> Following intense backlash to its partnership with Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company that works with law enforcement agencies, Ring has announced it is canceling the integration.
Ring (owned by Amazon, who runs a private airgapped AWS region for the CIA onsite at Langley) also works with law enforcement agencies.
An aside: The Verge’s paywall is ridiculous, especially given that they still live off slimy affiliate revenue and ads that run directly counter to their own editorializing. Their smugness and superiority given their business model makes me wish we had better alternatives.
A lot of you won’t want to hear it but HomeKit + iCloud secure video is the only way to go. For one thing it’s end to end encrypted. You can also do ML stuff like face recognition which happens locally on your Apple TV. And you can set it to trigger HomeKit scenes if eg the person in the video isn’t recognized, or if it recognizes a particular person. Yeah Apple bad, blah blah. But they don’t have an incentive to sell your data.
Too little too late. I’m cancelling prime and returning my ring camera, even past the return deadline. Andy Jassy funded that Melania documentary and is generally a spineless oligarchic friend of the Trump administration. Amazon is basically anti constitutional.
Frigate NVR + Amcrest cameras. 100% local, private, on-device AI object recognition and classification. Can use a Google Coral USB TPU to speed that up. Runs on hardware as modest as a Raspberry Pi.
Empire Tech cameras are a bit better bang for your buck. The 4k models are great--be sure to read each model's strengths (low light, backlight, IR, near, far)
Frigate no longer recommends the Coral accelerator. I think Hailo is recommended now
Otherwise Frigate is great and integrates well with Home Assistant. I have a light on my office desk that comes on when a person is detected near the house, for instance
I would suggest Annke - They appear to be rebranded Ubiquiti/Amcrest cameras with modified Hikvision FW, with fully local capability and great quality (The $30 2k camera sells for $130 from Ubiquiti)
> Following a comprehensive review, we determined the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated.
That doesn’t sound like “we’re cancelling this because our customers let us know loud and clear that they were ethically against this”. If the only thing keeping them from doing this is time and money, what guarantee do we have that they won’t do it again if time and money allow?
That public statement could easily be an open negotiation tactic saying they'll do it, but want more money to do it. Especially if it is gov't money which would be paying for that feed.
Doesn't matter, I've come to the conclusion I'll never buy into one these networks. There's a reason "security" cameras were always on "closed circuit", there's no need give these companies money.
Same. I've been wanting to get into a Frigate setup, but I personally can't stand all of the "tech bullshit" of it all. I would love an actual product that I could plug in, connect to local wifi, and then connect cameras to, using auto-detection, via that same wifi.
Since no one will build that (or at least not build one where I never, under any circumstances, have to touch their servers; or not one they'll prove never does), I've been gathering the specifications for how to build it myself. I don't really have the means to make it a mass produced solution, but I can certainly build a fucking server that does everything I want, and shove it in a public repo with a readme. Maybe some hero out there with a 3d printing farm will create a package out of it, but I won't hold my breath for that.
Lesser technical people that don't know that you're the product with these items. They offer a lot of convenience if you want voice control and home automation and they're fairly affordable
The worst thing is that a lot of people who are very smart techies have them. I've noticed they tend to have a very cynical (IMO) outlook of "well the gate was left open a long time ago, might as well embrace it and give them everything."
This should be a wakeup call for users of all cloud connected cameras that once they send their video to the cloud provider, they have no real control over how it's used.
Ring does support end to end encryption (which disables most of the cloud features), but users are still at the mercy of Ring to trust that it really is e2e encrypted and not the "fake" end to end encryption that some marketers have used to mean "Well it's encrypted from your end all the way to our end where we decrypt it". I don't trust that Ring doesn't have a law enforcement toggle to break the e2e encryption on demand if the police ask for it.
Not ALL cloud connected cameras. Be careful saying things like that, there are large differences in the trust levels between them. For instance, if you're using homekit, I believe Apple doesn't even have the keys to the e2ee encryption, regardless of your "icloud advanced security" mode.
I stand by what I said -- If you don't control the software stack, you have no control over whether or not your footage is available to the cloud provider (or law enforcement) no matter what the provider says. As I said in my post, you really don't know if they have a secret software toggle that disables e2e encryption for law enforcement demands.
Over in my neck of the woods, these cameras are illegal when they point at the street. They should also be accompanied by a clearly visible sign indicating the presence of a security camera.
Of course no one gives a fuck, and they're sadly ubiquitous. Police love them. Complaints about illegal monitoring are just ignored.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, but the 21st century main mode of operation is Distrust. We are constantly, actively fostering distrust in our neighbours and communities. Everyone is constantly suspicious of one another. When in reality the vast majority of us are very well behaved.
I think a "mood mesh ring" for Kotlin DSLs or Amazon Ring integration is an interesting concept,(e.g., "You seem stressed - verify this doorbell notification is important")? Or a Soul weight diet plan?
How long until Flock is a nationally toxic brand? They're just as bad, if not worse, than Ring. Difference being they're not a consumer brand I guess, but far more pervasive in everyday life.
44 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 60.4 ms ] threadCloud connected doorbells must die as well as dragnet surveillance.
Ring (owned by Amazon, who runs a private airgapped AWS region for the CIA onsite at Langley) also works with law enforcement agencies.
Frigate no longer recommends the Coral accelerator. I think Hailo is recommended now
Otherwise Frigate is great and integrates well with Home Assistant. I have a light on my office desk that comes on when a person is detected near the house, for instance
That doesn’t sound like “we’re cancelling this because our customers let us know loud and clear that they were ethically against this”. If the only thing keeping them from doing this is time and money, what guarantee do we have that they won’t do it again if time and money allow?
Certainly sounds like "We have the integration and we successfully funneled test videos off of internal Ring cameras to Flock".
It doesn't say for whom. That could easily be the legal and marketing department to cover the backlash
Since no one will build that (or at least not build one where I never, under any circumstances, have to touch their servers; or not one they'll prove never does), I've been gathering the specifications for how to build it myself. I don't really have the means to make it a mass produced solution, but I can certainly build a fucking server that does everything I want, and shove it in a public repo with a readme. Maybe some hero out there with a 3d printing farm will create a package out of it, but I won't hold my breath for that.
Ring does support end to end encryption (which disables most of the cloud features), but users are still at the mercy of Ring to trust that it really is e2e encrypted and not the "fake" end to end encryption that some marketers have used to mean "Well it's encrypted from your end all the way to our end where we decrypt it". I don't trust that Ring doesn't have a law enforcement toggle to break the e2e encryption on demand if the police ask for it.
Of course no one gives a fuck, and they're sadly ubiquitous. Police love them. Complaints about illegal monitoring are just ignored.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, but the 21st century main mode of operation is Distrust. We are constantly, actively fostering distrust in our neighbours and communities. Everyone is constantly suspicious of one another. When in reality the vast majority of us are very well behaved.
>1:58pm Police coordinate takedown
>2:00pm Suspect apprehended
What a complete joke, lol.
1: https://www.flocksafety.com/