12 ms·

Amazon Ring’s neighborhood watch app is making police requests public

140 points by underscore_ku 5y ago

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Ha, coming soon: the local gang showing up at your door asking to see your logs to make sure you haven't snitched on them to the police. And the police harassing you because they know you have a Ring equipment but they never got footage from your camera's angle...
- that_guy_iain 5y ago
  Honestly, in the neighbourhood I grew up in, this would basically make having Amazon Ring a no-no. Noone in their right minds would want to have anything to do with it. You would be targetted and not just by the gangs.
  - merpnderp 5y ago
    Non-criminals would 'target' you for helping stop the criminals? What kind of bizarro place is that?
    - gruez 5y ago
      or maybe he's talking about non gang criminals?
    - madcow2 5y ago
      Places where kids sell crack to their parents because the alternative is the parents going to some unrelated crack dealer that will treat them much worse. And this is in the US. PS- feel free to replace "crack" with meth, heroine, etc
      - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
        insulin
        Filligree 5y ago
        Illegal smuggling of low-cost insulin is becoming a big issue, yes. Hopefully there's a crack-down on the way. /s
    - that_guy_iain 5y ago
      No, not all the criminals are in the gangs. Nearly everyone in the neighbourhood was a criminal of some sort. Everyone else just kept their mouth shut.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        "Everyone else" was probably a criminal too of some sort. They just hadn't received enough police scrutiny to make it official. It's basically impossible to follow all the laws (even ignoring the civil infraction stuff) all the time and live a reasonable life.
        OJFord 5y ago
        Especially if you live in a country with the word 'jaywalking'...
        MaxBarraclough 5y ago
        ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶j̶a̶y̶w̶a̶l̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶i̶d̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶r̶i̶m̶i̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶r̶y̶.̶ edit: This is mistaken.
        OJFord 5y ago
        Then what is it, in any country that has the word? (Here we call it 'crossing the road'.)
        throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        A civil infraction (or some other word for the same thing). Like walking your dog in a park that has a no-dogs sign.
        OJFord 5y ago
        That would be a local bye-law, which is neither criminal nor civil but could become criminal.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      well, let's suppose your Ring catches someone loitering in your neighborhood that looks like the 'wrong sort' and the police come out to check on the 'wrong sort' and they just happen to kill them - and then to explain why they had to kill the wrong sort of people they say they found some drugs on them... What kind of bizarro place is that?
      - merpnderp 5y ago
        If you think not having the police around is better than having the police around, I hope you never have to raise children in a place like the parent was describing.
        idiotsecant 5y ago
        Spoken from a true position of privilege! There are many communities where the police and the criminals are both likely to cause you trouble somewhere between a mild hassle and a life-altering interaction. The only difference is why they might do it. Distrust of the police amount law-abiding populations is a thing for a reason.
        setr 5y ago
        In the places that the parent is describing, the police aren't your allies. The more dangerous the area, the more aggressive and hostile the police (at least to some degree by necessity), and the stronger the "presumed guilty" takes hold, and the more hostile the population itself is to the police. In the worst of those areas, the gangs themselves take on the role of the police (offering services such as protection, policy enforcement, loans, etc).
    - sneak 5y ago
      Surveillance has other effects than helping to impede criminals (note also that this effect is dependent wholly on police initiative and competence, as well, two things often lacking in minor crime investigations). Not everyone wants to be under surveillance 24/7, even if it does aid police sometimes in reducing crime, as it also aids police in doing the other things police do that are unrelated to law enforcement (harassment, theft, intimidation, extortion, et c).
      - annoyingnoob 5y ago
        There are streets in my neighborhood I don't walk down because almost everyone has a Ring camera. I don't want to be followed around by Ring when I walk the dog.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- jessehattabaugh 5y ago
  My doorbell camera isn't even a Ring, but the local teens still make a point to flip it off every time they see it come on. Makes me want to put up a sign that says "not a snitch!"
bob33212 5y ago
The best use case for Amazon is having drivers put packages within view of the ring cameras. Then ring will know when someone steals the package. The home owner on their ring app would do the work of confirming the package was stolen.
- frockington1 5y ago
  I've seen it used in my neighborhood for that purpose. Package is stolen, call the police and alert neighbors with suspect description. Quickly noticed a drop in porch pirates afterwards.
- pavel_lishin 5y ago
  It would also ensure that the packages actually get delivered, instead of just being marked as so. Granted, sometimes this happens because the drivers are being held to an impossible standard for the deliveries they must make; Amazon gets to have someone to point a finger at.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  > Then ring will know when someone steals the package. Except that no one other than the recipient and maybe Amazon care about that. Certainly not law enforcement.
  - stu2b50 5y ago
    Yes, but the recipient is also the one who's installing the camera, so one of the two impacted parties has a vested interest in knowing and therefore it is useful. If you knew it was stolen, then you can immediately act with that knowledge in mind. You don't have to worry about whether or not the postman scanned your package with the wrong device (falsely showing that it has been delivered when it will be tomorrow), or if they plopped it down at your neighbor's driveway by accident, or if the delivery driver hid it from porch pirates but also yourself. It's just nice to know that yes, it was stolen, you're not getting it back, time to go to Amazon support/order a replacement/go to a physical store rather than being in a limbo state.
  - deleted 5y ago
jellicle 5y ago
Seems to me that nearly every assertion in that Reuters story is wrong. Police agencies may be being given a new, additional way to request video data, but nothing Ring can do can prevent police agencies from using the old, legal methods of requesting video data. So now there are two separate data request systems: 1) "pretty please can people send videos" 2) subpoena, direct request, national security letters, etc. Anything built in to the legal system. 1) will be public and probably not too common - fishing expeditions by the police. 2) will not be public at all and will represent the bulk of data transfer from individuals to the police, and in general the public will never know it happened. 1) will be soft-represented as the totality of data transfer by Ring, if you (as an enterprising young reporter) happen to make the mistake of reporting it as the totality, Ring will definitely not call you up and correct the record. Specifically, these paragraphs are both complete bullshit: > "Public safety agencies such as police and fire departments now must request material from their communities through a new, publicly viewable type of post on the Neighbors app, Ring said in a blog." They certainly mustn't. > "It said no information would be shared with agencies without users choosing to do so and that requests can be issued only by verified agency profiles and that request history will be logged online, so users can see how their police force is using the posts." Complete bullshit as well. Ring doesn't make the rules.
- vageli 5y ago
  This was my reaction as well. Maybe it relies on redefining "sharing" information with agencies as distinct from furnishing information in compliance with a subpoena. The optimist in me sees this as a way to push departments to prefer the methods of the legal system to obtain this info, but then why even make it available without a court order in the first place?
- OJFord 5y ago
  > They certainly mustn't. Well, they may. (Hard to imagine they will, agreed.) i.e. if 'must' is the function m(x), then 'must not' is m(¬x); not ¬m(x). Here it's 'not the case that they must', that is, ¬m(request through Ring app).
- rantwasp 5y ago
  2 things: of course if there is a subpoena they will need to turn over the footage + ring supposedly has e2e encryption where they would actually have to get the footage from you. i have a ring camera and: 1) I did not let their app use gps and i did not give them an adress (ie ring does not know, in theory where the camera is) 2) i straight up disabled requests from law enforcement (yes there is a setting for that) 3) i opted out of the neighbors thing (you cannot be in a neighborhood if you don’t have an address + explicitly opting out). it’s sad that there isn’t a product on the market that actually respects user’s privacy
fasteddie31003 5y ago
I like how technology is making crime harder to get away with. CCTV has probably lead to convictions in 100,000's of cases over its lifetime and deterred many more. I can't think of many negative outcomes to society from CCTV systems. My hope is that AirTags will make petty theft harder to get away with too.
- jgalt212 5y ago
  You mean IRL crime, cybercrime is easier than ever to pull off.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  CCTV only deters blue collar crime. White collar crime still has no equivalent deterrent. In a sense, CCTV helps us punish those who are already desperate. While not necessarily a negative in the abstract, in concrete terms one has to wonder why there's no CCTV cameras in executive offices, no screen recordings of everything they do on their computer.
  - nucleogenesis 5y ago
    Thank you for making this very important point.
  - mediascreen 5y ago
    Maybe not exactly the same thing, but there are tax auditors, tax audits, access logging (for some administrative systems), "know your customer" bank regulations and public insider registries for example.
    - becquerel 5y ago
      But unfortunately, regulations only bind the weak: https://www.gq.com/story/no-irs-audits-for-the-rich https://www.gq.com/story/no-irs-audits-for-the-rich
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
lnxg33k1 5y ago
I think I don't even have words anymore to describe the sense of repulsion and disgust that only reading the name of that company originates in me, I think it is a very good indicator of the shallowness and ignorance of our society the fact that it keeps growing, no matter how much taxes they dodge despite using the publicly paid for infrastructures (at least here in EU), not matter how they treat their employees and customers, we don't care "they offer a good service and low prices" We deserve the extinction and amazon was built to make humanity understand how much it's not worth existing
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  I feel a little less repulsed knowing that the (too petty to go through the legal channels and get a subpoena) requests made to view footage will be available to (and subject to audit and scrutiny by) the public.
- ccity88 5y ago
  I somewhat agree with this take, although this isn't the result of the shallowness and ignorance of our collective society, but rather the shallowness and ignorance of the people at the top of society. Most people just want to get by, we don't "allow" amazon to keep growing, they keep growing because of the monopolisation mechanics of our capitalist society. You can be repulsed by amazon all you like, but until there's a viable competitor they'll continue to do what they do. Perhaps we need to hit the reset button on capitalism altogether and reevaluate what it means to be a company, to have human centred capitalism rather than profit focused capitalism. Maybe we'll be forced to move in that direction anyway, because of the social and environmental affects that we see today.
  - buffet_overflow 5y ago
    Agreed that it's difficult to responsibility of these companies on the individual. There's a background assumption that "if they exist in this form, they are allowed", otherwise, what are the US government (regulatory functions) doing? Another reason it's difficult to impossible to collectively fight back is when you read articles about how Amazon strongarms companies into never undercutting the price on the Amazon storefront. It adds an insidious reason to "wow the manufacturer is so silly, it's cheaper on Amazon with free shipping than on their own website!" when in reality it's a dark pattern we don't control and a vast majority don't think about as they "get by".
prower 5y ago
I'm not sure I will ever understand the need or the advantage of linking my doorbell to an Amazon server. US such a bizarre place.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  Everyone is different. Some people think that device and what it offers to them is useful. If you have a large house and get the occasional visitor that doesn't just come in anyway, I can see how this might be a convenient setup. And it's all about convenience. And non-tech people don't care about the "Amazon server" part at all.
- gnicholas 5y ago
  I'm in the US and I agree. I was never a huge fan of Ring, and when they were acquired by Amazon that made it a deal-breaker. Amazon already knows enough about me. It's probably no accident that Amazon doesn't tout Ring devices as being Amazon-owned. I imagine there are others who would be less likely to purchase if they were aware of the connection.
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    If Amazon/Google/etc. already knows everything about the customer, they won't feel so uncomfortable handing over a little bit more to them. A small unknown company on the other hand, I'm more reticent to hand over my information to.
- jxy 5y ago
  Amazon knows exactly your credit cards, your names, your addresses, your front porch, your wifi SSIDs and pre-shared passwords, your purchases and their frequencies and amounts, your voices and accents, your photos, your music, your visitors and their frequencies ... It's difficult to find a thing Amazon doesn't know about you.
  - prower 5y ago
    Yes, so let's just also install their own security cameras and microphones in our homes for marginal benefits at best. I'll make you an offer: i'll send you one of my microphones and cameras. Let's just assume that I already know everything about you, so let's don't worry about it. You won't even notice it's there. Would you have problems letting me see and hear your life? I promise i won't send you spam emails.
tokamak-teapot 5y ago
Is there a cheap alternative to Ring that is easy to set up , cheap and can store on a local Linux server / but is also private and doesn’t have any data leaving my network unless it’s direct to an app on my phone?
- barbazoo 5y ago
  I did a quick search for a doorbell solution for the home automation system of my choice and it seems like people came up with solutions [1]. It doesn't look trivial to set up but definitely possible. [1] https://kleypot.com/fully-offline-video-doorbell-for-home-assistant/ https://kleypot.com/fully-offline-video-doorbell-for-home-as...
- endisneigh 5y ago
  Amcres/Foscam with some configuration changes
- robotmay 5y ago
  I now use a piece of software called Frigate, alongside Home Assistant, to do this. It works extremely well, surprisingly. I can watch clips and live streams via the Home Assistant apps on my phone, and for outside the house I have a Wireguard VPN to connect back. Works with any camera models with RTSP streams, which I put on a subnet with no internet access in case they phone home. I wrote a little about my switch to this setup, if it's useful: https://senryu.pub/afternoonrobot/articles/replacing-unifi-video-with-frigate-and-home-assistant https://senryu.pub/afternoonrobot/articles/replacing-unifi-v... Edit: doorbell-wise there are a few models that would work with this setup but I don’t have one at the moment - my doorbell wiring is a really weird voltage and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet.
  - tokamak-teapot 5y ago
    "Works with any camera models with RTSP streams, which I put on a subnet with no internet access in case they phone home." This is great info, thanks!
- josefresco 5y ago
maerF0x0 5y ago
While most of the comments are negative towards the general concept of internet connected doorbell/cam , I want to take a moment to congratulate Amazon on an uncharacteristic move towards the positive. Transparency for these kinds of requests will help give data for watchdogs. So just a +1 and thankyou from me today.
swiley 5y ago
We're rapidly approaching the point where being near anyone that doesn't go out of their way to avoid these companies can get you in trouble. You've always had a responsibility to educate your friends about the dangers of closed software but now failing them can severely cost you.
anti-nazi 5y ago
need a lot more to be public tbh

140 points by underscore_ku 5y ago

Ha, coming soon: the local gang showing up at your door asking to see your logs to make sure you haven't snitched on them to the police. And the police harassing you because they know you have a Ring equipment but they never got footage from your camera's angle...

that_guy_iain 5y ago
Honestly, in the neighbourhood I grew up in, this would basically make having Amazon Ring a no-no. Noone in their right minds would want to have anything to do with it. You would be targetted and not just by the gangs.
- merpnderp 5y ago
  Non-criminals would 'target' you for helping stop the criminals? What kind of bizarro place is that?
  - gruez 5y ago
    or maybe he's talking about non gang criminals?
  - madcow2 5y ago
    Places where kids sell crack to their parents because the alternative is the parents going to some unrelated crack dealer that will treat them much worse. And this is in the US. PS- feel free to replace "crack" with meth, heroine, etc
    - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
      insulin
      - Filligree 5y ago
        Illegal smuggling of low-cost insulin is becoming a big issue, yes. Hopefully there's a crack-down on the way. /s
  - that_guy_iain 5y ago
    No, not all the criminals are in the gangs. Nearly everyone in the neighbourhood was a criminal of some sort. Everyone else just kept their mouth shut.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      "Everyone else" was probably a criminal too of some sort. They just hadn't received enough police scrutiny to make it official. It's basically impossible to follow all the laws (even ignoring the civil infraction stuff) all the time and live a reasonable life.
      - OJFord 5y ago
        Especially if you live in a country with the word 'jaywalking'...
        MaxBarraclough 5y ago
        ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶j̶a̶y̶w̶a̶l̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶i̶d̶e̶r̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶r̶i̶m̶i̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶r̶y̶.̶ edit: This is mistaken.
        OJFord 5y ago
        Then what is it, in any country that has the word? (Here we call it 'crossing the road'.)
        throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        A civil infraction (or some other word for the same thing). Like walking your dog in a park that has a no-dogs sign.
        OJFord 5y ago
        That would be a local bye-law, which is neither criminal nor civil but could become criminal.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    well, let's suppose your Ring catches someone loitering in your neighborhood that looks like the 'wrong sort' and the police come out to check on the 'wrong sort' and they just happen to kill them - and then to explain why they had to kill the wrong sort of people they say they found some drugs on them... What kind of bizarro place is that?
    - merpnderp 5y ago
      If you think not having the police around is better than having the police around, I hope you never have to raise children in a place like the parent was describing.
      - idiotsecant 5y ago
        Spoken from a true position of privilege! There are many communities where the police and the criminals are both likely to cause you trouble somewhere between a mild hassle and a life-altering interaction. The only difference is why they might do it. Distrust of the police amount law-abiding populations is a thing for a reason.
      - setr 5y ago
        In the places that the parent is describing, the police aren't your allies. The more dangerous the area, the more aggressive and hostile the police (at least to some degree by necessity), and the stronger the "presumed guilty" takes hold, and the more hostile the population itself is to the police. In the worst of those areas, the gangs themselves take on the role of the police (offering services such as protection, policy enforcement, loans, etc).
  - sneak 5y ago
    Surveillance has other effects than helping to impede criminals (note also that this effect is dependent wholly on police initiative and competence, as well, two things often lacking in minor crime investigations). Not everyone wants to be under surveillance 24/7, even if it does aid police sometimes in reducing crime, as it also aids police in doing the other things police do that are unrelated to law enforcement (harassment, theft, intimidation, extortion, et c).
    - annoyingnoob 5y ago
      There are streets in my neighborhood I don't walk down because almost everyone has a Ring camera. I don't want to be followed around by Ring when I walk the dog.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jessehattabaugh 5y ago
My doorbell camera isn't even a Ring, but the local teens still make a point to flip it off every time they see it come on. Makes me want to put up a sign that says "not a snitch!"

bob33212 5y ago

The best use case for Amazon is having drivers put packages within view of the ring cameras. Then ring will know when someone steals the package. The home owner on their ring app would do the work of confirming the package was stolen.

frockington1 5y ago
I've seen it used in my neighborhood for that purpose. Package is stolen, call the police and alert neighbors with suspect description. Quickly noticed a drop in porch pirates afterwards.
pavel_lishin 5y ago
It would also ensure that the packages actually get delivered, instead of just being marked as so. Granted, sometimes this happens because the drivers are being held to an impossible standard for the deliveries they must make; Amazon gets to have someone to point a finger at.
barbazoo 5y ago
> Then ring will know when someone steals the package. Except that no one other than the recipient and maybe Amazon care about that. Certainly not law enforcement.
- stu2b50 5y ago
  Yes, but the recipient is also the one who's installing the camera, so one of the two impacted parties has a vested interest in knowing and therefore it is useful. If you knew it was stolen, then you can immediately act with that knowledge in mind. You don't have to worry about whether or not the postman scanned your package with the wrong device (falsely showing that it has been delivered when it will be tomorrow), or if they plopped it down at your neighbor's driveway by accident, or if the delivery driver hid it from porch pirates but also yourself. It's just nice to know that yes, it was stolen, you're not getting it back, time to go to Amazon support/order a replacement/go to a physical store rather than being in a limbo state.
- deleted 5y ago

jellicle 5y ago

Seems to me that nearly every assertion in that Reuters story is wrong. Police agencies may be being given a new, additional way to request video data, but nothing Ring can do can prevent police agencies from using the old, legal methods of requesting video data. So now there are two separate data request systems: 1) "pretty please can people send videos" 2) subpoena, direct request, national security letters, etc. Anything built in to the legal system. 1) will be public and probably not too common - fishing expeditions by the police. 2) will not be public at all and will represent the bulk of data transfer from individuals to the police, and in general the public will never know it happened. 1) will be soft-represented as the totality of data transfer by Ring, if you (as an enterprising young reporter) happen to make the mistake of reporting it as the totality, Ring will definitely not call you up and correct the record. Specifically, these paragraphs are both complete bullshit: > "Public safety agencies such as police and fire departments now must request material from their communities through a new, publicly viewable type of post on the Neighbors app, Ring said in a blog." They certainly mustn't. > "It said no information would be shared with agencies without users choosing to do so and that requests can be issued only by verified agency profiles and that request history will be logged online, so users can see how their police force is using the posts." Complete bullshit as well. Ring doesn't make the rules.

vageli 5y ago
This was my reaction as well. Maybe it relies on redefining "sharing" information with agencies as distinct from furnishing information in compliance with a subpoena. The optimist in me sees this as a way to push departments to prefer the methods of the legal system to obtain this info, but then why even make it available without a court order in the first place?
OJFord 5y ago
> They certainly mustn't. Well, they may. (Hard to imagine they will, agreed.) i.e. if 'must' is the function m(x), then 'must not' is m(¬x); not ¬m(x). Here it's 'not the case that they must', that is, ¬m(request through Ring app).
rantwasp 5y ago
2 things: of course if there is a subpoena they will need to turn over the footage + ring supposedly has e2e encryption where they would actually have to get the footage from you. i have a ring camera and: 1) I did not let their app use gps and i did not give them an adress (ie ring does not know, in theory where the camera is) 2) i straight up disabled requests from law enforcement (yes there is a setting for that) 3) i opted out of the neighbors thing (you cannot be in a neighborhood if you don’t have an address + explicitly opting out). it’s sad that there isn’t a product on the market that actually respects user’s privacy

fasteddie31003 5y ago

I like how technology is making crime harder to get away with. CCTV has probably lead to convictions in 100,000's of cases over its lifetime and deterred many more. I can't think of many negative outcomes to society from CCTV systems. My hope is that AirTags will make petty theft harder to get away with too.

jgalt212 5y ago
You mean IRL crime, cybercrime is easier than ever to pull off.
AlexandrB 5y ago
CCTV only deters blue collar crime. White collar crime still has no equivalent deterrent. In a sense, CCTV helps us punish those who are already desperate. While not necessarily a negative in the abstract, in concrete terms one has to wonder why there's no CCTV cameras in executive offices, no screen recordings of everything they do on their computer.
- nucleogenesis 5y ago
  Thank you for making this very important point.
- mediascreen 5y ago
  Maybe not exactly the same thing, but there are tax auditors, tax audits, access logging (for some administrative systems), "know your customer" bank regulations and public insider registries for example.
  - becquerel 5y ago
    But unfortunately, regulations only bind the weak: https://www.gq.com/story/no-irs-audits-for-the-rich https://www.gq.com/story/no-irs-audits-for-the-rich
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

lnxg33k1 5y ago

I think I don't even have words anymore to describe the sense of repulsion and disgust that only reading the name of that company originates in me, I think it is a very good indicator of the shallowness and ignorance of our society the fact that it keeps growing, no matter how much taxes they dodge despite using the publicly paid for infrastructures (at least here in EU), not matter how they treat their employees and customers, we don't care "they offer a good service and low prices" We deserve the extinction and amazon was built to make humanity understand how much it's not worth existing

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
I feel a little less repulsed knowing that the (too petty to go through the legal channels and get a subpoena) requests made to view footage will be available to (and subject to audit and scrutiny by) the public.
ccity88 5y ago
I somewhat agree with this take, although this isn't the result of the shallowness and ignorance of our collective society, but rather the shallowness and ignorance of the people at the top of society. Most people just want to get by, we don't "allow" amazon to keep growing, they keep growing because of the monopolisation mechanics of our capitalist society. You can be repulsed by amazon all you like, but until there's a viable competitor they'll continue to do what they do. Perhaps we need to hit the reset button on capitalism altogether and reevaluate what it means to be a company, to have human centred capitalism rather than profit focused capitalism. Maybe we'll be forced to move in that direction anyway, because of the social and environmental affects that we see today.
- buffet_overflow 5y ago
  Agreed that it's difficult to responsibility of these companies on the individual. There's a background assumption that "if they exist in this form, they are allowed", otherwise, what are the US government (regulatory functions) doing? Another reason it's difficult to impossible to collectively fight back is when you read articles about how Amazon strongarms companies into never undercutting the price on the Amazon storefront. It adds an insidious reason to "wow the manufacturer is so silly, it's cheaper on Amazon with free shipping than on their own website!" when in reality it's a dark pattern we don't control and a vast majority don't think about as they "get by".

prower 5y ago

I'm not sure I will ever understand the need or the advantage of linking my doorbell to an Amazon server. US such a bizarre place.

barbazoo 5y ago
Everyone is different. Some people think that device and what it offers to them is useful. If you have a large house and get the occasional visitor that doesn't just come in anyway, I can see how this might be a convenient setup. And it's all about convenience. And non-tech people don't care about the "Amazon server" part at all.
gnicholas 5y ago
I'm in the US and I agree. I was never a huge fan of Ring, and when they were acquired by Amazon that made it a deal-breaker. Amazon already knows enough about me. It's probably no accident that Amazon doesn't tout Ring devices as being Amazon-owned. I imagine there are others who would be less likely to purchase if they were aware of the connection.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  If Amazon/Google/etc. already knows everything about the customer, they won't feel so uncomfortable handing over a little bit more to them. A small unknown company on the other hand, I'm more reticent to hand over my information to.
jxy 5y ago
Amazon knows exactly your credit cards, your names, your addresses, your front porch, your wifi SSIDs and pre-shared passwords, your purchases and their frequencies and amounts, your voices and accents, your photos, your music, your visitors and their frequencies ... It's difficult to find a thing Amazon doesn't know about you.
- prower 5y ago
  Yes, so let's just also install their own security cameras and microphones in our homes for marginal benefits at best. I'll make you an offer: i'll send you one of my microphones and cameras. Let's just assume that I already know everything about you, so let's don't worry about it. You won't even notice it's there. Would you have problems letting me see and hear your life? I promise i won't send you spam emails.

tokamak-teapot 5y ago

Is there a cheap alternative to Ring that is easy to set up , cheap and can store on a local Linux server / but is also private and doesn’t have any data leaving my network unless it’s direct to an app on my phone?

barbazoo 5y ago
I did a quick search for a doorbell solution for the home automation system of my choice and it seems like people came up with solutions [1]. It doesn't look trivial to set up but definitely possible. [1] https://kleypot.com/fully-offline-video-doorbell-for-home-assistant/ https://kleypot.com/fully-offline-video-doorbell-for-home-as...
endisneigh 5y ago
Amcres/Foscam with some configuration changes
robotmay 5y ago
I now use a piece of software called Frigate, alongside Home Assistant, to do this. It works extremely well, surprisingly. I can watch clips and live streams via the Home Assistant apps on my phone, and for outside the house I have a Wireguard VPN to connect back. Works with any camera models with RTSP streams, which I put on a subnet with no internet access in case they phone home. I wrote a little about my switch to this setup, if it's useful: https://senryu.pub/afternoonrobot/articles/replacing-unifi-video-with-frigate-and-home-assistant https://senryu.pub/afternoonrobot/articles/replacing-unifi-v... Edit: doorbell-wise there are a few models that would work with this setup but I don’t have one at the moment - my doorbell wiring is a really weird voltage and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet.
- tokamak-teapot 5y ago
  "Works with any camera models with RTSP streams, which I put on a subnet with no internet access in case they phone home." This is great info, thanks!
josefresco 5y ago

maerF0x0 5y ago

While most of the comments are negative towards the general concept of internet connected doorbell/cam , I want to take a moment to congratulate Amazon on an uncharacteristic move towards the positive. Transparency for these kinds of requests will help give data for watchdogs. So just a +1 and thankyou from me today.

swiley 5y ago

We're rapidly approaching the point where being near anyone that doesn't go out of their way to avoid these companies can get you in trouble. You've always had a responsibility to educate your friends about the dangers of closed software but now failing them can severely cost you.

anti-nazi 5y ago

need a lot more to be public tbh