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Eh, I don't know about privacy concerns being minimal at the places where ring devices are installed. The ring doorbell is installed at your front door. It rec

by jxcl 8y ago

Eh, I don't know about privacy concerns being minimal at the places where ring devices are installed. The ring doorbell is installed at your front door. It records pretty much all movement to and from your house. It records audio at the doorstep, so if you're having a conversation with anyone at your doorstep, that gets recorded too. If you have a porch and are sitting on it and speaking with people, etc etc etc.

tptacek 8y ago
I referred to the privacy/security "tradeoff", not an absence of privacy concerns. But for similar reasons, I'm unlikely to have an especially sensitive conversation at my doorstep anyways: my neighbors will be able to hear it. Obviously, they can also see who's coming and going at my house, as could anyone else who cared to watch. Meanwhile, the devices have been super valuable for spotting and reporting criminal attempts.
- tombrossman 8y ago
  Agree one selling point of the devices is ease of use, however for someone like me who is equally concerned about privacy, streaming video from my front door is a non-starter. In your scenario, "anyone else who cared to watch" includes anyone with an internet connection, versus some random prowler at high risk of being spotted casing your place due to their physical proximity. If some rando gets my ring doorbell footage and figures out where I live, that's hard to undo. If someone steals my stuff and gets away with it because I didn't have a ring doorbell, that's annoying but much easier to recover from. We are talking about the difference between an insurance claim and moving house. The right product for me may not exist yet, but I'd love to have a video doorbell system that I self-host. If I need remote backup I already have that covered, I'm on gigabit FTTH and use client-side encryption for data backups. I'm pretty nerdy and would enjoy setting this up but can't make it a priority now. Neither your points nor OP's conflict, I think you each just have different criteria and values for privacy and security.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Sure. I think the perspective I have on this is a lot more common than the "this is too scary to deploy" perspective; these devices are extremely popular in my neighborhood, and cost/convenience is the only thing keeping them from being universal.
- gist 8y ago
  Seeing when you come and go to your house (pattern or not) would allow someone to do a good job of planning a burglary or some other crime, no?
  - tptacek 8y ago
    The subtext here being that a burglar is going to see that you have an always-logging remote security camera, somehow obtain unauthorized access to the feed, and use that as a more convenient way to plan a burglary than simply staking the house out? Respectfully, I think that's pretty silly.
    - gist 8y ago
      Well no. Say I am a burglar and simply try to find out in a particular geographic area cameras that I can gain access to and then monitor those cameras in some way. Let's say further I get some mechanical turk like crew to monitor (stop laughing I can hear you ..) w/o telling them why I am doing this. I social engineer the reason and pay them to tell me for 'market research' etc or some other stupid cover story. Anyway my point is that you had said you didn't care if people heard what you are saying. That assumes then that you think it's possible for someone to hear you and gain access. Now you may be thinking that person is not close enough to do you harm but is that a safe assumption? At the office we have a full NVR system and multiple cameras. Fwiw the professional installer left that wide open to the point where we don't even allow any access (other than the stuff that the Chinese have already enabled that probably is sending things out). The default setup was insecure out of the box and nobody has had the time to look or lock it down.
  - acdha 8y ago
    If you’re a rare art dealer or other high-value target, maybe, but then you have tons of things like drones, etc. to worry about. For 99.9999…% of the population, your house probably isn’t getting burgled by someone like that, if at all. The addicts and bored teenagers are just going to walk down the street at a time when most people are at work and look for obvious signs of life — they don’t care about you in particular and are just going to pick an easy target where they can get in easily and without attracting much attention. I live in DC and basically all of the reported videos are some dude walking down the street before racing up to grab an amazon delivery or casually knocking on the door (and checking whether it’s locked). They get caught after a few weeks and there’s a lull before the next person with poor decision making abilities gets a couple of grand & jail time. Unlesss you’re doing something which involves storing a lot of cash – don’t brag about your Bitcoin trove – that’s the likely threat.
- krageon 8y ago
  You are violating the privacy of anyone coming to your door, without them having the option to say no. You have made this "tradeoff" for them, thinking that for you, this is fine. Yes, normally anyone camping outside your house would be able to see it too. Now you are also recording it though, which changes the story significantly.

by jxcl 8y ago

tptacek 8y ago

I referred to the privacy/security "tradeoff", not an absence of privacy concerns. But for similar reasons, I'm unlikely to have an especially sensitive conversation at my doorstep anyways: my neighbors will be able to hear it. Obviously, they can also see who's coming and going at my house, as could anyone else who cared to watch. Meanwhile, the devices have been super valuable for spotting and reporting criminal attempts.

tombrossman 8y ago
Agree one selling point of the devices is ease of use, however for someone like me who is equally concerned about privacy, streaming video from my front door is a non-starter. In your scenario, "anyone else who cared to watch" includes anyone with an internet connection, versus some random prowler at high risk of being spotted casing your place due to their physical proximity. If some rando gets my ring doorbell footage and figures out where I live, that's hard to undo. If someone steals my stuff and gets away with it because I didn't have a ring doorbell, that's annoying but much easier to recover from. We are talking about the difference between an insurance claim and moving house. The right product for me may not exist yet, but I'd love to have a video doorbell system that I self-host. If I need remote backup I already have that covered, I'm on gigabit FTTH and use client-side encryption for data backups. I'm pretty nerdy and would enjoy setting this up but can't make it a priority now. Neither your points nor OP's conflict, I think you each just have different criteria and values for privacy and security.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Sure. I think the perspective I have on this is a lot more common than the "this is too scary to deploy" perspective; these devices are extremely popular in my neighborhood, and cost/convenience is the only thing keeping them from being universal.
gist 8y ago
Seeing when you come and go to your house (pattern or not) would allow someone to do a good job of planning a burglary or some other crime, no?
- tptacek 8y ago
  The subtext here being that a burglar is going to see that you have an always-logging remote security camera, somehow obtain unauthorized access to the feed, and use that as a more convenient way to plan a burglary than simply staking the house out? Respectfully, I think that's pretty silly.
  - gist 8y ago
    Well no. Say I am a burglar and simply try to find out in a particular geographic area cameras that I can gain access to and then monitor those cameras in some way. Let's say further I get some mechanical turk like crew to monitor (stop laughing I can hear you ..) w/o telling them why I am doing this. I social engineer the reason and pay them to tell me for 'market research' etc or some other stupid cover story. Anyway my point is that you had said you didn't care if people heard what you are saying. That assumes then that you think it's possible for someone to hear you and gain access. Now you may be thinking that person is not close enough to do you harm but is that a safe assumption? At the office we have a full NVR system and multiple cameras. Fwiw the professional installer left that wide open to the point where we don't even allow any access (other than the stuff that the Chinese have already enabled that probably is sending things out). The default setup was insecure out of the box and nobody has had the time to look or lock it down.
- acdha 8y ago
  If you’re a rare art dealer or other high-value target, maybe, but then you have tons of things like drones, etc. to worry about. For 99.9999…% of the population, your house probably isn’t getting burgled by someone like that, if at all. The addicts and bored teenagers are just going to walk down the street at a time when most people are at work and look for obvious signs of life — they don’t care about you in particular and are just going to pick an easy target where they can get in easily and without attracting much attention. I live in DC and basically all of the reported videos are some dude walking down the street before racing up to grab an amazon delivery or casually knocking on the door (and checking whether it’s locked). They get caught after a few weeks and there’s a lull before the next person with poor decision making abilities gets a couple of grand & jail time. Unlesss you’re doing something which involves storing a lot of cash – don’t brag about your Bitcoin trove – that’s the likely threat.
krageon 8y ago
You are violating the privacy of anyone coming to your door, without them having the option to say no. You have made this "tradeoff" for them, thinking that for you, this is fine. Yes, normally anyone camping outside your house would be able to see it too. Now you are also recording it though, which changes the story significantly.