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Likewise, homeowners can also add photos of “suspicious” people into the system and then the doorbell’s facial recognition program will scan anyone passing thei

Likewise, homeowners can also add photos of “suspicious” people into the system and then the doorbell’s facial recognition program will scan anyone passing their home. This has to be the worst part of it, if you've ever been part of a suburban neighborhood that uses NextDoor as a community tool you'll know that Ring doorbell videos of "others" crank the pearl-clutching paranoia of bored homeowners up to 11. The comment sections will go from "Did you get a license plate?" to "Hurry, add his face to the database before he comes back to rob and murder us all!"

SubiculumCode 8y ago
I kept arguing with others on the Nextdoor app to keep a lid on their paranoia so much that I ended up leaving. The story that led me to leaving that community? A van drove down a cul de sac and turned around. A homeowner thought that was suspicious and so jumped in their car and followed. They followed for a long time, then suddenly the van dips into another neighborhood, goes down a street, turns at the last moment, and goes down another street. This was even more suspicious! Except, what would you expect a driver to do when someone is following you through the entire city like a crazy person?
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  Next time, on Nextdoor... I was across town trying to get back to the highway, when I get confused in this residential neighborhood and end up on a dead end street. (Why so many dead ends?) As I get ready to turn back onto Pine, I notice this guy run out and hop in his car and start tailgating me. No way am I going home now, with this weirdo following me and probably wanting to steal my stuff. So I hit the gas, and duck down some side street hoping it’s not another dead end, but he stays on me. Luckily, I got a picture of him from the side mirror. If anyone sees this car CALL THE POLICE! [ Thanked by 15 people ]
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    When I first moved to Chicago years ago the amount of one way streets and intersecting one way streets on the northwest side made for a lot of turning around, stopping, passing the same block multiple times, pulling over to the side of a road to stare at my spotty-coverage GPS and figure out how to get back to the main two way thoroughfare. Especially while apartment hunting. I jokingly wonder how many people I freaked out on nextdoor
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
whoisjuan 8y ago
I get why this could be problematic under the wrong context. But if I have video footage of someone approaching my door, not knocking and just looking aroud to then leave; and I'm given the option to track if that person shows up again in future video footage, you bet I would use that option. This is not because I'm paranoic and I think right away that anyone showing up to my door will murder or rob me, but because said person already exhibited suspicious activity around my private property. Why would I take for granted that this person was simply lost or innocently looking around? If that's the case, then my camera would never see them again. But if they show up a second time, I want to know that.
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  So under this system if I walk up to your door mistakenly before realizing I'm at the wrong place, the police will be alerted any time I walk past a house.
  - laumars 8y ago
    While that is a valid concern about the abuse of such technology, I couldn't see that ever happening if just because it would generate far too many false positives to render the technology useful (not to mention that most police forces in the world are under funded so they're not going to be the slightest bit interested in people walking past a house). This kind of alerting is a bit like any of the automated alarms we have in IT (be it Nagios, CloudWatch, or whatever). They're necessary to tell us when things have gone wrong if they go off too frequently then they'll just get ignored. In fact there was a parable about this as well, called "The boy who cried wolf".
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      I can see how members of some communities might feel like the technology opens them up to more scrutiny than they probably deserve from an overzealous do-gooder (or busybody, depending on your perspective). Even if statistically the likelihood is low, I wouldn't say the fears of what this technology enables and could result in for someone simply being in the wrong neighborhood 'while black' are overly complicated or historically irrelevant/unfounded for certain areas of the US. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/airbnb-black-women-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/airbnb-black-women-pol...
eli 8y ago
I had the same thought. There was a situation where business owners (and police!) were using a group messaging app to share photos of "suspicious" people in an upscale retail area. It of course became mostly a way to track black shoppers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-secret-surveillance-of-suspicious-blacks-in-one-of-the-nations-poshest-neighborhoods/2015/10/13/2e47236c-6c4d-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html?postshare=7911444785571422 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-secre...
HarryHirsch 8y ago
You wonder what a suburb inmate's idea of a threat is. This is exurban America, not Brazil, where people have a good change of experiencing an express kidnapping or crossfire. Yet still the suburbanites act like that, it's disquieting.

SubiculumCode 8y ago

I kept arguing with others on the Nextdoor app to keep a lid on their paranoia so much that I ended up leaving. The story that led me to leaving that community? A van drove down a cul de sac and turned around. A homeowner thought that was suspicious and so jumped in their car and followed. They followed for a long time, then suddenly the van dips into another neighborhood, goes down a street, turns at the last moment, and goes down another street. This was even more suspicious! Except, what would you expect a driver to do when someone is following you through the entire city like a crazy person?

jonathankoren 8y ago
Next time, on Nextdoor... I was across town trying to get back to the highway, when I get confused in this residential neighborhood and end up on a dead end street. (Why so many dead ends?) As I get ready to turn back onto Pine, I notice this guy run out and hop in his car and start tailgating me. No way am I going home now, with this weirdo following me and probably wanting to steal my stuff. So I hit the gas, and duck down some side street hoping it’s not another dead end, but he stays on me. Luckily, I got a picture of him from the side mirror. If anyone sees this car CALL THE POLICE! [ Thanked by 15 people ]
- dvtrn 8y ago
  When I first moved to Chicago years ago the amount of one way streets and intersecting one way streets on the northwest side made for a lot of turning around, stopping, passing the same block multiple times, pulling over to the side of a road to stare at my spotty-coverage GPS and figure out how to get back to the main two way thoroughfare. Especially while apartment hunting. I jokingly wonder how many people I freaked out on nextdoor
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

whoisjuan 8y ago

I get why this could be problematic under the wrong context. But if I have video footage of someone approaching my door, not knocking and just looking aroud to then leave; and I'm given the option to track if that person shows up again in future video footage, you bet I would use that option. This is not because I'm paranoic and I think right away that anyone showing up to my door will murder or rob me, but because said person already exhibited suspicious activity around my private property. Why would I take for granted that this person was simply lost or innocently looking around? If that's the case, then my camera would never see them again. But if they show up a second time, I want to know that.

daveFNbuck 8y ago
So under this system if I walk up to your door mistakenly before realizing I'm at the wrong place, the police will be alerted any time I walk past a house.
- laumars 8y ago
  While that is a valid concern about the abuse of such technology, I couldn't see that ever happening if just because it would generate far too many false positives to render the technology useful (not to mention that most police forces in the world are under funded so they're not going to be the slightest bit interested in people walking past a house). This kind of alerting is a bit like any of the automated alarms we have in IT (be it Nagios, CloudWatch, or whatever). They're necessary to tell us when things have gone wrong if they go off too frequently then they'll just get ignored. In fact there was a parable about this as well, called "The boy who cried wolf".
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    I can see how members of some communities might feel like the technology opens them up to more scrutiny than they probably deserve from an overzealous do-gooder (or busybody, depending on your perspective). Even if statistically the likelihood is low, I wouldn't say the fears of what this technology enables and could result in for someone simply being in the wrong neighborhood 'while black' are overly complicated or historically irrelevant/unfounded for certain areas of the US. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/airbnb-black-women-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/airbnb-black-women-pol...

eli 8y ago

I had the same thought. There was a situation where business owners (and police!) were using a group messaging app to share photos of "suspicious" people in an upscale retail area. It of course became mostly a way to track black shoppers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-secret-surveillance-of-suspicious-blacks-in-one-of-the-nations-poshest-neighborhoods/2015/10/13/2e47236c-6c4d-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html?postshare=7911444785571422 https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-secre...

HarryHirsch 8y ago

You wonder what a suburb inmate's idea of a threat is. This is exurban America, not Brazil, where people have a good change of experiencing an express kidnapping or crossfire. Yet still the suburbanites act like that, it's disquieting.