Ring steps back from sharing video with police – mostly | Hacker News Reader

Ring steps back from sharing video with police – mostly

theverge.com

34 pointsrntn15 comments

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Ring forever became the 3rd party police with these things. I'll never own one, no matter what lies they trot out.

It's all marketing garbage, because their profits were impacted. Nothing more.

edit: typo..doh

> I've never own one

I take it even further than that. I also try to avoid going anywhere near houses that have them.

Isn't it kind of hard to tell if a house has one without actually going near it in the first place?

if you are in a neighborhood where everyone makes above a certain level of money literally every door has one. this is true across countries even(the cameras might not be called ring tho)

turns out people do want a surveillance state, they were just uncomfortable putting cameras on the roofs

"turns out people do want a surveillance state"

I don't think that follows. How is wanting a bit of personal security the same as wanting a "surveilance state"?

because it doesn't stop at personal security - they participate in the forums set up by ring and share videos of "problematic activity".

that is a fundamental part of owning a ring camera - if you just cared about personal security you would buy a gun instead or live in a gated community. a camera isn't gonna do anything for you.

It's hard to tell with 100% certainty, but most such devices have a distinctive light that can be seen from a distance.

In any case, these things tend to be used by a fairly specific demographic that tends to congregate in specific neighborhoods, so I can use that as a proxy and avoid going to those neighborhoods.

> specific demographic that tends to congregate in specific neighborhoods

Care to elaborate? I actually have no clue what you are talking about, so I'm curious.

They are talking about white and/or rich enclaves, likely.

I don’t get it.

This article points to concrete actions that Amazon is taking. It explicitly states end result. We can all agree that needing to get a warrant first makes things harder, yes?

Are you implying that they are lying about this? Or are you implying that it’s meaningless because it’s not being done for what you see as commendable reasons?

Please don’t use my questions as an opportunity to get on your soapbox. I am really just trying to understand if this is anything more than “Amazon bad”.

TFA states that they're still giving police footage without warrants. So if their claim is that they stopped giving police footage without warrants, then yeah, that would be a lie.

But it sounds like they're freely admitting that they're going to continue giving footage without a warrant. So I wouldn't call it a lie, more a marketing strategy. "Oh we pinky promise we won't give away your footage without a warrant! ... Well, except maybe that one time. But that was a special case, surely you understand."

I'm stating 2 things.

1. They cannot be trusted, so personally, I think their words are just words. You are welcome to trust them and not if, but when that goes esplodie, you'll know why I don't trust them.

2. It's a minor change to a continued violation of people's privacy, so essentially it's a meaningless change that sounds like change, but isn't really a change at all.

[dupe]

Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39119387

My parents wanted a video doorbell after a neighbor had a break-in. I set them up with a Unifi doorbell and their least expensive recording/console device - the upfront cost is high (~$500, plus more time configuring and researching everything)

But now that it is set up there are no subscription fees, the data is local, and I can manage the cameras and their Unifi accounts remotely if they need anything. It’s been a great experience and I’m planning to gradually add one or two additional cameras.

Other people would’ve maybe been able to manage and view your parents cameras too not so long ago.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24002920/ubiquiti-fixed-...

Unfortunately there’s rarely a perfect solution. Purely local is great and comes with its own tradeoffs.

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