5 ms·

If you're rich and/or highly mobile, you retreat to avoid this as much as you can. For everyone else, you try to maintain order where you are. Let's say (not s

If you're rich and/or highly mobile, you retreat to avoid this as much as you can. For everyone else, you try to maintain order where you are. Let's say (not so hypothetically) that I'm tired of the drug dealer across the street, between the trash in the street, the bags of used needles, the random scrapes of my car by beaters flying through, and on and on. I could, have, and do report this all to the police, but they will always deescalate things to minimize workload, or in some other way that is clearly not focused on maintaining law and order. I thought it was compelling the time that one of their clients showed up on my porch, beating on the door yelling with a hole in his face from a gunshot wound, but the police didn't do anything with that, either (other than, for once, actually showing up.) So I'm very sure that my most effective means of improving the situation is to put cameras on their affairs from my house and get all the other adjacent neighbors to do likewise. The dealers have felt the heat, and now their clients are normally more respectful and quiet, presumably at the prompting of the dealers. If they want anonymity when being disruptive or acting illegally, they should go find somewhere where they can blend in.

ReactiveJelly 5y ago
I just wish it was easier to control the data. The majority of consumers will never be tech-savvy. So a bunch of security cameras really means a bunch of security cameras whose software is 100% controlled by some central authority. I'd feel safer if it was controlled by the actual home-owner.
- danuker 5y ago
  With the GDPR in the EU, the chilling effects of complying with the regulation affect the homeowners, as opposed to a large company or government department. Just look at fines, and it should become clear who the law was written for: https://danuker.go.ro/gdpranoia.html#fines https://danuker.go.ro/gdpranoia.html#fines
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  This! Even as someone who is pretty tech savvy accomplishing this is hard enough that it's been a deterrent. You can get cheap setups that keep very limited data recorded locally, or easier at some central cloud provider. Local storage with cloud backup to S3 or similar that you control becomes so much more complicated and expensive.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I think local storage is generally fine. Depending on the format and frame rate, 2TB is reasonably cheap and can hold about a month of video from several cameras.
  - gonehome 5y ago
    I think Unify setups are probably easiest: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Perhaps, not unlike the NRA originating from a perceived need to educate the citizenry widely on how to use firearms, a "National Observers Organization" is called for to help citizens self-organize, promulgate knowledge, and spread good security practices? I'm going to leave the naming up to someone else; "NOO" doesn't seem a great acronym for a popular organization.
  - KineticLensman 5y ago
    STreet Awareness Zone Initiative?
  - quickthrowman 5y ago
    I’ve got a couple suggestions: Stop Neighborhood Invasions; Together Creating Harmony / Nosy Ass Ridiculous Citizens
- jinto36 5y ago
  There are plenty of ways to do this without data going to the cloud. Plenty of non-cloud connected cameras- though many are more commercially oriented- and software that's reasonably priced like BlueIris. Everything is recorded in H264 so storage isn't crazy if you don't keep all of it forever. Many cameras also end up at (or can be set to) 10-15 FPS, which also cuts down storage requirements. BlueIris is actually pretty nice. I got a bunch of cameras from ebay and such- some wireless, some wired and POE powered- and just use BlueIris to manage them locally. Ended up with more cameras that I really needed, so I also have one permanently pointed at a bird feeder for fun...
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Whatever the non cloud solutions are, they obviously are nowhere as cheap and easy as the cloud solutions based on the success of the cloud solutions. A solution that someone can pickup at Costco and setup via scanning some QR code in 10 minutes is always going to win versus spending an hour or many hours delving into networking and figuring out what equipment you need and troubleshooting. Nobody wants to deal with DDNS or port forwarding or other issues when trying to remotely access the video either.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
specialist 5y ago
Privacy is a luxury good.
- adventured 5y ago
  Privacy at the very top is extraordinarily expensive. It's extraordinarily inexpensive at the very bottom. It's dramatically easier to disappear in terms of privacy if you're poor than if you're in the middle class. You're not going to show up in stores as often (less surveillence footage, less facial recognition). You're not as likely to own or use a smartphone, which means no device in your pocket tracking you everywhere. You're far less likely to utilize Uber type services, Instacart, et al. You're far less likely to own a credit card, and more likely to use cash; which means a far smaller purchase history/footprint to profile you with. You're far less likely to often use the Internet, which means a smaller online footprint; that also goes for social media. You're less likely to own various smart devices that will spy on you. You're far less likely to own real-estate or businesses, which often show up on public records at some point. You're less likely to have various entertainment subscriptions (Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+, cable, and so on), which again reduces your footprint vs most everybody else. Your job requirements are typically far lower and far less connected, leaving a smaller footprint (no zoom meetings, no zillions of digital profiles, no linkedin, no networking, no slack, no conferences, and on and on). If you don't have purchasing power, the privacy invading fiends in the commercial sphere mostly don't care if you exist or not. They are not motivated to go out of their way to track you. You don't count, you don't show up in their numbers. Think of the numerous services (Kroger or Walgreens cards; Peloton; eBay, Etsy, PayPal, Coinbase, brokerage accounts; Apple services; and 400 others) the middle class and above sign on to, and how they get tracked by them regularly. Politically you also matter a lot less, because you're far less likely to vote if you're poor vs middle class and above. So you're tracked, profiled and contacted far less often by the political machine. And you have no money to give them, so they care that much less about keeping tabs on you.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    IMO commerce with Apple has upped the game on privacy for everyone. Apple has email aliases so that ordinary people can hide their email. Apple has private relay so that ordinary people can experience TOR lite. Apple has Apple Pay so that stores hardly know anything about you. With Sign up with Apple you can create accounts which hand over very little information. This does not mean that Apple is free of contradiction, such as with their unpopular announcement to scan your pictures for child porn. But in the sum Apple has been making privacy easier for everyone, and not just for technical folks.
hammock 5y ago
I don't know how we can have the metaverse without cameras everywhere. Do we really the course of surveillance has any chance of slowing down?
LurkingPenguin 5y ago
> So I'm very sure that my most effective means of improving the situation is to put cameras on their affairs from my house and get all the other adjacent neighbors to do likewise. The dealers have felt the heat, and now their clients are normally more respectful and quiet, presumably at the prompting of the dealers. Do you really believe this is going to be effective? In your scenario where the police are unresponsive to reports, what makes you think that they're suddenly going to care if you send them a bunch of surveillance video of illicit activity? The drug dealers know when they're operating in safe territory. In places like San Francisco, people openly deal and use drugs on the street because they know that they are likely to get away with it. I bet if you posed as a journalist, some of these people would even let you photograph their activities, all while flashing big smiles.
- QuarterReptile 5y ago
  I believe that my local police are merely ineffective. The San Francisco law enforcement situation is way further gone, by all accounts.
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
> If you're rich and/or highly mobile, you retreat to avoid this as much as you can. That is certainly an option but it is not one I think many rich people have taken, at least not for the purpose of avoiding surveillance. Most rich (i.e. top 1% or top 5%) people just don't care that much if they appear in passing on someone else's porch camera. They believe (I think correctly) that the odds of that causing them any material harm are close to nil. There are a small handful of people who value privacy from mass nonspecific surveillance for its own sake, but it's an attitude that is not that common in the US, at least as far as we can tell from revealed preferences. (Ed: I now see by "this" you're referring to bad behavior surveilled, not surveillance. In that case, I would tend to agree with you.)
giantg2 5y ago
Most states have some process for citizens to file criminal complaints without the police. Although the DA might decide not to pursue it.
parasense 5y ago
This is effectively the inverse equality of police body cameras resulting in less belligerent policing, etc...
- burnished 5y ago
  Bodycams are frankly an attempt to answer "who watches the watchmen", porch cameras are not. They both involve cameras but I don't see the connection aside from that, and would dispute one thing being the inverse of the other.
  - parasense 5y ago
    > Bodycams are frankly an attempt to answer "who watches the watchmen", porch cameras are not. That's missing the point, and possibly willfully missing the point? The point is.... people are being watched. Both criminals and police change their behavior when they know they're being monitored, or under surveillance. > They both involve cameras but I don't see the connection aside from that, and would dispute one thing being the inverse of the other. Again, I can only guess willful ignorance it to blame. criminals take steps to avoid cameras, or cover their faces. Police are less likely to abuse their authority when the body cam is activated. Do you see the connection, in both scenarios the subject changes behavior.

ReactiveJelly 5y ago

I just wish it was easier to control the data. The majority of consumers will never be tech-savvy. So a bunch of security cameras really means a bunch of security cameras whose software is 100% controlled by some central authority. I'd feel safer if it was controlled by the actual home-owner.

danuker 5y ago
With the GDPR in the EU, the chilling effects of complying with the regulation affect the homeowners, as opposed to a large company or government department. Just look at fines, and it should become clear who the law was written for: https://danuker.go.ro/gdpranoia.html#fines https://danuker.go.ro/gdpranoia.html#fines
ajmurmann 5y ago
This! Even as someone who is pretty tech savvy accomplishing this is hard enough that it's been a deterrent. You can get cheap setups that keep very limited data recorded locally, or easier at some central cloud provider. Local storage with cloud backup to S3 or similar that you control becomes so much more complicated and expensive.
- giantg2 5y ago
  I think local storage is generally fine. Depending on the format and frame rate, 2TB is reasonably cheap and can hold about a month of video from several cameras.
- gonehome 5y ago
  I think Unify setups are probably easiest: https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-protect
shadowgovt 5y ago
Perhaps, not unlike the NRA originating from a perceived need to educate the citizenry widely on how to use firearms, a "National Observers Organization" is called for to help citizens self-organize, promulgate knowledge, and spread good security practices? I'm going to leave the naming up to someone else; "NOO" doesn't seem a great acronym for a popular organization.
- KineticLensman 5y ago
  STreet Awareness Zone Initiative?
- quickthrowman 5y ago
  I’ve got a couple suggestions: Stop Neighborhood Invasions; Together Creating Harmony / Nosy Ass Ridiculous Citizens
jinto36 5y ago
There are plenty of ways to do this without data going to the cloud. Plenty of non-cloud connected cameras- though many are more commercially oriented- and software that's reasonably priced like BlueIris. Everything is recorded in H264 so storage isn't crazy if you don't keep all of it forever. Many cameras also end up at (or can be set to) 10-15 FPS, which also cuts down storage requirements. BlueIris is actually pretty nice. I got a bunch of cameras from ebay and such- some wireless, some wired and POE powered- and just use BlueIris to manage them locally. Ended up with more cameras that I really needed, so I also have one permanently pointed at a bird feeder for fun...
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Whatever the non cloud solutions are, they obviously are nowhere as cheap and easy as the cloud solutions based on the success of the cloud solutions. A solution that someone can pickup at Costco and setup via scanning some QR code in 10 minutes is always going to win versus spending an hour or many hours delving into networking and figuring out what equipment you need and troubleshooting. Nobody wants to deal with DDNS or port forwarding or other issues when trying to remotely access the video either.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

specialist 5y ago

Privacy is a luxury good.

adventured 5y ago
Privacy at the very top is extraordinarily expensive. It's extraordinarily inexpensive at the very bottom. It's dramatically easier to disappear in terms of privacy if you're poor than if you're in the middle class. You're not going to show up in stores as often (less surveillence footage, less facial recognition). You're not as likely to own or use a smartphone, which means no device in your pocket tracking you everywhere. You're far less likely to utilize Uber type services, Instacart, et al. You're far less likely to own a credit card, and more likely to use cash; which means a far smaller purchase history/footprint to profile you with. You're far less likely to often use the Internet, which means a smaller online footprint; that also goes for social media. You're less likely to own various smart devices that will spy on you. You're far less likely to own real-estate or businesses, which often show up on public records at some point. You're less likely to have various entertainment subscriptions (Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+, cable, and so on), which again reduces your footprint vs most everybody else. Your job requirements are typically far lower and far less connected, leaving a smaller footprint (no zoom meetings, no zillions of digital profiles, no linkedin, no networking, no slack, no conferences, and on and on). If you don't have purchasing power, the privacy invading fiends in the commercial sphere mostly don't care if you exist or not. They are not motivated to go out of their way to track you. You don't count, you don't show up in their numbers. Think of the numerous services (Kroger or Walgreens cards; Peloton; eBay, Etsy, PayPal, Coinbase, brokerage accounts; Apple services; and 400 others) the middle class and above sign on to, and how they get tracked by them regularly. Politically you also matter a lot less, because you're far less likely to vote if you're poor vs middle class and above. So you're tracked, profiled and contacted far less often by the political machine. And you have no money to give them, so they care that much less about keeping tabs on you.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  IMO commerce with Apple has upped the game on privacy for everyone. Apple has email aliases so that ordinary people can hide their email. Apple has private relay so that ordinary people can experience TOR lite. Apple has Apple Pay so that stores hardly know anything about you. With Sign up with Apple you can create accounts which hand over very little information. This does not mean that Apple is free of contradiction, such as with their unpopular announcement to scan your pictures for child porn. But in the sum Apple has been making privacy easier for everyone, and not just for technical folks.

hammock 5y ago

I don't know how we can have the metaverse without cameras everywhere. Do we really the course of surveillance has any chance of slowing down?

LurkingPenguin 5y ago

> So I'm very sure that my most effective means of improving the situation is to put cameras on their affairs from my house and get all the other adjacent neighbors to do likewise. The dealers have felt the heat, and now their clients are normally more respectful and quiet, presumably at the prompting of the dealers. Do you really believe this is going to be effective? In your scenario where the police are unresponsive to reports, what makes you think that they're suddenly going to care if you send them a bunch of surveillance video of illicit activity? The drug dealers know when they're operating in safe territory. In places like San Francisco, people openly deal and use drugs on the street because they know that they are likely to get away with it. I bet if you posed as a journalist, some of these people would even let you photograph their activities, all while flashing big smiles.

QuarterReptile 5y ago
I believe that my local police are merely ineffective. The San Francisco law enforcement situation is way further gone, by all accounts.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago

> If you're rich and/or highly mobile, you retreat to avoid this as much as you can. That is certainly an option but it is not one I think many rich people have taken, at least not for the purpose of avoiding surveillance. Most rich (i.e. top 1% or top 5%) people just don't care that much if they appear in passing on someone else's porch camera. They believe (I think correctly) that the odds of that causing them any material harm are close to nil. There are a small handful of people who value privacy from mass nonspecific surveillance for its own sake, but it's an attitude that is not that common in the US, at least as far as we can tell from revealed preferences. (Ed: I now see by "this" you're referring to bad behavior surveilled, not surveillance. In that case, I would tend to agree with you.)

giantg2 5y ago

Most states have some process for citizens to file criminal complaints without the police. Although the DA might decide not to pursue it.

parasense 5y ago

This is effectively the inverse equality of police body cameras resulting in less belligerent policing, etc...

burnished 5y ago
Bodycams are frankly an attempt to answer "who watches the watchmen", porch cameras are not. They both involve cameras but I don't see the connection aside from that, and would dispute one thing being the inverse of the other.
- parasense 5y ago
  > Bodycams are frankly an attempt to answer "who watches the watchmen", porch cameras are not. That's missing the point, and possibly willfully missing the point? The point is.... people are being watched. Both criminals and police change their behavior when they know they're being monitored, or under surveillance. > They both involve cameras but I don't see the connection aside from that, and would dispute one thing being the inverse of the other. Again, I can only guess willful ignorance it to blame. criminals take steps to avoid cameras, or cover their faces. Police are less likely to abuse their authority when the body cam is activated. Do you see the connection, in both scenarios the subject changes behavior.