Amazon Ring’s neighborhood watch app is making police requests public

Honestly, in the neighbourhood I grew up in, this would basically make having Amazon Ring a no-no. Noone in their right minds would want to have anything to do with it. You would be targetted and not just by the gangs.

My doorbell camera isn't even a Ring, but the local teens still make a point to flip it off every time they see it come on. Makes me want to put up a sign that says "not a snitch!"

This was my reaction as well. Maybe it relies on redefining "sharing" information with agencies as distinct from furnishing information in compliance with a subpoena. The optimist in me sees this as a way to push departments to prefer the methods of the legal system to obtain this info, but then why even make it available without a court order in the first place?

> They certainly mustn't.

Well, they may. (Hard to imagine they will, agreed.)

i.e. if 'must' is the function m(x), then 'must not' is m(¬x); not ¬m(x).

Here it's 'not the case that they must', that is, ¬m(request through Ring app).

2 things: of course if there is a subpoena they will need to turn over the footage + ring supposedly has e2e encryption where they would actually have to get the footage from you.

i have a ring camera and: 1) I did not let their app use gps and i did not give them an adress (ie ring does not know, in theory where the camera is) 2) i straight up disabled requests from law enforcement (yes there is a setting for that) 3) i opted out of the neighbors thing (you cannot be in a neighborhood if you don’t have an address + explicitly opting out).

it’s sad that there isn’t a product on the market that actually respects user’s privacy

Amazon/Ring is certainly eliding over the subpoena path to getting information. However, that path does require a warrant, and a judge's sign-off. The "just ask" approach doesn't, so I think both have their place. Given the paucity of information about the latter, I don't think we can say which will "represent the bulk of data transfer from individuals to the police." There are certainly a lot of subpoenas issued each year, but there are also a lot of times a police officer stops at a business or home that has a security system with cameras, asks for copies of the footage, and gets it easily.

> 1) will be public and probably not too common - fishing expeditions by the police. 2) will not be public at all and will represent the bulk of data transfer

I don't think that's correct at all.

To the contrary -- how often does a regular resident get a subpoena? Practically never.

On the other hand, how often do cops check CCTV footage? All the time. If cops are trying to follow the path a suspect took to drive through a neighborhood and where they wound up, then this 1) option is amazing and will frequently be used.

I can't imagine why you're perjoratively calling it "fishing expeditions". That's ridiculous, there's zero evidence police are using this, or want to use it, to catch petty crimes they don't know about in the first place. It's to track suspects' routes and confirm alibis, that type of thing. Both common and legitimate.

> They certainly mustn't.

The obvious context here is Ring requests. Not things like subpoenas.

> Complete bullshit as well. Ring doesn't make the rules.

You're wrong. Ring does make all the rules of what Ring shares through this program.

You're acting like the existence of subpoenas makes this all a bunch of song and dance, but they're entirely different things for entirely different purposes. Your pessimism and cynicism isn't just unwarranted, it's simply factually incorrect.

Everyone is different. Some people think that device and what it offers to them is useful. If you have a large house and get the occasional visitor that doesn't just come in anyway, I can see how this might be a convenient setup. And it's all about convenience. And non-tech people don't care about the "Amazon server" part at all.

I'm in the US and I agree. I was never a huge fan of Ring, and when they were acquired by Amazon that made it a deal-breaker. Amazon already knows enough about me.

It's probably no accident that Amazon doesn't tout Ring devices as being Amazon-owned. I imagine there are others who would be less likely to purchase if they were aware of the connection.

Amazon knows exactly your credit cards, your names, your addresses, your front porch, your wifi SSIDs and pre-shared passwords, your purchases and their frequencies and amounts, your voices and accents, your photos, your music, your visitors and their frequencies ...

It's difficult to find a thing Amazon doesn't know about you.

the doors have eyes

No one buys a ring doorbell for the express purpose of being closer to Bezos or something. They do it because they want to be able to answer their door remotely - that it's on Amazon's server is a side effect of both not caring enough and not knowing how to host it locally.

Many people would like to be able to record snippets of people approaching their door. Good to know what's going on when you're not there so you can calibrate your fears with reality. Now you need to send the recording somewhere.

You have two choices: maintain your own recording equipment, or upload. The former is a major hassle. Ring smartly found an opportunity to make a simple service people want.

You say the "US is such a bizarre place" but that is simply untrue. Petty theft is a part of many cultures. For example, petty theft in the UK is far more common than the US.

You mean IRL crime, cybercrime is easier than ever to pull off.

CCTV only deters blue collar crime. White collar crime still has no equivalent deterrent. In a sense, CCTV helps us punish those who are already desperate. While not necessarily a negative in the abstract, in concrete terms one has to wonder why there's no CCTV cameras in executive offices, no screen recordings of everything they do on their computer.

Cops around here (a US city) routinely opt not to investigate property crime well into the five-figures, even when there's extensive video & other evidence. Like, they don't even give it a cursory attempt. I'm not sure adding more cameras will help.

Remember that what is considered criminal can change over time and not always in a good direction.

A lot of people escape persecution from dictatorships by committing "crimes" and only get away with it because the system isn't perfect.

China is a good example of nazi-like concentration camps but with modern technology.

I do not see this the same at all.

Around my small city / burbs - crime is still rampant with cams everywhere. Many criminals now don hats/hoodies / masks.. but many do not.

I've got video or a dozen different people breaking into cars in the neighborhood - cops don't care, DA ain't gonna do nothing if they are caught - now I know some of the thieves in the area on sight, but can't do anything to them.

There are negative outcomes - they just aren't not in the news as much as they could be.

When people are less free and feel like everything they do is being recorded, they act less free. Chilling effects ripple over the years and people forget when being non-chilled was like.

AirTags aren't meant to recover stolen items, since they make noise to indicate they're not around their owner. The thief also gets a notification on their phone that they're carrying an unknown airtag with them

100'000's of cases of drug overdose deaths are at the direct hands of Purdue Pharmaceuticals and the Sackler family. Let's hope CCTV finds a way to punish them too. Oh wait...

I did a quick search for a doorbell solution for the home automation system of my choice and it seems like people came up with solutions [1]. It doesn't look trivial to set up but definitely possible.

[1] https://kleypot.com/fully-offline-video-doorbell-for-home-as...

Amcres/Foscam with some configuration changes

I now use a piece of software called Frigate, alongside Home Assistant, to do this. It works extremely well, surprisingly. I can watch clips and live streams via the Home Assistant apps on my phone, and for outside the house I have a Wireguard VPN to connect back. Works with any camera models with RTSP streams, which I put on a subnet with no internet access in case they phone home.

I wrote a little about my switch to this setup, if it's useful: https://senryu.pub/afternoonrobot/articles/replacing-unifi-v...

Edit: doorbell-wise there are a few models that would work with this setup but I don’t have one at the moment - my doorbell wiring is a really weird voltage and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet.

Foscam http://foscam.us

Years ago my extended family bought one to monitor a remote camp. I created a little PHP script that would grab the latest images uploaded via FTP and make a photo gallery. Set up was difficult but it worked reliably. They have a Ring now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You have to remember that Ring has outdoor battery-operated stickup cams. When you compare this with what else is available on the market, where often times you have to run a hard wire and have a proprietary NVR then Ring is a great option. Some devices like Swann will go on sale that are wireless or PoE and allow you to use open source applications, but running a wire through the wall in my apartment was a non-starter... the convenience/price of alternatives to Ring isn't that great.

I've seen it used in my neighborhood for that purpose. Package is stolen, call the police and alert neighbors with suspect description. Quickly noticed a drop in porch pirates afterwards.

It would also ensure that the packages actually get delivered, instead of just being marked as so.

Granted, sometimes this happens because the drivers are being held to an impossible standard for the deliveries they must make; Amazon gets to have someone to point a finger at.

> Then ring will know when someone steals the package.

Except that no one other than the recipient and maybe Amazon care about that. Certainly not law enforcement.