This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
My personal choice for security stuff is ubiquiti, but I'm sure someone here can find a super cheap doorbell camera that saves to an SD card and accomplishes the same thing.
I'm really glad people didn't just fall over for this ad, and connected the dots on what Amazon is doing
Reolink doorbell cameras don’t need to be connected to the cloud. They can record to an SD card or upload to an FTP server. You can connect to them with RTSP and run your own NVR if you want too.
Hmm yes, I understand some of these acronyms. /s
SD - Secure Digital (memory card you’d use for most things)
FTP - File Transfer Protocol (a way to upload files to a server)
RTSP - Real Time Streaming Protocol (a way to stream video)
NVR - Network Video Recorder (a device that records video)
the problem with these fucking things is that you can't really opt out. even if you don't buy your own, some neighbours will happily buy and install the big brother to watch you from their porch and there is very little you can do about it.
same as you can't really escape the google, even if you don't use single one of their service, there is always the other part to any communication you are having...
Break it. Do crime. Do it.
break it and be recorded on their camera breaking it. that will end well.
You can’t put a mask on and cover your distinguishing features? Weak
Exactly. I never used Gemini or gave sensitive information/photos to major AI companies, but my family has, including photos of me.
I've never had a Facebook account. I've always hated when people posted pictures I was in and said who I was.
IR LEDs don't work on these like with some CCTV cameras, right?
At close range they'll blind them, but the tech is getting better these days.
What knocks out the camera is the auto exposure, they used to just take the whole sensors input, average it and set the brightness against that value. A lot of the newer surveillance cameras will just ignore the overall and compensate pixel per pixel.
Project farm looked at a bunch
It would be good if they had a way to limit range so it couldn't focus on anything that isn't within 10 ft of the door.
I hope what really gets people to pay attention is how the FBI said they searched that news ladies' moms' ring camera footage even though she didn't have an active subscription.
My wife and I recently moved to a home with ring cameras preinstalled, but no subscription of course. We can only access a live feed via the cloud service. I told my wife, I don’t think it matters whether we have a subscription or not… if they want to use the footage from our home cameras for any reason at all, it’s in their power to do so. They can save it, scan it, watch it, … they don’t even need to save the video, they can save results from a scan to get out the important details more efficiently.
My wife didn’t want to hear it. She said we aren’t paying them, so there’s nothing they can do. Then this news story dropped about Google Nest. I showed my wife. We no longer have the ring cameras.
Theoretically they wouldn't have internet access if a previous occupant set them up unless one of your neighbors has an unsecured AP. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you and you're saying you set them up on your wireless network after you moved in. Still a good move to get rid of them but I wouldn't be as concerned about them if the only AP they were set up to use was no longer present.
Nope. Ring cameras are part of Amazon Sidewalk which is effectively an automatic, invisible, and not end-user-controllable wireless mesh network "meant to keep devices working during wifi outages" or in other words to ensure the data makes it back to the cloud at any cost.
Their are more and more device manufacturers starting to use techniques like this to ensure connection regardless of owner intent.
Interesting, I didn’t think about that nor did I know about the mesh network someone else mentioned in a reply to you. In my case, I’m renting the home. The landlord pays for a very small internet package that is reserved for the cameras. He stopped paying for the subscription at some point but he still pays for the Internet it connects to, which is how we were able to access live footage in the past.
When I said “we no longer have the ring camera.” More accurately I could have said “we stopped charging it.” The landlord would probably have a minor aneurism if we tried explaining why we want to replace the camera he mounted a case for into the stucko by the front door.
I wonder if removing the cameras is the best move.
It might be better to let them run but have them watching a TV streaming Disney movies.
Then drop the dime to Disney that they are copying their IP.
Copyright theft is only an issue for the poor.
Have you been in a cave where AI doesn't exist, or....?
The subscription is ostensibly to cover the cost of bandwidth. But of course they're uploading anyway…
It was a NEST camera from Google, which is only a meaningful distinction because it means they ALL do this shit.
The only ones that don't are ones that only send data to your data storage.
If your stupid gadget needs a separate proprietary app that demands internet access, anticipate that all data is shared for all kinds of shady business.
It is baffling that people hadn't clued in about this sooner
People still love Chrome, even though tech reviewers told us exactly how creepy that browser is. That info has been publicly available since day one.
Same story with Facebook, but somehow that syphilis of the web is still alive. I have no idea what these people are thinking.
Don't worry, the majority of Ring owners still haven't.
Either they are ignorant or choosing convenience over security.
I think the better question is why they didn't do it sooner
For anyone who has a Ring camera, wants to get rid of it, but still wants a doorbell camera for security/convenience reasons, I'll point out that Ecobee has a fairly good rating on Mozilla's Privacy Not Included page where they review products for their privacy.
E2EE transmission of video from the camera to your phone when streaming, on-device processing of video feeds, auto-deletes any cloud footage when people uninstall the app (so non-technical users who think uninstalling an app deletes their data will actually get that benefit), only saves clips when actual motion is detected, first line of their privacy policy is "Your personal information and data belong to you", and their subscription is 100% optional.
Only real privacy concern is that if you choose to integrate yours with Alexa, it might get some data from that, but that's optional. The main downside is just that they only have a wired option for outdoor setups, but they do have an indoor one that doesn't require any kind of hookup directly into wires in your wall.
As always though, if you have the technical ability to set something up yourself that runs only on your local network, do it.
