Remove your ring camera with a claw hammer | Hacker News Reader

Remove your ring camera with a claw hammer

hamiltonnolan.com

87 pointsgpvos72 comments

I understand where the author is coming from but this bends a little too far towards "recording outside your door is bad and you should feel bad because you are a horrible paranoid person" for my taste.

The reality is that a lot of societies or locales are not high-trust and it makes sense to take steps to insure oneself/family/possessions.

Installing cameras on your property does not necessarily mean you have a destructive attitude, are suspicious or paranoid, or that you are storing and cataloging events. It's a set-and-forget system that the majority of users probably don't think about on a daily basis. You install them in the hopes that you'll never have to use them.

I also reject the idea that installing a surveillance system means treating neighbors as enemies. Well-meaning people should implicitly understand that the surveillance isn't directed towards them in that way.

This is also why Amazon Ring and cloud-connected mass surveillance systems should receive scrutiny - these DO mean exposing your neighbors to third parties who may treat them with suspicion.

I would rather a more grounded argument like "_Amazon Ring_ is bad and you should feel bad, get a better surveillance system" because currently this article's reasoning is very nebulous and subjective.

I don't think I'm overly paranoid. I do still have a HomeKit compatible encrypted video doorbell that cannot talk to any outside vendor.

Once in a while it has turned out to have been good to have. Never critical, but good to have. And I don't have to give everything to [Amazon/Ring|Flock|local PD|whoever]... unless I choose to.

What does a surveillance system actually give you? Have you dealt with Police after break in & robberies?

I was a building manager for 6 years and Police took the footage over 10 times during my tenure, nothing was ever recovered by the police and recognised offenders were never bought to any sort of justice.

The surveillance system gives you the footage. If police can't do anything with it, that's unfortunate, but not the fault of the surveillance system.

In this instance I'd say the surety and closure provided by the ability to simply review the footage is an important aspect for potential victims. And if victimized by something worse than petty theft, the value only goes up.

I’m not saying it’s the fault of the surveillance system if police don’t use it. But what is the actual benefit to you/society as a whole we film our neighbours never completely trusting them, if the people paid to protect others aren’t using it.

Seems superfluous if police don’t use it when provided to them voluntarily.

Your unfortunate experience is far from universal. It is anecdata.

Where do you live Broom? It’s a pretty universal situation when I’ve discussed it with others all over Australia.

It tells me when packages are on the porch. This is the main value add for me.

I’ve been debating adding a camera pointed a bit more outward, as there at least 5 2 car accidents a year at the intersection outside my house of a 1 way road without a stop sign and a 2 way narrow city road with a stop sign. At least 1 of these accidents every 2 years ends up hitting my neighbors house.

Yep, I mostly just enjoy generally knowing what's going on around my property at a glance, especially when it's inconvenient to go outside.

Checking if there's a package at the garage or front door. Generating a time-lapse of outdoor projects. Discovering the neighbor's idiot contractor that wants to dig on the property or get through the fence for something. Observing weather while taking shelter. Figuring out what caused the loud bang on a window (usually birds) or the roof (usually a tree branch). Observing the behavior of neighborhood or wild animals that manage to slip through the fence. Keeping an eye on outdoor contractors while I'm busy with work. Ensuring that one of the neighborhood kids aren't sneaking around being a liability with the pool, hot tub, or countless other dangers. Checking if I forgot to place the trash at the curb after randomly waking up at 3am. Capturing the hilarious moment a buddy and I shot a stream of E85 directly on a stack of 2x4s when we upgraded my car's fuel pump and forgot to connect the low-pressure line. My partner likes to watch squirrels eat nuts that she sets outside.

Sometimes it's fun to play around with the several months of recorded data just for the sake of experimentation. Similarly, I also enjoy capturing stuff on ISM bands like 433MHz, and not because I am nosy, paranoid, or have malicious intent; but, because it's free and open data observable within the environment that I live, and analyzing it is simply interesting to me.

There used to be a FedEx delivery guy in Pittsburgh that would photograph packages in place, then steal them. I know this because I once got the notification while he was still pulling away - and the package was gone. Happened a few times, but only when there was a photo taken (back then, it wasn't common for them to do that).

Wish I had a video cam back then.

Do you not go outside much?

I have a mentally ill teenage neighbor, who used to break in and steal from me. I knew it was him, but I needed video proof.

Once I had that, I called the police, and pressed charges, and FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE he went to court for his actions. He had previously made multiple assaults on his mother, even attempting to kill her, and the police only took him to a juvenile mental facility for a few hours to days: no court history.

THAT is what it actually gives you: actionable proof. What the fancy judge-types call "evidence".

Twice I have relied on mine and neighbors ring camera for proof hat I did not cause damage to my vehicle on insurance claims, and was instead another driver(s)/hit and runner(s).

Wether insurance went after those people for the claims or police, it certainly helped me there.

Same is said for dash cameras. It is in 99 percent of scenarios for "set and forget" not for some malicious anti-neighbor behavior

Historically, eventually the people realize that the state is doing too little to protect them from crime. Usually, at that point in time, a posse is formed. Having images of repeatedly-encountered perps can be very useful to a posse.

A posse. I see.

something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_McElroy

This is exactly what lack of law-enforcement eventually leads normal people to do

I grew up near there. Agree 100%: that man needed removal from society, and the local law enforcement and judge weren't going to do that. (Rape of a 13yo, forced marriage of same, years of massive drug running, carrying a weapon openly as a felon into bars where no non-LEO can legally carry... He was more evil than you imagined before clicking on that link.)

The town did all they could for his poor widow, and she kept quiet about whatever she might have seen...

And we now again live in a time where such things are done and go un (or under) punished. This is why I expect more of that. I do not celebrate it, but I expect it.

I think it’s fine if your Ring camera is only pointing at your property. If it’s pointing into a public spaces, then yeah I think you are doing something bad and you should be shamed for doing it.

We shouldn’t have to surrender our privacy for simple conveniences. Is there a market here?

Can someone make an open source, privacy-focused doorbell? Perhaps like the Software Conversancy’s OpenWRT One wifi router. With an open specification, addons like a flashing light or entry buzzer could be integrated. A simple iPhone/Android intercom app usable only on my LAN would be lovely. Yes, one can get a ReoLink and muck with VLan settings but that is not consumer accessible, moreover you have to use their central service or forgo remote answering

Bell wire is really thin and you can run a low voltage line around your house that is nearly invisible. That's the old school, physical option and is not to be sniffed at if it does the job.

If you want to get something safe and smart (IoT) then you have to think like an engineer. You also need to decide if you are going to do one thing - a doorbell, or if you want disco lights by the pool and the rest.

For a doorbell, you need a button at the door and a chime or whatever inside the house to indicate the button has been pushed. Already you have to potentially deal with delivering power at a place that might be hard, door frames/walls, wires, batteries, weather, positioning and lots more. Then you need to get the signal to a chime.

My previous doorbell was a chime that I wired into a switched and fused spur (I ran a 5A rated twin and earth out of a light socket into a back box with a switched socket faceplate and it has its own fuse) into the nearest lighting socket and a bell wire that ran out to the button. That was fine and simple but not too smart!

I have PoE switches and my IT gear is mostly in the attic. I put a backbox with an ethernet socket in the attic and ran solid core down through the roof/wall etc to near to where the door bell is on the inside of my house and put another backbox with ethernet face plate on it. I then run a short (3m) patchlead inside some trunking and through the front door frame and into the back of a Reolink PoE powered doorbell. I also have Home Assistant running as a VM on a Proxmox box.

Somewhere between those two setups sounds like where you want to go. I went for PoE because I also have UPS for my switches and other infra but wifi may be fine for you for comms but you still have to do power and I'm not a fan of battery powered door buttons but that might be a design decision for you.

You mention VLANs and I really recommend that you look into them. They are a core building block of networking. However, I also get that becoming a network expert is not on everyone's score card. Then again, you are hanging around on HN and probably tending towards ... nerd!

Even a simple doorbell can become pretty sodding complicated and that is why we have some people wondering what on earth all the fuss is about and others advocating to smash the looms ... sorry, doorbells.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I ended up hiring a contractor to run PoE but that was not cheap. Setting up the VLan was time consuming and I failed to do it right the first time. The intercom feature is invaluable but an entry buzzer would be even better. I don’t need the camera and it made some guests uncomfortable … electric tape worked.

Wait, are you saying that American homes did not have the regular camera doorbells before Ring happened? Those things predate LCDs. Earliest implementations date back to at least mid 1980s.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_door-phone

They would be uncommon for single family homes or duplexes unless built in last decade or so.

Audio intercom with shared entry door buzzer are common with older apartment complexes. Newer buildings and retrofits have video.

I'll even pay $9 for this if they commit to a 10 year support plan, provided it's not a subscription.

$$$ Return your Ring garbage $$$

My local CostCo has the ReoLink 8-camera CCTV system (4TB 12MP, supports up to 16 cameræ) on sale, $150 off MSRP (so, $649 total) — last week I installed mine and am very satisfied (PoE, so no additional power supply issues). You can entirely run two cameræ per single ethernet cable.

This device stores everything locally [1]; also has an option to connect to your Reolink system remotely using their app. I believe they do offer off-site storage options (to store footage), but I prefer to keep this information isolated — it's for my and neighbors' own protection (my corner lot sees entire ingress/egress).

[0] <https://www.costco.com/p/-/reolink-16-channel-8-4k-wired-dom...>

[1] even has a 2nd SATA slot for additional recording retention time (VERY EASY to install additional drive; holds up to 16TB)

----

Let's become the stewards of our own data, again...

I ditched my two Ring (Elite PoE) doorbells and replaced them with Reolinks a little over a year ago. They cost less, perform better, support open standards for video streaming, and don't partner with law enforcement to surveil your neighborhood.

The only drawback I've found is that despite their IP65 weatherproof rating, I've had two failures caused by rain. (In each case, the microphone was permanently affected.) They've been good about issuing RMAs and sending replacements, but I guess I'll need to start paying for replacements if they begin failing after the warranty period.

Even with their IP rating, I made sure to install them under eves (with 2ft overhangs). I looked at the microphone location (@unboxing) and immediately thought "that cannot be waterproof!"

This system was recommended by a trusted EE/hn guy, and his have been functional since ~2016 (no RMA, to my knowledge; but his are also under well-under eves).

ESL readers: "eve" (noun) is the underside of a roof overhang

It's spelled “eave”.

Is that why nobody ever knows what I mean by "eve" [lol]?!?

Yup.

Thank you for the accurate update to my lexicon (I've only been in construction for decades!) =P

There's plenty of good arguments for not using cloud-connected video cameras, how they can share data with the government unethically or illegally, etc. I got rid of all of mine. But I still have cameras, that I own, that are only accessible to me. I didn't get them until my house was burgled. I found that experience to be traumatic. I find the cameras to be somewhat soothing.

I do think it's funny he focuses solely on the homeowner, the individual, for whom their entire life is in their home, but ignores all the cameras used by businesses, government, etc. Ask the police station take down their cameras! Ask the grocery store take down theirs! They can certainly afford to be robbed more than the guy just trying to make an honest living, and wanting to keep an eye on his stuff. But no, he focuses on the person who's likely been the victim of crime (a concept he tells you to pretend doesn't exist, because "capitalism" or whatever), to just ignore it, to just go with the flow, man. No, I don't think I will.

> But what if someone steals your Amazon package off your front steps? Well, what if they do? I guess you would have to get a refund. I guess you might suffer an extremely minor inconvenience. I guess it could be an opportunity to reflect on the painful predations of poverty under capitalism, which creates economic desires, renders people unable to satisfy them, and then taunts them with constant visions of abundance in which they cannot share. True, it is a tragedy of unimaginably small proportions that someone has stolen your box of paper towels. Would you let them steal your optimism, as well?

One of the things I do actually like is not being constantly stolen from. It's a pretty nice improvement to my life to see that something has been delivered and know that it will be there when I'm home. I don't have a Ring camera or anything, but I can see why people would rather have the Christmas gifts they send each other (even if small in monetary value) than some insight about the "painful predations of poverty under capitalism". The latter might actually not be as valuable to others as it is to the author.

When I lived in India many decades ago, it was quite routine to have anything not latched down taken from you. We'd lock our bags to our train seats and so on, and if you had an expensive thing delivered you'd have to make sure you were home or you'd have to go acquire the thing and escort it home yourself, and you wouldn't do that with an expensive item at a time when people weren't around. If I'm being honest, I think I would much rather have my present life where I am confronted with such "tragedies of unimaginably small proportions" rarely at the cost of the "opportunities to reflect on the painful predations of capitalism". I actually really like not being stolen from. Here, in my wife's Taiwan, I can even forget my phone on a table and it's probably still going to be there. That's somehow even nicer, though I do admittedly reflect less often on "the painful predations of capitalism" because of it.

I don't specifically know for a fact that a Ring camera would help me achieve this goal of mine to be not stolen from at the cost of reflecting on capitalism, but it is presented in the article as if it would and that giving up reflections on capitalism for safety from theft is not useful. Given that I have found such a trade useful, I think this speaks more as an advertisement for Ring than anything else.

I think the problem, is that cameras don't prevent you from getting stolen from. I know many people in the same city as me who get things stolen off their front porch, and have cameras.

On the flip side, I have basically never worried about being stolen from, and I have no camera.

The secret? All the places I've lived, have their front door in an inconvenient spot. For example, up stairs, or along the side of the house. Getting a camera doesn't make you safer... Cause all you have to do to thwart it is wear a mask. And thanks to the pandemic, literally everyone has one of those.

I have a Unifi doorbell and it takes great photos of the local badgers, foxes, and other wildlife. They are stored locally. Love it.

Do you store them all in the same pen, or do you have to keep them separated?

Still trying to catch them. They keep drinking my cider and eating my chickens.

So you run a cafe in Somerset.

A lid is a must.

This kind of rhetoric is counterproductive. Telling people that package thieves are just misunderstood, is going to get people to do the opposite of what you suggest.

Those people were going to do the opposite already. They are already doing the opposite. If you have some better rhetoric that will convince them otherwise then in all honesty I look forward to reading your blog post.

I believe the rhetoric is intentional; that the author had no plan to convert that audience from whom you will pry their ring doorbell out of their cold, dead hands.

What is the audience it is for?

Fringe leftists who got one of these without thinking, I guess.

Does the thesis that people get these out of paranoia have any basis? I use mine for basic convenience, like seeing that a package was delivered, or seeing that the person at the door is a solicitor so I don't have to walk downstairs and shoo him away. Crime is not even on my mind with this thing and I point it so it can only see my stoop, not the street. Maybe I'm the weird one?

Cloud based home security cameras are the next likely source for Flock-like ALPR mass-surveillance. Amazon and Google will love this extra revenue stream, if they're not forced to give it up to the Government anyway.

Luckily many Ring type cameras are mounted perpendicular to the road and with restricted field of vision (which makes picking out license plates tricky), but there will be plenty of cameras out there with great resolution and a good view of the road.

A camera is potentially a deterrent to opportunistic theft, if the thief notices it and believes they could be recorded. I have a camera that covers our gate and front yard; it's not charged a lot of the time, but I leave it there anyway.

On the positive, my neighbour has a sensor camera and let us know one of our dogs was out wandering in front of his house. No idea when or how he got out the gate so we had no idea he was missing.

Ring or any corpo-cloud-controlled cameras are shit, but I want to know what happens around my house when I'm not watching.

What types of things do you want to be able to see?

I've used my cameras (unifi, local storage) to 1) help a neighbor find their lost dog, 2) help me find my own dog after a contractor left a gate open 3) make sure my kid gets home when he bikes ahead of me, 4) watch a fed ex employee punt a box of mine, 5) watch local wildlife at 3AM - last night there was a racoon party in my front yard.

I will know when you buy your first house.

It mostly just sits there.

If it's that important, you should watch then.

I don't have the Google doorbell because I'm worried about crime. I just really like it! It tells me when packages arrive even if nobody knocks (they never do!). It tells me who's at the door by name! I can have photographic evidence the when the deer eat the flowers overnight and silently curse at them.

do you think it’s a good thing, or a bad thing that google has a list of who came to your house when?

I don't really care? We also use Location Sharing so Google already knows my family members' locations. And if you ever use Google Maps they know your location too.

For that matter, they also know my credit card number, and supply the internet connection to my house.

There's no chance I'm hiding from Google, so might as well have the cool doorbell.

As a Nest doorbell owner (came with the house), I think it's completely neutral and will never realistically have any import to anyone. I did turn off the facial recognition on mine, but if it could not be turned off, I would still not bother replacing the thing.

>I did turn off the facial recognition on mine

This only turns off facial recognition for you. If you care.

Google can easily post-process your footage (and, IMHO, does).

Shrug. When I get anyone coming to my house who doesn't carry a gps tracker on them at all times, usually Google's, I'll give it some more thought.

I'm actually one of those people — but yes I know we're a rarity.

> the world outside your front door is to be treated with suspicion; that every passerby is a potential threat; that every neighbor is a potential enemy; that every human interaction must be stored and cataloged as evidence of possible crime.

Yeah, I think he summed it up better than I could have there.

I use my non-ring, local-only front door camera to track the local cats.

My house is the only one nearby that has a covered porch — it has become the local cat hangout. Lots of purr and hiss near my front door.

With my Reolink system, I can watch them "play" (fight &/or sleep) on my deck. And nobody else can track our relaxed situations (I talk to them, always) =D

My home is very small, so I got full-coverage of my exterior with two extra cameræ left-over — one of them I have made a dedicated "birdnest cam," which hopefully aforementioned feline don't murder... the other watches my bird feeders.

I can’t believe that this is a serious article. If it is, it’s clearly written by someone who has experienced very little crime.

That said, it’s not like crime is uncommon, and a blasé attitude and snark won’t change that. Cameras are in fact the best deterrent.

https://www.safewise.com/blog/metro-areas-porch-theft/

https://www.security.org/package-theft/annual-report/

> Cameras are in fact the best deterrent.

Kinda funny that your links don't support that.

And I think that's exactly the issue. Doorbell cameras appear to be security theater when it comes to both trying to prevent or recovering package thefts.

This is just curiosity, no sides, the refund bit

If Amazon did their part, put the package on your door, it was stolen, is that their fault?

It feels like given that Amazon give you no agency in when the package arrives, and also no guarantee of forewarning, then they've given you no option to prevent the package remaining on your doorstep, the liability should morally lie with them.

(Legally, could be more cloudy depending on jurisdiction, but I'm sure their tendency to say packages will require a signature on delivery but then to leave them on the doorstep with the driver's signature alone probably does them no favours)

Amazon leaves the package on your doorstep because it's slightly more convenient for you and WAY more cost effective for them than the old-style "we missed you; come pick it up at our location in a day or so" note. No physical location in expensive areas, no repeat deliveries, no hauling & managing packages coming back on trucks. When you buy something from Amazon they have not delivered it by throwing it on your doorstep. Ironically we never would have taken delivery of expensive purchases like this back in the day when the world was so much "safer"...

If you have video evidence showing that Amazon just left your package out in the open then someone came up and nabbed it I'm sure Amazon would just send you a replacement if only to keep you happy as a customer.

Does amazon ask for evidence? Serious question. I’ve never had a package lifted off my doorstep, but every other issue i’ve had has been auto approved with no need for photo/video evidence.

I believe it’s based on risk thresholds, if you buy things 52 weeks a year and this is your first time ever claiming a stolen delivery, you’ll get approved hassle-free. If it’s your tenth claim this year, expect more grilling.

Its hard to take such hyperbole seriously as in the article. My camera has let me know my pet escaped through the gate, that my elderly parents were stuck at my front door, that a wild animal was wounded in my yard and most crazy, let me positively ID and provide video evidence of stalking/harassment, which the police did act on.

The author also lives in a ridiculous bubble. Try getting a refund for your stolen goods from NOT-AMAZON. Most retailers can't afford to subsidize infinite free returns off their non-existent prime subscription income. I order furniture online through actual furniture stores, and they needed actual photographs and video evidence for the RMA.

I have several Reolink cams around the place, including a doorbell. They are on a VLAN called SEWER. I also have a VLAN called THINGS, which is for general IoT and SEWER is for those devices that scare me the most!

SEWER and THINGS don't get to see the internet at all, except via Squid. DNS A records with ntp in them resolve to the IPs of my equipment.

It is a bit crap that you need to be a networking and IT consultant to make this stuff mostly safe. If you can't, then getting the claw hammer out seems to be indicated.

HomeKit Secure Video devices. Block the device's internet access at your router. Apple can't see the video, it doesn't go to Amazon or Flock, nothing counts against your iCloud storage.

Easy Button option for us lazy folks.

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