With Ring, American Consumers Built a Surveillance Dragnet (404media.co)
- Reference: 0180772016
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/02/11/1844232/with-ring-american-consumers-built-a-surveillance-dragnet
- Source link: https://www.404media.co/with-ring-american-consumers-built-a-surveillance-dragnet/
Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, who left in 2023 and returned last year, has since moved to re-establish police partnerships and push more AI into Ring cameras. The company has also partnered with Flock, a surveillance firm used by thousands of police departments, and launched a beta feature called "Familiar Faces" that identifies known people at your door. Chris Gilliard, author of the upcoming book Luxury Surveillance, called the ad "a clumsy attempt by Ring to put a cuddly face on a rather dystopian reality: widespread networked surveillance by a company that has cozy relationships with law enforcement."
Further reading : [2]No One, Including Our Furry Friends, Will Be Safer in Ring's Surveillance Nightmare, EFF Says
[1] https://www.404media.co/with-ring-american-consumers-built-a-surveillance-dragnet/
[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/no-one-including-our-furry-friends-will-be-safer-rings-surveillance-nightmare-0
Dang it (Score:2)
Authors wrote cyberpunk dystopia novels as a warning, not as a roadmap.
A woman down the street got caught cheating by one (Score:2)
Last year, a married couple down the street for me got divorced because their nosy neighbor across the street complained on nextdoor about some guy illegally parking, blocking a driveway...with ring camera photos. Well, the husband saw it, because it was his driveway being blocked (by about 6 inches), but the car belonged to her ex husband and he was out of town when it happened. So there's all sorts of shittiness going on in that instance and that couple was a piece of work...to put it nicely, but it ill
Re: (Score:2)
> I don't give a shit about the cops knowing things about me. I don't commit crimes.
This is literally the kind of thinking that got us here, to the point of surveilance capitalism. Because credulous people like you thing that wanting privacy means someone is doing something nefarious. How's that worked out?
This is a good idea (Score:2)
IF it's done right. Take an image of a lost pet, use AI to flag potential sightings on nearby cameras. But what then? How do you act on that without privacy issues? If you tell the owner of the camera, "potential lost pet sighting: share?" And let them confirm, that's probably okay. If you put a dot on a map without a photo that preserves privacy but false detections could lead to allegations of petnapping etc. If you just open up the feed to anyone, hell no.
UniFi (Score:2)
I use Ubiquiti cameras. Stores to my NAS. What I do with it is my choice from there. Never has to leave the premises if I choose, or I can back it up to a cloud solution of my choice, encrypted locally, remotely, or both.
Re: (Score:2)
Dude, the discussion is about a commodity product millions of people are buying and using that requires next to zero technical aptitude.
There's always a few adorable lunkheads who chime on these discussions about how responsible and well reasoned their decisions are, but for whatever reason they're unable to spot why that is fully orthogonal to the expressed concern. Unless you actually believe there is some reality in which the solution to the expressed concern is simply that if you just chime in enough, e
Re: UniFi (Score:1)
This is a useless statement and is basically irrelevant, as the topic is the extant network of Ring cameras and its consequences. You're just interjecting with a personal detail. Vapid behavior.
"Search Party Deported Another Neighbor!" (Score:1)
What a shitty place we're becoming.
Re: (Score:1)
I have a ring doorbell and cameras and they're game changers. IDK why you wouldn't want the police to have access. Are you going to self-investigate crimes?
Re: "Search Party Deported Another Neighbor!" (Score:2)
Yes. Because up is down and Democrats are gun-totin' libertarians now. /sarc
Back in the real world, cops have been asking for privately owned surveillance recordings to help with investigations since video recording became a thing. And the very reason people (usually businesses) have set up video surveillance was to deter crime and help track down crooks who were insufficiently deterred.
Re: (Score:2)
> Back in the real world, cops have been asking for privately owned surveillance recordings to help with investigations since video recording became a thing. And the very reason people (usually businesses) have set up video surveillance was to deter crime and help track down crooks who were insufficiently deterred.
And they are welcome to continue to ask (I've actually given them video a couple of times), or they could even get a warrant, all without me becoming an involuntary instrument of questionable state surveillance. It actually works pretty well as it is IMO.
Re: "Search Party Deported Another Neighbor!" (Score:2)
They're not going to only be used to fight crime. As we have seen in multiple other technologies that offer surveillance to an entity with no effective oversight.
Like most dangerous things, it's the misuse... (Score:5, Insightful)
> I have a ring doorbell and cameras and they're game changers. IDK why you wouldn't want the police to have access. Are you going to self-investigate crimes?
...our concern is not when it's used correctly, but when it's misused....just like guns, drugs, motor-vehicles....when used responsibly?...fine...when a repeat offender drunk driver crashes in your car, a huge issue. Like guns and vehicles we need regulations.
Perhaps make it a crime to show footage from another person's property unless there is a warrant or reasonable suspicion of a crime committed?. So yeah, you catch someone stealing your neighbor's packages (I live in the city, so our front doors are less than 50 feet apart), you're a hero. You use it to show your neighbor her husband had a visitor when she's not in town?...you're human trash and should be charged with a misdemeanor and banned from using surveillance cameras in public for a year.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure that somewhere buried in the terms and conditions is a statement that allows Amazon AI to analyze your video footage for products that they can monetize.
That way, the next time you log into amazon.com, they can recommend winter floor mats for the 2018 Toyota RAV-4 they see in your driveway and flea and tick medication for the golden retriever that you take for walks every afternoon.
Oh, and if those flowers are looking a bit wilted come spring, maybe they should recommend some fertilizer as well.