Super Bowl Ad for Ring Cameras Touted AI Surveillance Network | Hacker News Reader

Super Bowl Ad for Ring Cameras Touted AI Surveillance Network

truthout.org

200 pointscdrnsf151 comments

Fun fact: Lockheed Martin advertises the F-35 during football games, because even though most of the audience isn't in the market for massive government contracts, the people who are are watching.

I suspect the Ring mass surveillance ads are the same thing.

The Super Bowl fly over was kind of random. My son said it was f18s, f35s, and f15s. I was able to make out the two b1bs. It was like the air force forgot about the flyover and just scrambled whatever was on the closest tarmac.

Given your description, its good to see the USAAF are clearly on the ball when it comes to security. If, say, all your B1s overflew the nutjob bowl then certain planners across the world might decide to act in a certain way. A random assortment leaves everyone guessing.

You could have a 9 plane fly-by of just B2s, and you’d still have less than half our operational stock committed (disregarding maintenance/readiness issues).

Using a few planes for a fly-by, particularly of anything other than B2, wouldn’t possibly “give away” any info.

B2s have made the trip from Whiteman AFB to perform flyovers at the past 20 or so Rose Bowls fwiw

Yup, that's why I chose the B2 for my example: the only fly-by suitable plane that is even close to "resource constrained".

They had several days in advance of training together. It was all planned in advanced.

https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4384084/air-...

This seemed like a standard flyover. What struck you about it being random?

Caveat: A non-trivial number of air assets are currently stationed or assigned on the other side of the world right now.

Citation: I used to be involved with flyovers.

USAF also has a pilot shortage. Could have just been whatever the available pilots were certified to fly.

coming back to this way too late. I was half joking, it just seemed like an odd mix of planes. Like i would expect a B1 + 4 F18s, or like a B2 and 2 F-22s or maybe just a group of 5 F-16s. The variety of aircraft from the variety of eras was just kind of amusing to me. Plus the one B1 that was behind a few seconds with afterburners as if it was trying to catch up to the group almost made me laugh out loud.

The soldier recognition events are actually paid advertisements by the US military. I think flyovers are too?

These sorts of advertisements make no sense for me. Who is the buyer? Some senator on some appropriations committee? Maybe some nato equivalent? And they need a 10 second flyover during a superbowl to be reminded of the existence of the f-35 program?

Again, 99.999% of the viewers aren't really in the position to finance a $120 million fighter jet. However, the ~0.001% that are in that position will probably be watching, and feel FOMO for not having the iPhone of strike fighters.

Even if it only moves the needle on 2-3 sales every decade, the ROI is probably great.

I'm just saying, that random saudi prince or whatever with $120 million and the green light to buy military hardware is probably well aware of the f35 already. Plus only plane nerds in the know are going to know what the hell just flew over. For everyone else its a military jet shaped jet same as the rest.

That ticks both the boxes. Plane nerds are blogging online, and the Saudi princes are doing napkin math in the VIP booth.

3,000lbs of avgas is only a few thousand dollars, you can run a formation flight for less than $15,000 plus maintenance. Cynically speaking, that's a bit of a steal when you've got the private sector paying millions for a 30-second ad spot.

> Who is the buyer?

Who do you know who is currently sitting in a seat of massive power in the US Government, watches TV and says things like, "I need to have that! Why do we not have that already? It will project strength, and all the best governments project strength at every opportunity!"

Pretty sure trump knows about the f35 already

"How many of those did we order? Let's get some more. Super-size me!"

"And they should be called Trump Jets, and have gold trim on them! And be on a memecoin with my name on it".

  > Who is the buyer?

You are

With your tax money. With your votes.

They're there not to sell you a plane directly but to make you happy with the money spent. To make you excited about the machines.

Think of it as a political ad, not a sales ad

Is there a way an American can vote to not buy F-35s?

You can try; the plane is already made and exported, and for certain customers (eg. the US Navy) they're going to struggle to find anything that replaces it.

The best way to invest "against" the F-35 is to put money in companies like Embraer and Saab, which have put up a strong fight on the export market.

Why? What makes an expensive murder machine manufactured in Brazil or Sweden more morally acceptable than a murder machine manufactured in the USA?

In case it wasn't clear, my answer to your original question is "no" with a nice bit of set-dressing to help you feel better.

FWIW, the Super Tucano and Gripen are more "morally acceptable" in that they are not power-gap level planes. The F-35 was basically designed from the ground-up to molest denied airspace and violate every rule of diplomatic exchange. The Super Tucano is useless outside COIN operations, and the Gripen is decidedly a defensive fighter and not a strike fighter.

This is why, on so many issues, the idea that the American public "chose" the outcome is a fantasy. When every possible candidate for office supports the military industrial complex, how is one supposed to vote against it?

Technically, yes, but I'm not sure if Canada would accept that many immigrants.

Canada is buying F-35s too...

Yes, widespread democratic reform.

Yes, indirectly

Go to this website[0], type in your zipcode, and write a letter or email to the address provided.

It may also help reading this[2]

[0] https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

[1] https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representati...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

They fly over the superbowl every year no matter how I might vote.

Then go out and campaign to convince others to vote more similarly to you.

It would be a bad government if asdff's votes got to overrule everyone else's. Your favored candidate can lose. But the best thing to do is convince others to rally behind your candidate and your ideas.

Mind you, you can also write your congress critter. It's a bit more effective than writing to random people on the internet.

> With your tax money. With your votes.

I certainly didn't vote for that Duckworth (D) kept voting for surveillance. (KOSA, EARNIT, etc)

Because she's not your representative or because your favored candidate lost?

Either way, fundamentally your vote is not supposed to be more powerful than anyone else's (even if that does happen...): and it is a (representative) democracy.

If you see it on the DC metro, the buyer is a Hill staffer or a Pentagon action officer; if you see it at the Super Bowl, the buyer is you (assuming you're an American taxpayer), to help maintain a certain amount of public political capital when Congress starts looking at whether they want to fully fund TR-3 and Block 4. Cutting a military program popularly seen as successful is a whole lot harder than cutting one popularly seen as a wasteful failure, and doesn't garner the politician behind it nearly as much positive PR.

It’s not just for purchasers… it’s to build consensus/approval around the concept of the US military-industrial complex.

Is the same idea around why companies like Coke make ads. Does anyone seriously think Coke needs brand recognition? LOL

Car companies do this too. Frequently expensive cars are advertised to people who could never buy them. The ad makes them associate it with luxury. That helps rich people associate it with luxury because luxury is often based on a social consensus.

Maybe all ads are made to sell you things, but the thing being solid is always an idea. Sometimes that idea isn't as simple as "go buy this now"

Ahh, the old "I want to own this because you know you can't".

Veblen goods are status symbols, and something can't confer status if nobody else knows they're supposed to be awed by how expensive it is.

Coca Cola actually have to run ads to stay relevant. War in Ukraine provided nice experiment - Coca Cola stopped all advertisement in Russia in 2022 and results are in.

- Feb–Mar 2022 (before full production/marketing stoppage): RosIndex reported that 94.3% knew the Coca-Cola brand.

- 2023 (roughly a year after global brands stopped producing in Russia): 88.6% of consumers knew the Coca-Cola brand.

5.7% drop in recognition in one year translates to billions of losses if scaled to US market. So yes, Coca Cola has to constantly run ads.

That's probably due to the fact that a good portion of consumer aged Russians are pushing up daisies in Ukraine this spring...

If Coca-Cola both stopped advertising and stopped officially selling their products (and permitting their import) in the region, then this doesn't prove what you claim it does. Disentangle the two things, and then we can draw some conclusions.

Coca Cola stopped officially selling in Russia but Coca Cola products are widely available due to grey import from other countries (it's present in literally every store - though prices are higher than for local brands).

Yeah, this tells us nothing at all. Of course people aren't thinking about Coca-Cola when there's a freaking war going on.

This is hard to believe without an underlying theory of what's happening. Did teens not know about Coca Cola and are now part of the survey? Was there rural to urban migration?

Do you have a source (link) on that?

I have follow-up questions but they'll be much better if there's a source we can talk around.

Literally the first result of a google search for

  "RosIndex" coca cola brand recognition in russia

returns this thread... I get 3 results... The next is a PDF (CANnual Report) that mentions "rosindex" but around 2016 and nothing about coke and then just a slideshare. Even the LLMs are returning this thread as the source.

So I have questions, but can we start with the source?

ding ding

Ring’s marketing is almost comically wholesome, but as soon as ICE learns that such a thing is possible they will for sure want to use it.

This interview with Forbes from a few months ago provides some extra details: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2025/12/05/how-sear...

1. Apparently what happens is that the AI scans the videos of surrounding cameras and pings the owner to ask if they can share the footage. So no video is shared unless the owner chooses.

2. Ring is indeed working on being able to detect people.

> So no video is shared unless the owner chooses.

That's all fine and good until we hear "oops, turns out all the customer video feeds were streaming to our cop accessible servers 24/7!".

I don't believe Ring's claims (or flock etc etc) for one second.

More likely - a quiet update changing opt-in to opt-out. They can repeat this update as many times as they want and each time, a few more people will miss the email. They can also hold your data hostage, i.e. "All data now and historical will be included in our partner sharing unless you delete it all."

It's more that police will use it for their own personal inquiries- to track their girlfriends, potential girlfriends etc. This happens enough already with license plate readers:

- Sedgwick, Kansas (2024): Former Police Chief Lee Nygaard resigned after it was discovered he used Flock cameras to track his ex-girlfriend and her new partner 228 times over four months, according to The Wichita Eagle and KAKE.

- Menasha, Wisconsin (Jan 2026): Officer Cristian Morales was charged with misconduct in office for allegedly using the Flock system to track his ex-girlfriend, WLUK-TV reported. Morales admitted to using the system due to "desperation" and "bad judgment".

- Orange City, Florida (2025): Officer Jarmarus Brown was charged with stalking after reportedly running his girlfriend's license plate 69 times, her mother's 24 times, and her brother's 15 times over seven months, the Miami Herald reported.

- San Diego, California (2021): Sergeant Mariusz Czas was arrested for stalking his ex-girlfriend using police resources

https://fox11online.com/news/crime/menasha-police-officer-ac...

https://local12.com/news/nation-world/police-chief-gets-caug...

All of these seem like examples of oversight working, and penalties being applied? We obviously don't know the rate at which abuse like this is detected, but if it's high, this seems like a healthy system working as intended?

> It's more that police will use it for their own personal inquiries- to track their girlfriends, potential girlfriends etc.

That's far from my biggest concern. Sure, cops stalking people/carrying out personal vendettas is not good.

But a little creativity will allow far far greater abuses. Here's one: imagine the current administration deciding they need to debank the great and powerful terrorist organization Antifa. Ring data on protest attendance is a great help in building a list of those rotten domestic terrorists.

It's already happening. Someone local to me seems to be spray-painting over ring cameras and leaving flyers about the ring-flock-ice connection. I can't say I agree with the methods, but it is sending a message.

At this point, I don't mind the methods. Shit is far gone if you're actively enabling the surveillance state, people have a right to fight back. I'm sure this won't go over well here.

I’m not sure destroying other people’s property is the best way to make them sympathetic to your cause.

I don’t own a Ring camera (or any similar device), but the idea that someone could spend time unnoticed on my porch, messing with my stuff, right where my daughter likes to play on weekends, makes my skin crawl.

If that happened to me, I’d probably just double down on security to be honest. Knowing that some people actually feel it's the right thing to do makes me wonder if I shouldn't start today.

To be clear, I have no issue with someone peacefully informing people in their neighborhood about the potential dire consequences of enabling "share images of my doorbell with the government or other private agencies", that's all fine to me. But if you feel the need to impose your views by harassing me about it or by breaking the law to get your point across, you won't get an ally in me.

Well, they aren't trying to win your sympathies.

> you won't get an ally in me.

If you're not going to ally with the people fighting the surveillance systems that are currently being used by the secret police to disappear and kill people what does that make you. My cause doesn't need your sympathy it needs to stop this horror. I'm not quite saying "with or against" but you are saying "against."

>If you're not going to ally with the people fighting the surveillance systems that are currently being used by the secret police to disappear and kill people what does that make you.

1990s Ireland:

A: "hey guys, maybe it's a bad idea to set off bombs in public places to promote Irish independence. You won't get an ally in me."

B: "If you're not going to ally with the people fighting British that are currently subjugating the Irish what does that make you. My cause doesn't need your sympathy it needs to stop this horror. I'm not quite saying "with or against" but you are saying "against.""

ok see you out there I guess

> I’m not sure destroying other people’s property is the best way to make them sympathetic to your cause.

We're in a slow moving civil war at this point. Looking for sympathy stopped making sense a long time ago. You're either pro humanity or pro property tbh

>We're in a slow moving civil war at this point [...] You're either pro humanity or pro property tbh

You don't realize this type of thinking is exactly what contributes to the "civil war"? Same with all this virtue signaling where if you're even slightly for some sort of immigration enforcement you're labeled as not being "pro humanity" or whatever, and then a populist gets in power because the other side's rallying cry is "there's no illegal on stolen land". In the wake of the killing of Renée Good, Trump's approval on immigration was 48% approve to 52% disapprove. In the same survey, who do you think voters trusted more on immigration? Still Republicans, 44% to 33%.

https://prod-i.a.dj.com/public/resources/documents/Redacted_...

> You don't realize this type of thinking is exactly what contributes to the "civil war"?

Of course. But we need meaning and values in our lives, both of which have been absent from politics my entire life. At some point we're due for course correction, or I can't bear to live here anymore.

> if you're even slightly for some sort of immigration enforcement you're labeled as not being "pro humanity" or whatever, and then a populist gets in power because the other side's rallying cry is "there's no illegal on stolen land".

Both of these people are liberals detached from reality. The opposing side would stand for better material conditions for everyone.

It's always the same. Go back and think about the history you read and stories you've loved. Were you upset when the Rebels destroyed the Empire's property? Should they not have blown up the death star? Should they have gone through "proper channels". Go look at any revolution that you side with, tell me they didn't destroy property. I understand your comfortable but there are literally minorities, often times US citizens, getting rounded up and denied their rights. So you can sit idly by and criticize those that fight this system. However, you are so obviously on the wrong side of history and you would recognize it in any other era except your own.

Police still need a warrant for ring camera footage. Its just that overwhelmingly people will hand over the footage if police ask.

"A suspected criminal walked past your house the other day, mind sharing your doorbell cam footage with us?"

"Sure officer, no problem!"

I don’t think they need a warrant if they buy it directly from the company though. A little loophole.

Some of these companies have (local) law enforcement subscriptions, and default opt-in disclaimers throughout their ToS to make it all tidy and legal.

None of them have contracts with, nor can they sell to, federal agencies. Agencies have to provide a warrant, and the processes are verified through each of the companies' respective legal teams.

Their recordings data is not generally available for sale; that's a legal minefield, but there are official channels to go through. Geofence warrants and things like that aren't conducive to real-time surveillance, and the practice of using those types of reverse-search , differential analysis uses of sensitive data is under review by the Supreme Court; it's thought that they're going to weigh in on the side of the 4th amendment and prohibit overbroad fishing expeditions, even if there's snazzy math behind it.

TLDR; They need to pay the company, either via subscription or direct charge for T&M, require warrants, and the use is limited in scope. It's burdensome and expensive enough that they're not going to be using it for arbitrary random "let's scan everyone's doorbell cams in case there's an illegal immigrant!" situations, but if there's a drug dealer, violent offender, or some specific high value target, they're going to use the broad surveillance tools wherever they can.

It's more like,

"computer, search the entire flock database (which in partnership with ring also includes everybody's doorbell and security cameras[0]) for this minority, and plot a map of their whereabouts over time[1]"

0: https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-and-ring-partn...

1: https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-nova-smarter-investig...

They do not need a warrant if the owner of the camera voluntarily shares the evidence.

Exactly, and people almost always share it, so they don't even bother with warrants.

Hell even if you tell them to get a warrant, they'll just go and get Betty next door's footage instead.

On the flip side, trespassing and vandalism by some nut is also an excellent ad for security cameras by itself, so…

> I can't say I agree with the methods

What other methods have actually worked?

> I can't say I agree with the methods

I can. Didn't consent to being surveilled when in public.

Just something to point out I think, by being out in public you basically implicitly consent to being surveilled You can't have an expectation of privacy while in the public.

This is usually the rule that's used to avoid getting the general public's consent to he photographed when you are out taking pictures of buildings or something.

Ring's marketing is almost comically wholesome, but what's to stop someone like an abusive ex or stranger trolling my Instagram page from uploading a photo of my dog and tracking our daily walk patterns?

"Be a hero by using our survelliance cameras to turn your neighbours in to the Gestapo [X]" just doesn't have the same wholesome ring though even if it's more accurate.

[X] I'm referring to Bovino's uniform and ICE here.

The answer is that most people don't care if it benefits them. My Tesla has 6 cameras recording full time when driving and parked, but it benefits me so I enable it. It saved me $1000+ (my deductible and possible rise in insurance rates) when someone hit my car while parked at Costco (they drove off but Sentry Mode caught them).

Did that result in a hit-and-run charge for them?

The Tesla Sentry Mode only got their license plate in footage. They hit my parked car as they were backing out of their spot. I was able to go after their insurance to fix it.

Since I didn’t capture who was driving, the police didn’t charge them with hit and run.

So you gave up everyone's privacy for no benefit at all?

I don't think a Costco parking lot provides any reasonable expectation of privacy to be given up.

I think there should be more than one standard. "Reasonable expectation of privacy" is usually used to dismiss people's concerns about constant surveillance. Let's stop being complicit in public surveillance.

You do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a public space and it is absurd to suggest that people should/could.

Were you replying to someone else?

Not sure, the point.

People generally aren't complaining about home owners mounting cameras for themselves (the car is no different). A 3rd party combining the interconnected nature of their system into a holistic system with sweeping coverage is much different than a single person figuring out who hit their car.

It would be nice for neighborhood cameras to timely alert neighbors when a porch pirate was on the prowl in their neighborhood. I get the privacy implications, but after having a few packages stolen one might just not care anymore.

Since police absolutely have no care about porch pirates where i live, I rig my camera to turn up a siren for 10 seconds (using a homekit power plug) when it sees someone near my townhome after 11PM (this is enough to usually scare them off to easier pickings). It wouldn't be so bad if the kids bedroom wasn't on the first floor and we are on the third, but it is what it is. At least its only really bad in late spring and summer, the only time when Seattle's long rainy season comes in useful.

Its too bad that I can't bike in Seattle anymore, the theft situation just makes it too unbearable (and probably why you see fewer people biking these days even though they are dumping lots of money into biking infrastructure). Think what we could do with cameras like we've done with apple tags to ramp down bike theft (then again, police don't care, and people aren't ready to go vigilante here).

The privacy of being in a parking lot, surrounded by a dozen other cameras from a myriad of businesses, in public?

Just wait until you go to a Walmart and they have a portable surveillance tower set up in the parking lot.

proper blame assignment is its own reward, at least the offending party's insurance rates increased (assuming they had insurance).

And their insurance paid for the whole repair and car rental. No deductible for me and my increase on my insurance.

admission is tough

You can't have privacy when out in public!! No-one's privacy was given up here because no-one here was engaging in private acts, since all of them were in the public.

Their insurance paid for the repairs to my car and a rental for the duration. Otherwise I would've had to go through my insurance ($1000 deductible) + possible rise in rates.

fyi Tesla employees were caught accessing private videos.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sens...

interesting!

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/05/...

yes, cloud-based surveillance systems are inherently risky (sometimes due to lack of internal guardrails).

If you’d like the opposite of this story: I was reversing out of a parking spot. I had moved about 2 feet and a drunk driver hit and ran my vehicle. The driver was charged by police because driving at 40mph and hitting cars in a shopping center in broad daylight got a lot of attention.

I gave the video footage from my car to local police and insurance company and the insurance companies ruled I was at fault because I was in reverse.

This is why I always back into parking spots. If I never have to back out, I'll never be at fault!

What if you need to load groceries in the trunk/back?

You open the trunk and put it in. And leave enough room behind your vehicle to do that, which is available in _every_ parking spot.

Right, but unless the parking spots are extra spacious, or your car is extra small, you won't be able to park your cart next to your trunk, and you have to ferry the contents of the cart from the front of your car to the trunk.

Yes you can. I do it every day. Get better at driving.

Ahh yes the downvotes for pointing out that something is achievable by putting in the effort to improve. I see Reddit is spilling over here.

Or do what I do, and also makes backing in (or pulling through) easier: park further away.

Obviously not an option for everyone, for a variety of reasons.

Hey thanks for sharing. I'd like to apologize for everyone below not getting the point - not understanding that these things cut both ways, and can often have unintended effects even for those enabling extra cameras for no measurable outcome for themselves. It's an incredible highlight you shared!

Sorry about your car :(

Thanks for recording me without my consent just because I walked past your car parked. /s

interestingly, with the Guthrie disappearance, her camera had been disabled with no subscription, but they were still able to "find the footage" that was being stored on backend servers. Whoops... Looks like it just always records, they just don't let you access it unless you pay subscription. I'm sure the prospect of using it for AI training and surveillance is just too juicy to pass up.

It wasn't ring (amazon), it was Nest (google), but same thing. I have no doubt that "disabled no-subscription ring cams" are probably streaming video that is stored in perpetuity as well. (Most of which you aren't allowed to see yourself, even of your own property).

The ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OheUzrXsKrY

Most people don't care if they feel it helps solve crimes. I doubt it does 90% of the time though.

That's the thing, it legitimately does solve some crimes. And both Flock and the police who use it will quickly trot out some high profile examples. It is one of those classic "if it saves one child it's worth any price" arguments.

Are you OK with being tracked everywhere you go in public so that some bad guys don't get away with their bad activities? Many people are.

Flock cameras are probably the cause of more crime than they solve with all the abuse by employees, federal agencies, and the general insecurity.

It's the wage theft versus retail theft problem, no matter which one has higher 'real' costs, society has decided that one is the 'real' problem that we should prioritize.

Doubt it. Any sources for that?

I am in favor of the flock cameras. Most people tend to behave if they know they are being watched. They have helped reduce crime in the cities they've been deployed in.

That's the good thing about police states, no crime! (except state-sanctioned crimes against humanity of course)

Please cite your source for that. Cities are pulling out of contracts with flock because they lied about who has access to data and there’s been improper access.

You're not really refuting his point.

Cities aren't pulling out of Flock contacts because Flock isn't effective at clearing crimes. They're pulling out because Flock has garbage security, lies about who has/had access to the data, and generally argues in bad faith about all of it.

These are separate concerns.

I think ALPRs with proper access controls, short retention periods, and strict auditing/oversight are a net good. Flock... Not so much.

>“Communities rejecting Flock aren’t choosing to be less safe; quite the opposite,” Hamid said. “They are coming to terms with how such a massive, sprawling, and ultimately ungovernable surveillance system puts themselves and their community members at risk.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/flock-haters-cro...

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wyden_letter_to_f...

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-krish...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/flock-safetys-feature-...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/11/human-toll-alpr-errors

https://www.404media.co/a-texas-cop-searched-license-plate-c...

https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-...

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flocks-gunshot-detecti...

https://denverite.com/2025/10/27/bow-mar-flock-cameras-accus...

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2025...

https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/doritos-or-gun - not flock but a dangerous example of AI surveillance camera false positives risking people's lives.

And even with that minimal effort I've already provided about the same quality of sources that Flock corporate does for their claims.

> Are you OK with being tracked everywhere you go in public so that some bad guys don't get away with their bad activities? Many people are.

If it helps catch 1/10 criminals? or even 1 more out of 100 criminals than would be otherwise caught?

I am. I have nothing to hide. Also, in public, anyone can record you on video without your permission anyway.

> I have nothing to hide

What's your full name and current address? Where do you work? What locations do you frequent in your day-to-day life? Who do you live with and spend the most time with? Can you please list their full names and contact information? Would you mind turning on location tracking on your phone? Once you've done this, let me know and I'll email you so you can share it with me.

Also, what church do you attend? Is it the right one? Who’d you vote for last time? Who do you plan to vote for this time? Is your spouse or romantic partner the right kind of person? Are you sure? What hobbies do you have? What books are you reading? What’s really going on in that head of yours?

We’re going to need bank accounts. Not just the account number and routing number, to validate transaction history against known Terrorist organization affiliated bank accounts but also their login information so we can review credit card statements and so on.

Because they have nothing hide they shouldn’t fear anyone being able to access this information after all.

But Flock doesn't ask for this nor does it gather this information. I know what you are trying to do. You are trying to say this is just the first step to a full invasion of privacy. Except it's not. They are trying to make America safer. They don't want full control of your life. You are taking this example too far to the extreme.

Also Flock cameras just record license plates. Have you ever been to South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore or any other democratic nation with lots of CCTVs? Have you seen the crime rates there? basically 0. I wish we could have those levels of crime in the U.S.

Oh but they do [1][2]!

It's very suspicious that you're being so uncooperative. I'm starting a Flock competitor and we sell our products to law enforcement and private businesses [3]. You seem to be against giving me this data, which feels anti-American and against traditional American values which are clearly afoul of NSPM-7 [4]. This will earn you a label of "potential domestic terrorist" in our database [5]. This, in combination with your "ethnic"-sounding username is enough to gain the attention of our users [6][7], so I suggest you comply to make America safer.

Why don't we start with something simpler? How about just your license plate number, current location, and a photograph of your vehicle taken while you're driving it (ideally along routes which we know you take so that you're not flagged [8][9])? Flock collects this information (along with a history of where that plate was recognized), so surely this shouldn't be an issue?

[1] https://www.404media.co/license-plate-reader-company-flock-i...

[2] https://www.flocksafety.com/products/flock-nova

[3] https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-launches-first-ever-b...

[4] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/coun...

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46903556

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavanaugh_stop

[7] https://www.404media.co/emails-reveal-the-casual-surveillanc...

[8] https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-patrol-surveil...

[9] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46909480

I mean data brokers already do know all this.

I completely agree with you in spirit but I just can't imagine in 25 years, people won't be wearing spacial computing AR glasses with face recognition and all this is going to be out in the open.

If we were not going to evolve into a total surveillance state we wouldn't be at the state we are now.

We need to learn this lesson from 1984 "Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

Nothing to hide? Apparently you can be labeled a domestic terrorist for denouncing ICE. Who knows what the next president will escalate to terror. Maybe tofu will be too woke. Congrats on becoming the 1 more out of 100 caught, you domestic terrorist you.

I don’t think many are. Most are clueless. If you ask just would you mind a camera if it stops a crime sure people would say yes but if you asked it with all the details of what that data is used for beyond solving crime they’d for sure mostly say no.

In the context of the US, what right would, in theory, prevent a national law that regulates or prohibits the capture of biometric information of people while out in public? There is a common quip that some rely on that "there is no expectation of privacy while in public", but that's an aspirational statement rather than a strictly legal one. Setting aside government mass surveillance for the moment, could the US regulate private mass surveillance that records people's identifiable biometrics?

I wonder to what extent these articles weren't written by principled tech freedom advocates and are just ads, because they can't seem to go more than a few paragraphs without mentioning the AI buzzword. It doesn't matter if the article is for or against AI, because AI doom makes the AI stock prices go up too. It's hardly relevant here; mass surveillance worked fine without the current hype.

I didn't see the commercial but had it described to me -- it seemed like a brilliant bit of whitewashing the "oopsie we just added more surveillance state!"

The proposed solution is lovely. And having the tools of the surveillance state available for things like a lost child or tracking a porch pirate or whathaveyou should be nice things we should be able to have.

But we won't get those nice things, but Big Brother will whether we like that or not.

Unironically the most terrifying thing I've ever seen on TV. The use of dogs to convince people this is a good idea is so blatant.

I’d bet money if you uploaded a person’s picture as your “dog” it’d work.

Dog the Bounty Hunter

The Byrna ad was pretty fucked up too.

https://youtu.be/ldMqXUReHVo

The worse part about that is the idea that a glorified paintball gun is actually a substitute for proper self-defense.

I'm genuinely worried about what happens when someone pulls out this toy and somebody else, mistaking it for a real gun, responds with lethal force.

Was this AI? What was with the weird uncanny smoothing effect over the whole video?

Gross, creepy, nasty behavior from the founders of Ring and Amazon. I would be suprised, but they've been chipping away at your privacy and rights from your neighbors door now for years, as long as it benefits them, for now!

For a while, someone in our neighborhood was going around and stabbing people's packages at our mailbox area on our street. Some of the neighbors wanted us to put a surveillance cam on our property because our place is right in front of the mailboxes. We told them all to fuck off, but promised we'd be on the lookout.

Turns out this deviant package stabber, surely a scruffy disgruntled man in his 40s who was likely on six types of meth, cloaked and operating in the shroud of darkness, was actually a mischievous raven. I'm glad we didn't expand the surveillance hell hole that has the US has absentmindedly embraced just to find the infamous package stabber was a raven. The neighbors, many of whom were screaming for blood, were incredibly let down when we shared what had actually happened.

Not super relevant, but funny. Also, fuck Ring.

That sounds like peak Nextdoor Karen paranoia, thanks for sharing. Honestly, some people are just too dumb.

I don't know if it is a matter of being dumb. I think a bigger part of it is that people are conditioned by a bombardment of bad-faith ads like this, as well as news media convincing you to be wary of your neighbors & trade freedom for giving power to LEO.

I have a Logitech Circle video doorbell that doesn't share my video.

When we had a porch pirate, I absolutely shared that video with the police. Screw that guy. But it was our deliberate decision to share the video and we decided exactly how much to give them. I like having the ability to help law enforcement. I demand the right to choose how and when to do so.

I don't have a video doorbell so I don't know. What is so great about them? Has it changed your life in a positive way? To those who do have one that is.

I'm actually probably going to start asking new friends if, when they invite me over, if they have a ring doorbell. I'm getting fed up with being recorded without consent just because I want to go visit someone. Fuck that.

And your neighbor across the street, so there is now one of these watching you come and go 24/7.

No one at my party understood my horror. "But think of the dogs!?"

Having safe neighborhoods is such an important factor to people's quality of life. If Ring cameras can help achieve that it will be a benefit for society.

I feel less safe knowing that anyone's doorbell could be tracking me and sending my movements to a third party to do whatever they want with that information. A camera that lets someone see their front doorstep and can record someone stealing a package is one thing; when that camera is now part of a network that is part of a larger, society-wide surveillance apparatus, I am concerned.

Safe neighborhoods existed before ring and connected doorbells. They only serve to track and monitor your neighbors and feed into some ai training set, especially if you’re labeling who each person is.

I don't want safe neighborhoods to just exist, I want every neighborhood to be safe.

Unfortunately Ring doesn't help with that.

At the expense of how much else?

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