16 ms·

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...
  - laumars 8y ago
    Like I said, I agree it’s a valid concern. My point was that for this kind of tech to be useful, it wouldn’t want to be that zealous with alerting otherwise the system would get flooded with false positives. That means door to door sales people, preachers, the postman, milk man, kids at Halloween, carol singers, etc. Given this is an automatic sensor, people would just quickly just ignore it without even checking the footage - this even before any racial or social prejudices had chance to kick in. We see this all the time with software monitoring solutions in IT what sysadmins ignore if they are too sensitive so my comment here isn’t without precedence either. But essentially we are both arguing that an overly sensitive alarm is a bad thing - just from different perspectives. You make the point about discrimination and I make the point about the alerting being worthless in a sea of ignored alarms. Ultimately we’re both skeptical
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      But essentially we are both arguing that an overly sensitive alarm is a bad thing You might be. I'm not. I never once said it's a bad thing, or described it as overly sensitive, to be fair. Just that I could see how certain communities might look at the technology and what it enables and have good reason to be incredulous about how certain neighborhood actors will use it. That's about a nuanced as I can possibly get on the topic without trying to argue in favor or against these devices in full, or taking any absolute position.
richrichardsson 8y ago
Ring their doorbell. When they answer, tell them "Hi, this isn't the house I was looking for, but you've got that surveillance system in place, so I don't want to be registered as 'suspicious'. OK, sorry not sorry for wasting your time, goodbye."
- Klonoar 8y ago
  ...for every house? I don't go up to random houses and ring their doorbells to begin with, because nobody does that anymore.
  - ilikepi 8y ago
    Nobody? Where I live (suburbs, New England, USA), it's pretty common to be visited in person by local political candidates and/or volunteers during campaign season. I doubt this is in any way unique to my neighborhood.
    - Klonoar 8y ago
      Campaign season is an outlier, and I've had that happen... well, I can count the number of times on one hand, since a decade ago.
    - JohnFen 8y ago
      OK, nobody except salespeople (politicians going door to door electioneering are really being salespeople).
  - richrichardsson 8y ago
    Did you think I was suggesting doing this to every house with the system? Not my intention at all. I was replying to hypothetical "walked up to the wrong house" scenario.
- drewmol 8y ago
  Me: Presses doorbell button Ring: Please provide a valid email address to continue. Me: Turns to leave Ring: Sorry we missed you! Please state your reason for visit and someone will reach out to you. Please provide a valid email address to continue. Ring: Warning! This entry attempt have been recorded. An unauthorized entry attempt will be reported to the cloud and local law enforcment.
chaostheory 8y ago
If systems like this are abused, police will just treat it like most burglar alarm systems; it will most likely be ignored.

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...
- laumars 8y ago
  Like I said, I agree it’s a valid concern. My point was that for this kind of tech to be useful, it wouldn’t want to be that zealous with alerting otherwise the system would get flooded with false positives. That means door to door sales people, preachers, the postman, milk man, kids at Halloween, carol singers, etc. Given this is an automatic sensor, people would just quickly just ignore it without even checking the footage - this even before any racial or social prejudices had chance to kick in. We see this all the time with software monitoring solutions in IT what sysadmins ignore if they are too sensitive so my comment here isn’t without precedence either. But essentially we are both arguing that an overly sensitive alarm is a bad thing - just from different perspectives. You make the point about discrimination and I make the point about the alerting being worthless in a sea of ignored alarms. Ultimately we’re both skeptical
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    But essentially we are both arguing that an overly sensitive alarm is a bad thing You might be. I'm not. I never once said it's a bad thing, or described it as overly sensitive, to be fair. Just that I could see how certain communities might look at the technology and what it enables and have good reason to be incredulous about how certain neighborhood actors will use it. That's about a nuanced as I can possibly get on the topic without trying to argue in favor or against these devices in full, or taking any absolute position.

richrichardsson 8y ago

Ring their doorbell. When they answer, tell them "Hi, this isn't the house I was looking for, but you've got that surveillance system in place, so I don't want to be registered as 'suspicious'. OK, sorry not sorry for wasting your time, goodbye."

Klonoar 8y ago
...for every house? I don't go up to random houses and ring their doorbells to begin with, because nobody does that anymore.
- ilikepi 8y ago
  Nobody? Where I live (suburbs, New England, USA), it's pretty common to be visited in person by local political candidates and/or volunteers during campaign season. I doubt this is in any way unique to my neighborhood.
  - Klonoar 8y ago
    Campaign season is an outlier, and I've had that happen... well, I can count the number of times on one hand, since a decade ago.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    OK, nobody except salespeople (politicians going door to door electioneering are really being salespeople).
- richrichardsson 8y ago
  Did you think I was suggesting doing this to every house with the system? Not my intention at all. I was replying to hypothetical "walked up to the wrong house" scenario.
drewmol 8y ago
Me: Presses doorbell button Ring: Please provide a valid email address to continue. Me: Turns to leave Ring: Sorry we missed you! Please state your reason for visit and someone will reach out to you. Please provide a valid email address to continue. Ring: Warning! This entry attempt have been recorded. An unauthorized entry attempt will be reported to the cloud and local law enforcment.

chaostheory 8y ago

If systems like this are abused, police will just treat it like most burglar alarm systems; it will most likely be ignored.