For Owners of Ring Security Cameras, Strangers May Have Been Watching Too

That if their goal is to cash out then it didn't matter to bother.

Or maybe, that it's possible to dodge a bullet of their own stupidity and still successfully cash out.

> It would get more complicated to support accessing it while away from home, admittedly. I don't know if that's an important feature for this application.

That's the killer feature. What good is a home surveillance system if you have to be there to use it?

> A company could drop a camera and a small NAS box, and have it all work over the local WiFi.

If you setup a company to do this, you will quickly find you are a customer service and call center company, NOT a security tech company.

> It would get more complicated to support accessing it while away from home, admittedly. I don't know if that's an important feature for this application.

This is a huge feature which I've solved using an IPSec VPN. This is not something that's easy for regular people to do though, so it's not a universal solution.

If someone made a router that could easily provision VPN access for a device (e.g., generate a sensible OpenVPN config or something) it would make this setup a LOT easier.

Synology has IP camera support out of the box. For one camera. If you want more, you have to buy more licenses, which are only available from them. In hard copy form. And they take a week or more to arrive.

Been there, done that.

There's no monthly fee, but you do have the cost of running that Windows 10 machine. What does that amount to? At 100W and $0.14/kWh I calculate about $10, which is competitive with something like Nest Aware.

Properly installing and maintaining Windows is a full-time job in and of itself, forget everything else.

Not something I want to waste my time on.

Do you have any sort of off-site backup? I think one of the big advantage of the "cloud" cameras vs a home setup is that it's easy to view footage anywhere (I haven't used Blue Iris so maybe they make that easy), and if someone breaks in and steals your computer you'll still have the video somewhere else.

IKEA can't get people to assemble a fucking box, and you're here telling me that it's totally possible for people to set up their own networked camera system?

Yes, it's possible. No, it's not easy. I've been working as a software dev for like 10 years now and I would happily purchase Ring instead of pulling my hair out for a whole weekend trying to yak-shave[1] my way to a hacked together security camera system.

[1] https://seths.blog/2005/03/dont_shave_that/

Edit: Everyone, just read the replies to my original comment and you will see why Ring is better. There's a million different ways to setup a home camera system, each with their own intricacies and challenges. THIS is why Ring is better. It's the ONE solution that ties together all this technical bullshit that nobody really wants to deal with (unless you're passionate about networking. Which is probably a lot of the users on this board. Which is why I'm probably getting crushed with downvotes).

To pile on, I picked up a few Wyze Cameras for $25ea, reflashed them with Dafang Hacks, and they work perfectly well for catching porch pirates and people coming down my block pulling every car door handle.

No cloud dependence, subscription needed or extra internet bandwidth use.

> Anyone who can connect a device to their wireless network, run a program, and forward a port can get equivalent functionality

I am very capable of all of those things and I don't agree.

To install a camera on my porch somewhere, I'd need first to run power to it, which is a difficult proposition that would probably mean I need to hire an electrician to do it right, as I'm not confident at all in my ability to properly do electrical wiring in places where it needs to be properly weatherproofed. And adding electrical to a near-as-makes-no-difference 80 year old house would look pretty hideous. Then, need to set up a server with redundant spinny storage and offsite backup, which, while not being terribly expensive these days, isn't particularly cheap either. And I don't even know how to begin approaching the mobile app notification issue. Doable, I'm sure, but does Blue Iris have notifications and remote access for viewing built in?

Or, alternatively, I paid $160 for a Ring doorbell and installed it in place of my existing doorbell in an hour or so.

I wish I had more control over it, and I _really_ wish they had an open public API. But at the same time, from a time/money investment point of view, getting the Ring was an obvious move.

i live in alaska, and there are a lot of undereducated people that do just fine setting up home networked cameras. it isnt difficult to do, and people here really hate "the man" so ring and any other cloud based security is not an option. thats the knee jerk part of it. there is also frequent power interruptions brownouts blackouts. so a lot of people straddle off n on grid. a local surveilance system is the only working option here if you need it to be continuous LAN service. I really do hope a bunch of "snow billies" [self included] are not smarter than HN users.

this just in. Ring is also a "ceiling cat". https://9to5google.com/2019/01/10/ring-camera-live-feed-acce...

It is not FUD. Even for a techie there's a decent amount of setup involved, not to mention the pain and cost of having to maintain an entirely separate computer dedicated to video surveillance. I have my own poe setup and maintenance is just annoying in order to maintain feature parity with a major service. For a non-techie, it's not even an option. Also indoor cameras are not equivalent to outdoor cameras, especially in terms of cost. It is going to cost a few thousand dollars for a decent non-cloud setup.

>Why is network security not important to your camera?

It is, but you don't have do very much to secure a camera.

The camera is going to call out to whatever cloud provider, which is fine. You can easily just set your firewall to deny all incoming connections from outside (and you should) and the camera will still work fine, since it is calling out (the cloud isn't calling in).

This makes it very easy to secure and manage.

Self-hosting a security system you want to access remotely is a whole new ball game. Now you dealing with outside connections coming in, exposing ports on your firewall, and now you dealing with needing a static IP address and or figuring out a way around a DHCP address from you ISP. Making sure whatever server you have running your system is patched (both the OS and client software), since that machine is accessible to the outside world. You also need to setup SSL if you don't want your logins to be in clear text.

Or all of that can be managed by a cloud provider that you (hopefully) have a degree of trust in. The cloud provider will already have SSL setup, they will have a team of security people monitoring and maintaining their servers.

Personally I would never even consider a self-hosted solution, unless one of the follow two were true 1) I didn't care at all about remote access and just closed the system completely so it was only accessible on premises. 2)I was setting up a security appliance with VPN so the remote access could all go through a VPN.

I referred to the privacy/security "tradeoff", not an absence of privacy concerns. But for similar reasons, I'm unlikely to have an especially sensitive conversation at my doorstep anyways: my neighbors will be able to hear it. Obviously, they can also see who's coming and going at my house, as could anyone else who cared to watch.

Meanwhile, the devices have been super valuable for spotting and reporting criminal attempts.

I'd say, yes. I've been able to watch that many people see the ring (they see the camera), and they back right off the porch. It's been awesome in this respect, people simply ring it less. As far as the cloud stuff; I'm willing to make that sacrifice so that it can call my phone and i can see/talk to the person at the door. For family I get to literally let them in, and for others I can pretend to be home but uninterested.

It's very common for would-be thieves to see the doorbell camera and leave. Cameras, by the nature of the fact that someone could be watching, are a natural deterrent.

As opposed to what? Setting up a local storage server? Only message board nerds are going to do that. I am 10000% more concerned about the privacy of my email than I am about footage of the outside of my house, which you yourself could obtain simply by driving to my block. And, like a majority of people on this privacy-conscious message board, I happily delegate my email to Google Mail.

There are quite a few videos on YouTube where the owner (I assume, via an alert that the motion sensor is triggered) starts speaking though the device remotely "put that down" or "get out of here" and the would-be thieves usually drop the package and hurry off.

EDIT: I should add that a video circulated recently in my neighborhood showing someone stealing the camera. So there's that risk. I'm sure the thieves will be disappointed when they find out about the monthly fee.

True statement, BUT: in general most generic DVR systems are driven by people who are looking for advanced features. Convenient setup for non-expert users is (at best) a distant second.

Is it just me, or is Daymond John especially mean to black entrepreneurs who haven't "made it" yet? Did you see the one with the African fashion company where he told the gal he couldn't be involved because he might be sued? Over clothing?

I have noticed that over the years they've moved from supporting small entrepreneurs who are just starting out to only funding companies that already have proven success. You used to be insane to ask for a $1M valuation (or a $1M investment) on that show; now, it happens every week.

Sure, if someone is really determined to get past guard dogs, they can. But a casual burglar isn't going to bother. One of mine is 95 pounds of black lab/german shepherd mutt with a massive baritone bark, but he's totally harmless, except for maybe knocking you over. The other one is 35 pounds and so cute that people assume he's a she, but he's actually bitten at least three different people while overprotecting the house and yard, and I have no doubt he'd die fighting. (And the new next door neighbor learned what he already knew, which was to not stick your hand over the fence to pet the barking dog who doesn't know you and is very concerned that you're in the yard of his friends, even when that dog is small and cute.)

While most dogs might get easily distracted by food, most will sense when their owner is in fear or danger and will attempt to protect them irregardless of the distraction.

depends a lot on the character of the dog, one of my dogs was food oriented for reward the Mals I have don't touch food even from anyone until they hear the OK. This can be trained away and is an essential part of French Ring (or Schutzhund) brevet. e.g. the the training police dogs get, and usually can't be enticed with food (at least when well conditioned not to - even in absence of an owner or command).

Most robbers are probably not unethical enough to resort to killing pets in order to rob a house. Most robbers would probably rather just rob a house without dogs than one with dogs.

Dogs likely raise the barrier to entry for a robbery and criminals will usually just choose easier targets.

the deterrent is the racket they make (no matter their size). At least that puts off the non in advance planned robberies (where we lived there was a big divide between rich/poor so it was mostly junkies trying to enter holiday homes)

Sounds like you live in a dangerous neighborhood. Stay safe, friend!