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).
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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!
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 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.
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).
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.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 36.4 ms ] threadI suspect the Ring mass surveillance ads are the same thing.
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.
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.
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.
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).