselves, to ignore the orthodoxy and established power, but they are raised and encouraged to do it and admired for it (to a degree).

I think it's accurate to say that all the wealthiest (per capita) economies in history - i.e., the wealthiest economies over the last ten years - are in free societies.

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

#562

Post by JCattheATM »

jojomodding wrote: post #557
JCattheATM wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and I was saying it's wrong not to want surveillance in a super public area like a train station. A gendarme is worse in every way.

The gendarme might actually arrest the attacker. The security camera will do nothing (but record). And having the policeman standing there is about as much a deterrent as a "Smile--You're Being Recorded" sign.

> The gendarme might actually arrest the attacker.

So might the cops we already have in such places.

> The security camera will do nothing (but record).

Exactly as intended.

> And having the policeman standing there is about as much a deterrent as a "Smile--You're Being Recorded" sign.

This seems like a weird thing to say. Cops are more of a deterrent than a gendarme.

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

#563

Post by firen777 »

dhbradshaw wrote: post #218

I really like this passage: >It is always the case that there are benefits available from relinquishing core civil liberties: allowing infringements on free speech may reduce false claims and hateful ideas; allowing searches and seizures without warrants will likely help the police catch more criminals, and do so more quickly; giving up privacy may, in fact, enhance security. > But the core premise of the West genera…

>giving up privacy may, in fact, enhance security

When the check and balance got tipped over, all this promised "security" will only surface when it benefits the regime.

I'm still amused by a certain ccp propaganda video my parents consumed that boast about how quickly the cctv networks helped catch a thief who stole a foreign tourist's phone, yet those cameras would also conveniently stop working at a specific day whenever a highschooler went missing in the campus.

All the prerequisite for a similar dystopia is already in place in the US and there is may be one more chance to fix it, although I wouldn't hold my breathe.

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

#564

Post by mmooss »

mschuster91 wrote: post #491
mmooss wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding conservatives/MAGA, if you're saying the US hasn't changed dramatically since 2016 then I don't know what to say to you. And I think you're misremembering the world before #metoo and George Floyd. Regarding the latter, police used to widely behave like ICE; now it's anathema - at least in cities. None of them help ICE afaik. The conservatives like to preach hopelessness to their enemies - for obvious reason…

> Regarding conservatives/MAGA, if you're saying the US hasn't changed dramatically since 2016 then I don't know what to say to you. That is precisely why I didn't mention these. > Regarding the latter, police used to widely behave like ICE; now it's anathema - at least in cities. None of them help ICE afaik. They still kill people en masse [1], still overwhelmingly non-White people, and the number only increased ove…

To say there are still problems doesn't mean there isn't significant progress. Otherwise, there is no significant progress anywhere in anything.

> what should have happened in response to metoo and George Floyd/BLM was action that went beyond symbolism.

There was and is:

Laws have been passed in many places protecting rights. Oppressive systems like bail have been reformed in many places. Progressive prosecutors were elected around the country - some still are in office. Even the other prosecutors have (often) stopped backing law enforcement corruption. In some places, police have been prosecuted and jailed for the first time.

I think people overlook it for a common reason: Many things that were disruptive change then became the norm, so people don't notice them. As they say about innovation: First they laugh at you (ridicule your idea), then they say it's not in the Bible (violates the established orthodoxy), then they say they knew it all along. :)

> And the GOP had DC tear apart the last visual reminder, the Black Lives Matter road mural [2] under extortionist threats.

Maybe the last reminder in DC, which I doubt. I see plenty of BLM signs (and LGTBQ+ pride flags) in cities.

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

#565

Post by seanmcdirmid »

dhbradshaw wrote: post #218

I really like this passage: >It is always the case that there are benefits available from relinquishing core civil liberties: allowing infringements on free speech may reduce false claims and hateful ideas; allowing searches and seizures without warrants will likely help the police catch more criminals, and do so more quickly; giving up privacy may, in fact, enhance security. > But the core premise of the West genera…

If the police actually did their job, took property crimes seriously and would bother with the suspicious guy high on fent looking into kids bedroom reports seriously, then we really wouldn't have to be setting up our own surveillance to make up for lacking local government services. But here we are, I'm not sure why libertarians think we don't have a right to defend ourselves (using new tech to make up for a lack of policing) when the city won't?

I frankly see it as a liberty to be able to use this tech, and it would be tyranny to prevent us from using it.

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

#566

Post by jakogut »

For anyone who doesn't know yet, there are a wide variety of ONVIF supporting cameras that you can setup with a local NVR running Frigate. You can block internet access to the cameras, so they can't create outbound connections, and only inbound connections to the video streams are allowed.

Tailscale has a free tier that's a good option to remotely access your network and cameras.

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

#567

Post by m348e912 »

Galanwe wrote: post #350
m348e912 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 acc…

I just set it up e2e on Ring last week. It generates the a key and a word list (for backup) on your phone. You have to physically be in vicinity of the Ring camera to activate encryption on the camera. My impression is that Ring is truly offering a version of video collection which they can't access.

But I think your third point is valid, there is nothing stopping Ring from telling the app to share a user's keys and then give them to whoever is asking.

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

#568

Post by wiredpancake »

tokyobreakfast wrote: post #271
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…

Everyone has known Google reads your email since day one. In the early days they would spin it as a good thing: "that's why the spam filtering is great!" Why is everyone suddenly outraged Ring has access to your footage? These cloud-connected cameras...hosted on someone else's servers. It's literally how they work. "But I didn't think they would use the video in a way I didn't personally approve after giving it to th…

[dead]

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

#569

Post by _carbyau_ »

JCattheATM wrote: post #553
_carbyau_ wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is far more nuance than this. What counts as a "super public busy place" ? The airport? The bus terminal? The local library? All major roads that experience rush hour traffic? Who is the person who says where the cutoff line is? What if that authority wants to move the line to include everything? Or nothing? Do they even need to provide notice to the public of their actions? Who should be able to access to all…

> There is far more nuance than this. There's just....not. It's a pretty well established concept by now. For almost 50 years or so. > What counts as a "super public busy place" ? The airport? The bus terminal? The local library? All major roads that experience rush hour traffic? Yes to all of these. > Who is the person who says where the cutoff line is? Not a person, but a sound methodology ideally. Kind of like wha…

> I'd argue your concerns have already been addressed by current systems that have worked fine for decades.

The issue is that times are changing. "Worked fine for decades" doesn't apply to the Ring Doorbell or Flock. Or that authorities exactly want to have all footage in the one place, from train stations too.

Modern computers allow for scaling of capabilities that are only tolerable at all when limited in number.

IE the capability to track an individual's every movement is tolerable if it is limited in number, has oversight, and only used by appropriate authorities against bad people that everyone can agree are bad.

But being able to track minority groups en masse as modern systems are capable of is clearly an issue.

I see your parameters to the above questions as mostly reasonable although I'd rather not have the cameras everywhere in the first place. But do you think even your reasonable seeming desires are being adhered to?

I don't.

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

#570

Post by ryanmcbride »

dhbradshaw wrote: post #218

I really like this passage: >It is always the case that there are benefits available from relinquishing core civil liberties: allowing infringements on free speech may reduce false claims and hateful ideas; allowing searches and seizures without warrants will likely help the police catch more criminals, and do so more quickly; giving up privacy may, in fact, enhance security. > But the core premise of the West genera…

we could have liberty and privacy and security if the people in charge wanted us to. But they don't and they've convinced enough people that they don't either.
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