9 ms·

I boggle at why security cameras would be sending the video offsite to a third party. Storing it locally is absurdly more efficient and ... actually compatible

by nullc 7y ago

I boggle at why security cameras would be sending the video offsite to a third party. Storing it locally is absurdly more efficient and ... actually compatible with having security unlike blindly sending the footage to a third party. Why have we normalized this absurd behavior?

pdonis 7y ago
> I boggle at why security cameras would be sending the video offsite to a third party. Ring isn't a "third party", they're the party from which users (of which I am one) buy the cameras and the services that go with them. One of the services is being able to see live views from your cameras, or watch stored videos, from anywhere through the app. This is very useful if you're away from home. Storing videos locally wouldn't support that.
- MereInterest 7y ago
  Yes, storing video locally would support that. On request, the app and the local storage would negotiate a session key, and the video would be transferred to the phone. Ring would only have the encrypted video, and would not have the decryption key for it. Yes, it would be slower, would require video encoding/rescaling near the local storage, but it would actually be secure that way.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > storing video locally would support that. On request, the app and the local storage would negotiate a session key, and the video would be transferred to the phone. How do they do that if the app is halfway across the country? They have to go through a common server.
    - paggle 7y ago
      With public key encryption.
      - pdonis 7y ago
        Public-key encryption requires the two endpoints to be able to send each other data. See my comments about ISPs and firewalls elsewhere in this thread.
        paggle 7y ago
        Yes, nobody is saying there won't be a central server... just that said central server won't be able to access the contents of the video.
    - Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
      The same way an HTTP[S] proxy works.
      - pdonis 7y ago
        How would an HTTP[S] proxy help me to talk to a computer that's behind my home NAT firewall if my ISP won't allow me to run Internet-visible servers?
        Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
        First off, as mentioned in other comments, ISPs tend to not enforce the rules about not running Internet-visible servers. But let's go ahead and go with your assumption that they are. You can still have a secure connection from your doorbell camera to a mobile app anywhere in the world. Both your app and your camera connect to an intermediate server. This server merely acts like a proxy, passing packets between the two. Using a standard TLS handshake, the app can establish encryption with the camera without the proxy in the middle being able to decrypt the traffic. When the camera is initially setup, it can generate a TLS certificate that the app can download and pin (Since the app and camera will be on the same Wifi network), so that the proxy server can't try to present its own and intercept the communications. If you need me to go into greater detail, I can. But this is definitely a solved problem. EDIT: Another way to think of this...apps like Signal and Wire let people talk to each other by each client connecting to a central server to send and retrieve messages, but without the ability for those central servers to intercept the contents of the messages through public key encryption. The camera-to-app connection would work basically the same way.
        pdonis 7y ago
        I understand all this, but is there any camera out there that supports this kind of setup out of the box? Or do I have to roll my own if I want to do this?
        Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
        No idea. You'd probably have to roll your own.
- eropple 7y ago
  > Storing videos locally wouldn't support that. Of course it is--don't fall for the okeydoke. Encrypt with a passphrase. Provide the same passphrase in the app. Ring's central server exists only to pull streams on-demand and route them directly to the app. Ring can still even store VOD data if you really want; they don't have the ability to perpetuate the panopticon through it, though. There, I fixed it.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > Encrypt with a passphrase. Provide the same passphrase in the app. Are you saying Ring already offers this capability?
    - eropple 7y ago
      Sorry, I mean that Ring's server then only acts as a router. I strongly doubt it does that now, though I wouldn't give them money so I can't say for sure.
- f-securus 7y ago
  I mean... you can store videos locally and then access them over the internet while managing all of the hardware/software yourself. Though, that is another layer of complexity the average user won't be bothered with. People trade privacy for convenience.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > that is another layer of complexity the average user won't be bothered with. Yes. Plus ISPs (or at least US ones) won't allow you to run an Internet-visible server using your home Internet connection.
    - f-securus 7y ago
      If you change the port used, is it considered 'internet-visible'?
    - cgriswald 7y ago
      In practice I’ve never had a problem with running any server on my home connection except an SMTP server which required me to ask them to open the port directly (and they did). Most ISPs don’t seem to care if you’re not using a ridiculous amount of bandwidth. Many will sell you a package that explicitly allows it. I currently have access to live view and recorded video from my security system and haven’t had any problems at all. In the case of wide adoption of such a thing I imagine the ISPs either offering a more expensive package, or clamping down and offering their own version of the service through some monstrosity of a modem/router. It’s probably the latter that motivates most of these companies to use “the cloud”. There’s certainly ways around the problem for a motivated company, though.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      > Plus ISPs (or at least US ones) won't allow you to run an Internet-visible server using your home Internet connection. That's not entirely the case. I've been running internet-visible servers from home for decades. My current ISP (Comcast) doesn't have a problem with that, even contractually, as long as you aren't running publicly available services, and I've never had a problem with any of my prior ISPs.
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  The live feed should work more efficiently with local storage (by going directly to the user rather than getting routed through a man-in-the-middle first), and the recorded video would be available in any situations where the live video is (though perhaps over a worse connection than Ring's servers have).
- input_sh 7y ago
  Even if we ignore privacy implications, doesn't Ring seem a little... inefficient? Having all of your cameras constantly uploading stuff to someone else's computer so that you could use your own client device (presumably, a smartphone) to look at a copy of stored videos (or a live feed) from someone else's computer? Wouldn't it be a bit more efficient to skip a step and stream straight from a computer within your home? It really boggles my mind why anyone tech-savvy would not only agree to this ineffective approach, but also pay a monthly subscription for that service.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > Wouldn't it be a bit more efficient to skip a step and stream straight from a computer within your home? Not if I'm away from home and can't talk directly to that computer because it's behind a firewall and my ISP won't let me run Internet-visible servers using my home Internet connection. (And even if the ISP would, while I, as a techie, might be willing to set up my own streaming server and poke a hole in my firewall for it, I'm not sure the average user would be able or willing to do that.)
    - input_sh 7y ago
      To quote myself: > It really boggles my mind why anyone tech-savvy... I wasn't talking about average users. > and my ISP won't let me run Internet-visible servers using my home Internet connection. I'll give you that one. I know that Google Fiber has an exception for such use cases. From: https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/2659981?hl=en&topic=2440874&ctx=topic https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/2659981?hl=en&topic=... > However, personal, non-commercial use of servers that comply with this AUP is acceptable, including using virtual private networks (VPN) to access services in your home and using hardware or applications that include server capabilities for uses like multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, and home security. I know that other ISPs in the US are somewhat shittier in this regard.
      - ryandrake 7y ago
        Some ISPs will say they don't "support" or "allow" it in their legalese, but it's just words they never enforce. It seems ridiculous to me as a customer to have an Internet connection yet only use it for outbound connections, and I've never had a problem running public-facing services on my "consumer grade" home connection.
- nullc 7y ago
  > Storing videos locally wouldn't support that. Sure it does. The Internet is a global wide area network that connects computer systems across the world. Perhaps you got confused and thought that the internet only connected you to Amazon? :) Smarm aside, I really wonder how you ended up thinking this? You're not the only person I've encountered that seemed to think cameras had to upload 'to the cloud' to be useful. E.g. after posting cute animal footage from my cameras ( https://people.xiph.org/~greg/troups.webm https://people.xiph.org/~greg/troups.webm ) I got a number of comment from people along the lines of being surprised that I'd hand footage of my home over to amazon which made no sense until I found out about how ring worked. This is quite surprising to me, because the bandwidth involved and the requirement for working internet connectivity makes remote storage seem really costly and unattractive to me and I was surprised to learn that's what products like ring were doing.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > Perhaps you got confused and thought that the internet only connected you to Amazon? :) Please save your patronizing for someone else. > You're not the only person I've encountered that seemed to think cameras had to upload 'to the cloud' to be useful. I've explained exactly what I think the issue is, and a number of people have given useful responses. You haven't.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > the bandwidth involved and the requirement for working internet connectivity makes remote storage seem really costly and unattractive to me If the camera doesn't have internet connectivity, I can't see what it's seeing when I'm away from home. That's a requirement, as I have already said.
    - nullc 7y ago
      I can see my cameras just fine when I'm away from home. But they also keep recording while my internet connectivity goes out. My cameras in aggregate also produce a lot more data than my internet connection could support-- about 180mbit/s during the day-- but that presets no problem for remote viewing because I only few a couple cameras at a time remotely. (I also can view the much lower bitrate substreams, while the full resolution is recorded locally.)
xsmasher 7y ago
If someone breaks in and steals your storage, you are SOL.
- blotter_paper 7y ago
  1) Give the local computer a public key, and have all video get encrypted as it goes into storage. 2) Keep the associated private key protected to your preference of security and convenience. 3) Decrypt the videos when you want to view them (if you're comfortable storing the private key on your phone, the only difference to the end user should be lag -- unless they lose the private key).
  - rescripting 7y ago
    How does encrypting your video help if the device that contains the video is stolen? The thief wont be able to view themselves committing the crime?
    - blotter_paper 7y ago
      Lulz, I took xsmasher to be worried about infosec in the case of a break-in -- I hadn't considered the issue of retaining the data until just now. Having it backup the encrypted video to cloud storage mitigates that worry while still keeping the info secure, though.
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  rsync or lftp (sftp subsystem) to a chroot sftp server with encrypted partitions. or 7-zip encrypt video chunks and upload using above method. In both cases, you can control the server and the data. You can hand over data that is applicable to the period of time in question and you still have your local copy.
  - ars 7y ago
    The time delay in your suggestion means you would miss the video that is most important if someone steals things.
rtkwe 7y ago
Storing it on a device especially one like the Ring where the whole device is outside the house makes them much less useful as a security device because a thief just has to steal the Ring device to steal the data.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
  Who said anything about storing it on the Ring? It's connected to your WiFi, just store it on a NAS (even a Ring-branded one).
  - nexuist 7y ago
    Can't they just take the NAS? If the NAS is outside of your home, where do you put it? Only the 1% own multiple homes and asking your parents or friends to hold it would just be...weird and complicated. And then you'd need to keep a separate NAS in your home, for the camera pointed at the NAS in your parent's house of course. Suffice it to say, it kind of makes sense to let Ring store all of the video in one central location since they can just hire armed guards to keep it safe. If you yourself can afford armed guards, you're probably not in their target market.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      Is there any reason, other than expense, the NAS couldn't be reasonably secured on site? Put it in a box made of quarter inch steel plate, then bolt that to the concrete foundation. If they bring a cutting torch or jackhammer they could take it... but they're not going to. With the density of modern storage media, the secure box could be quite small, much smaller even than a typical residential safe. And it needn't necessarily be accessible like a typical safe. If you design it right, it needn't even have a door that could be pried open with sufficient leverage. It could at the same time be disguised. It could be bolted to a concrete wall, covered with a fake electrical conduit box (which would help disguise the wires going into it), then completely covered over by drywall. To find it you'd need to gut the house, and in the unlikely event that the thief found it they'd still be left with a hard nut to crack.
plurple 7y ago
Because a lot of people aren’t home 24 hours a day, and thieves can steal cameras and computers. I use local storage for my security since I’m paranoid, but it’s more of a pain than Ring.
- dmix 7y ago
  It's only a pain because someone didn't do the hard work for you. Local storage with mobile access should be an option for more products. I'm sure this is a solvable problem... It's not the easiest solution but the trade-offs are necessary. Likewise with the poor state of router security.
  - paggle 7y ago
    The cheapest options like Wyze do function this way but are vulnerable to any of the threats that the camera is trying to detect (theft, fire, etc)
CPLX 7y ago
If your house burned down unexpectedly you'd be sort of curious to see what happened right? Or even just if the power or internet was out. The whole point of these things is to be able to see what's going on when something unexpected happens.
- nullc 7y ago
  It's doubtful that a camera on your doorstep is going to be particularly informative about your house fire. :) Though if fire is a concern, fire hardened nases are a thing. If the power is out the camera is out (unless it's on a UPS, in which case the storage can be too...). If the internet is out your cloud storage is out-- this is a problem that a local solution doesn't have.
jonas21 7y ago
People like to check in on their house from their smartphone when they're not at home. This would be difficult to set up and secure without doing it in the cloud.
- cgriswald 7y ago
  I really don’t understand why ISPs don’t sell VPN-to-the-home as a feature. It’s very useful and would make the scenario you describe trivial to set up. I imagine it would benefit the ISPs because they’d get not only your home traffic but your mobile traffic as well.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    What of your mobile traffic would your ISP actually get though? Can you GeoIP a connection from a cellphone? That's probably coarse data at best right? They could probably buy the location data from the mobile carrier, but that's not something they'd get for free. What the user was actually doing on their home VPN be largely opaque to the ISP. They might be able to make educated guesses like "this much traffic over this period of time looks a lot like somebody streaming a movie off their NAS", but that's pretty crude. I'm not sure they could really monetize that sort of data. On the other hand home VPNs being common would probably increase the how much uploading the average user did. These sort of residential connections are almost always asymmetric because ISPs are counting on people downloading far more than they upload. By empowering users with home VPNs, the balance of upload/download might be upset in a way that isn't profitable for the ISP.
    - cgriswald 7y ago
      By “mobile data” I don’t mean location data, I mean your internet usage while you’re out and about. If you’re sending all that out through your home VPN, your ISP has a bigger picture of your overall internet usage, not just your home usage. As for upload amounts, you are probably uploading less data, not more, because you don’t have to upload 100% of the data to the cloud to access 1% of it on demand.
  - 7y ago
mti27 7y ago
The average person's knowledge of routers and home networking probably stops just short of knowing how to assign static IPs, and definitely stops short of setting up a home VPN. If people knew how to do those 2 things, there might be less need to rely on "cloud" solutions like Ring. Blue Iris and a PC on the network is a great alternative...
delfinom 7y ago
Because they can charge monthly service fees, duh. It's the new age economy. Find anything and turn it into a subscription.

by nullc 7y ago

pdonis 7y ago

> I boggle at why security cameras would be sending the video offsite to a third party. Ring isn't a "third party", they're the party from which users (of which I am one) buy the cameras and the services that go with them. One of the services is being able to see live views from your cameras, or watch stored videos, from anywhere through the app. This is very useful if you're away from home. Storing videos locally wouldn't support that.

MereInterest 7y ago
Yes, storing video locally would support that. On request, the app and the local storage would negotiate a session key, and the video would be transferred to the phone. Ring would only have the encrypted video, and would not have the decryption key for it. Yes, it would be slower, would require video encoding/rescaling near the local storage, but it would actually be secure that way.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > storing video locally would support that. On request, the app and the local storage would negotiate a session key, and the video would be transferred to the phone. How do they do that if the app is halfway across the country? They have to go through a common server.
  - paggle 7y ago
    With public key encryption.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      Public-key encryption requires the two endpoints to be able to send each other data. See my comments about ISPs and firewalls elsewhere in this thread.
      - paggle 7y ago
        Yes, nobody is saying there won't be a central server... just that said central server won't be able to access the contents of the video.
  - Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
    The same way an HTTP[S] proxy works.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      How would an HTTP[S] proxy help me to talk to a computer that's behind my home NAT firewall if my ISP won't allow me to run Internet-visible servers?
      - Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
        First off, as mentioned in other comments, ISPs tend to not enforce the rules about not running Internet-visible servers. But let's go ahead and go with your assumption that they are. You can still have a secure connection from your doorbell camera to a mobile app anywhere in the world. Both your app and your camera connect to an intermediate server. This server merely acts like a proxy, passing packets between the two. Using a standard TLS handshake, the app can establish encryption with the camera without the proxy in the middle being able to decrypt the traffic. When the camera is initially setup, it can generate a TLS certificate that the app can download and pin (Since the app and camera will be on the same Wifi network), so that the proxy server can't try to present its own and intercept the communications. If you need me to go into greater detail, I can. But this is definitely a solved problem. EDIT: Another way to think of this...apps like Signal and Wire let people talk to each other by each client connecting to a central server to send and retrieve messages, but without the ability for those central servers to intercept the contents of the messages through public key encryption. The camera-to-app connection would work basically the same way.
        pdonis 7y ago
        I understand all this, but is there any camera out there that supports this kind of setup out of the box? Or do I have to roll my own if I want to do this?
        Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
        No idea. You'd probably have to roll your own.
eropple 7y ago
> Storing videos locally wouldn't support that. Of course it is--don't fall for the okeydoke. Encrypt with a passphrase. Provide the same passphrase in the app. Ring's central server exists only to pull streams on-demand and route them directly to the app. Ring can still even store VOD data if you really want; they don't have the ability to perpetuate the panopticon through it, though. There, I fixed it.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > Encrypt with a passphrase. Provide the same passphrase in the app. Are you saying Ring already offers this capability?
  - eropple 7y ago
    Sorry, I mean that Ring's server then only acts as a router. I strongly doubt it does that now, though I wouldn't give them money so I can't say for sure.
f-securus 7y ago
I mean... you can store videos locally and then access them over the internet while managing all of the hardware/software yourself. Though, that is another layer of complexity the average user won't be bothered with. People trade privacy for convenience.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > that is another layer of complexity the average user won't be bothered with. Yes. Plus ISPs (or at least US ones) won't allow you to run an Internet-visible server using your home Internet connection.
  - f-securus 7y ago
    If you change the port used, is it considered 'internet-visible'?
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    In practice I’ve never had a problem with running any server on my home connection except an SMTP server which required me to ask them to open the port directly (and they did). Most ISPs don’t seem to care if you’re not using a ridiculous amount of bandwidth. Many will sell you a package that explicitly allows it. I currently have access to live view and recorded video from my security system and haven’t had any problems at all. In the case of wide adoption of such a thing I imagine the ISPs either offering a more expensive package, or clamping down and offering their own version of the service through some monstrosity of a modem/router. It’s probably the latter that motivates most of these companies to use “the cloud”. There’s certainly ways around the problem for a motivated company, though.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > Plus ISPs (or at least US ones) won't allow you to run an Internet-visible server using your home Internet connection. That's not entirely the case. I've been running internet-visible servers from home for decades. My current ISP (Comcast) doesn't have a problem with that, even contractually, as long as you aren't running publicly available services, and I've never had a problem with any of my prior ISPs.
blotter_paper 7y ago
The live feed should work more efficiently with local storage (by going directly to the user rather than getting routed through a man-in-the-middle first), and the recorded video would be available in any situations where the live video is (though perhaps over a worse connection than Ring's servers have).
input_sh 7y ago
Even if we ignore privacy implications, doesn't Ring seem a little... inefficient? Having all of your cameras constantly uploading stuff to someone else's computer so that you could use your own client device (presumably, a smartphone) to look at a copy of stored videos (or a live feed) from someone else's computer? Wouldn't it be a bit more efficient to skip a step and stream straight from a computer within your home? It really boggles my mind why anyone tech-savvy would not only agree to this ineffective approach, but also pay a monthly subscription for that service.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > Wouldn't it be a bit more efficient to skip a step and stream straight from a computer within your home? Not if I'm away from home and can't talk directly to that computer because it's behind a firewall and my ISP won't let me run Internet-visible servers using my home Internet connection. (And even if the ISP would, while I, as a techie, might be willing to set up my own streaming server and poke a hole in my firewall for it, I'm not sure the average user would be able or willing to do that.)
  - input_sh 7y ago
    To quote myself: > It really boggles my mind why anyone tech-savvy... I wasn't talking about average users. > and my ISP won't let me run Internet-visible servers using my home Internet connection. I'll give you that one. I know that Google Fiber has an exception for such use cases. From: https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/2659981?hl=en&topic=2440874&ctx=topic https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/2659981?hl=en&topic=... > However, personal, non-commercial use of servers that comply with this AUP is acceptable, including using virtual private networks (VPN) to access services in your home and using hardware or applications that include server capabilities for uses like multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, and home security. I know that other ISPs in the US are somewhat shittier in this regard.
    - ryandrake 7y ago
      Some ISPs will say they don't "support" or "allow" it in their legalese, but it's just words they never enforce. It seems ridiculous to me as a customer to have an Internet connection yet only use it for outbound connections, and I've never had a problem running public-facing services on my "consumer grade" home connection.
nullc 7y ago
> Storing videos locally wouldn't support that. Sure it does. The Internet is a global wide area network that connects computer systems across the world. Perhaps you got confused and thought that the internet only connected you to Amazon? :) Smarm aside, I really wonder how you ended up thinking this? You're not the only person I've encountered that seemed to think cameras had to upload 'to the cloud' to be useful. E.g. after posting cute animal footage from my cameras ( https://people.xiph.org/~greg/troups.webm https://people.xiph.org/~greg/troups.webm ) I got a number of comment from people along the lines of being surprised that I'd hand footage of my home over to amazon which made no sense until I found out about how ring worked. This is quite surprising to me, because the bandwidth involved and the requirement for working internet connectivity makes remote storage seem really costly and unattractive to me and I was surprised to learn that's what products like ring were doing.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > Perhaps you got confused and thought that the internet only connected you to Amazon? :) Please save your patronizing for someone else. > You're not the only person I've encountered that seemed to think cameras had to upload 'to the cloud' to be useful. I've explained exactly what I think the issue is, and a number of people have given useful responses. You haven't.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > the bandwidth involved and the requirement for working internet connectivity makes remote storage seem really costly and unattractive to me If the camera doesn't have internet connectivity, I can't see what it's seeing when I'm away from home. That's a requirement, as I have already said.
  - nullc 7y ago
    I can see my cameras just fine when I'm away from home. But they also keep recording while my internet connectivity goes out. My cameras in aggregate also produce a lot more data than my internet connection could support-- about 180mbit/s during the day-- but that presets no problem for remote viewing because I only few a couple cameras at a time remotely. (I also can view the much lower bitrate substreams, while the full resolution is recorded locally.)

xsmasher 7y ago

If someone breaks in and steals your storage, you are SOL.

blotter_paper 7y ago
1) Give the local computer a public key, and have all video get encrypted as it goes into storage. 2) Keep the associated private key protected to your preference of security and convenience. 3) Decrypt the videos when you want to view them (if you're comfortable storing the private key on your phone, the only difference to the end user should be lag -- unless they lose the private key).
- rescripting 7y ago
  How does encrypting your video help if the device that contains the video is stolen? The thief wont be able to view themselves committing the crime?
  - blotter_paper 7y ago
    Lulz, I took xsmasher to be worried about infosec in the case of a break-in -- I hadn't considered the issue of retaining the data until just now. Having it backup the encrypted video to cloud storage mitigates that worry while still keeping the info secure, though.
LinuxBender 7y ago
rsync or lftp (sftp subsystem) to a chroot sftp server with encrypted partitions. or 7-zip encrypt video chunks and upload using above method. In both cases, you can control the server and the data. You can hand over data that is applicable to the period of time in question and you still have your local copy.
- ars 7y ago
  The time delay in your suggestion means you would miss the video that is most important if someone steals things.

rtkwe 7y ago

Storing it on a device especially one like the Ring where the whole device is outside the house makes them much less useful as a security device because a thief just has to steal the Ring device to steal the data.

SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
Who said anything about storing it on the Ring? It's connected to your WiFi, just store it on a NAS (even a Ring-branded one).
- nexuist 7y ago
  Can't they just take the NAS? If the NAS is outside of your home, where do you put it? Only the 1% own multiple homes and asking your parents or friends to hold it would just be...weird and complicated. And then you'd need to keep a separate NAS in your home, for the camera pointed at the NAS in your parent's house of course. Suffice it to say, it kind of makes sense to let Ring store all of the video in one central location since they can just hire armed guards to keep it safe. If you yourself can afford armed guards, you're probably not in their target market.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Is there any reason, other than expense, the NAS couldn't be reasonably secured on site? Put it in a box made of quarter inch steel plate, then bolt that to the concrete foundation. If they bring a cutting torch or jackhammer they could take it... but they're not going to. With the density of modern storage media, the secure box could be quite small, much smaller even than a typical residential safe. And it needn't necessarily be accessible like a typical safe. If you design it right, it needn't even have a door that could be pried open with sufficient leverage. It could at the same time be disguised. It could be bolted to a concrete wall, covered with a fake electrical conduit box (which would help disguise the wires going into it), then completely covered over by drywall. To find it you'd need to gut the house, and in the unlikely event that the thief found it they'd still be left with a hard nut to crack.

plurple 7y ago

Because a lot of people aren’t home 24 hours a day, and thieves can steal cameras and computers. I use local storage for my security since I’m paranoid, but it’s more of a pain than Ring.

dmix 7y ago
It's only a pain because someone didn't do the hard work for you. Local storage with mobile access should be an option for more products. I'm sure this is a solvable problem... It's not the easiest solution but the trade-offs are necessary. Likewise with the poor state of router security.
- paggle 7y ago
  The cheapest options like Wyze do function this way but are vulnerable to any of the threats that the camera is trying to detect (theft, fire, etc)

CPLX 7y ago

If your house burned down unexpectedly you'd be sort of curious to see what happened right? Or even just if the power or internet was out. The whole point of these things is to be able to see what's going on when something unexpected happens.

nullc 7y ago
It's doubtful that a camera on your doorstep is going to be particularly informative about your house fire. :) Though if fire is a concern, fire hardened nases are a thing. If the power is out the camera is out (unless it's on a UPS, in which case the storage can be too...). If the internet is out your cloud storage is out-- this is a problem that a local solution doesn't have.

jonas21 7y ago

People like to check in on their house from their smartphone when they're not at home. This would be difficult to set up and secure without doing it in the cloud.

cgriswald 7y ago
I really don’t understand why ISPs don’t sell VPN-to-the-home as a feature. It’s very useful and would make the scenario you describe trivial to set up. I imagine it would benefit the ISPs because they’d get not only your home traffic but your mobile traffic as well.
- catalogia 7y ago
  What of your mobile traffic would your ISP actually get though? Can you GeoIP a connection from a cellphone? That's probably coarse data at best right? They could probably buy the location data from the mobile carrier, but that's not something they'd get for free. What the user was actually doing on their home VPN be largely opaque to the ISP. They might be able to make educated guesses like "this much traffic over this period of time looks a lot like somebody streaming a movie off their NAS", but that's pretty crude. I'm not sure they could really monetize that sort of data. On the other hand home VPNs being common would probably increase the how much uploading the average user did. These sort of residential connections are almost always asymmetric because ISPs are counting on people downloading far more than they upload. By empowering users with home VPNs, the balance of upload/download might be upset in a way that isn't profitable for the ISP.
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    By “mobile data” I don’t mean location data, I mean your internet usage while you’re out and about. If you’re sending all that out through your home VPN, your ISP has a bigger picture of your overall internet usage, not just your home usage. As for upload amounts, you are probably uploading less data, not more, because you don’t have to upload 100% of the data to the cloud to access 1% of it on demand.
- 7y ago

mti27 7y ago

The average person's knowledge of routers and home networking probably stops just short of knowing how to assign static IPs, and definitely stops short of setting up a home VPN. If people knew how to do those 2 things, there might be less need to rely on "cloud" solutions like Ring. Blue Iris and a PC on the network is a great alternative...

delfinom 7y ago

Because they can charge monthly service fees, duh. It's the new age economy. Find anything and turn it into a subscription.