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My next door neighbor (we share a wall) had their bicycles stolen twice, so they installed Ring (floodlight) cameras in both the backyard and the front porch. A

My next door neighbor (we share a wall) had their bicycles stolen twice, so they installed Ring (floodlight) cameras in both the backyard and the front porch. After a year, the cameras have yielded no added security, or caught any "bad guys" as far as I can tell and from what they told me. What I realized, is they use it to keep track of their kids, funny cat videos that trigger the recording, and most importantly, as a 2 way radio to talk or listen to the kids. That last point, well, I found out they can also listen to my conversations an my kids. I asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway, just theirs. and they lost their shit. They confirmed they record audio and video. They asked if there was a problem. I said no problem with them. I'm not comfortable with the audio/video recording me or my friends conversations if company comes over to talk to me on my porch or driveway. I really didn't need to tell them anything, it's self evident why someone wants a camera point away. Needless to say, after I asked them in the winter, one of them refuses to speak to me and crosses the street and avoids me. These people use surveillance to supervise their kids, and don't care about the fact that their neighbors (me) could be recorded, and they could be hacked or footage access by random people, because Amazon isn't exactly the king of privacy. I believe these cameras haven't decreased crime. They also don't really add more security. It's a shame though they are everywhere, with disregard for privacy right on people's property. So yes, I'm biased. I have no love for Ring.

krnlpnc 4y ago
If feasible a physical barrier on the porch along your property line might be the simplest option. Simply block the line of sight, and optionally install white noise generators on your side to mask noise.
MichaelZuo 4y ago
If your houses are close together I don't think it's reasonable to have an expectation of privacy on the driveway or front porch. After all sound at normal speaking volume can easily travel 100 feet on a quiet day, if there's nothing in-between.
- doublerabbit 4y ago
  Its more than reasonable. It's called respect. Their house and their drive and just because voice could travel 100-feet sill doesn't mean they have the right to record it. If the speed limit is twenty and someone is driving thirty, does that give you the right to drive thirty too?
  - ZoF 4y ago
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    You're comparing apples and oranges. One is legal and the other isn't. They absolutely have the right to record audio that is audible on their property. It used to be the norm that if you don't want your neighbors hearing you the onus is on you to speak quietly in a private place. With the increase in such devices the norm too will shift to "know that a device is recording audio in certain zones"
    - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
      Is there a "you're both wrong and I hope you live far away from me" option? One should travel about the same speed as all the other traffic and one should not record people without their express consent regardless of the law. The behavior both you and the person you replying to are advocating for are just examples of being a jerk within the letter of the law.
    - mikodin 4y ago
      I agree but to a point. I am curious how this plays out when what is recorded wouldn't necessarily be audible or intelligible by the human ear but is able to be picked up and amplified via post processing or more sensitive devices. Will we then just have to always assume that a device is recording audio in all zones? Countermeasures will be figured out, but it's an interesting thought process.
      - 4y ago
_benedict 4y ago
Depending where you live this might be illegal. In the U.K. you have an obligation not to record your neighbour’s property, and not to record conversations of members of the public.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  A related article appeared earlier, and I submitted it, Dystopian doorbells: how the humble door buzzer turned into mass surveillance network https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32079896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32079896 https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/video-doorbells-amazon-ring-google-nest-surveillance-privacy-b1008920.html https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/vi... A very interesting piece of info is that «microphones that can pick up audio from up to 25 feet away». The Evening Standard is a British newspaper, and the article tackles the legal matters, but does not mention audio recording. Maybe an overlook, or maybe concerned people should check the audio related regulations further. > Video doorbell owners must be careful not to place their cameras in areas where they might breach neighbours’ privacy. Any footage detected outside of your property is likely to breach UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws
  - _benedict 4y ago
    The ICO[1] and case law[2] corroborate that audio recording outside your property with CCTV is generally prohibited. [1] https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/domestic-cctv-systems-guidance-for-people-using-cctv/ https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/domestic-cctv-systems-g... [2] https://www.icaew.com/library/subject-gateways/law/legal-alert/2017-03/case-law-neighbour-s-cctv-and-audio-equipment-breached-data-protection-law https://www.icaew.com/library/subject-gateways/law/legal-ale...
- iso1631 4y ago
  Yet every local facebook group is full of the curtain twitchers posting pictures of "person walking past, looks suspicious, keep save everyone x" in blatant disregard for the law, yet nothing happens
- mdavis6890 4y ago
dm319 4y ago
I am also no fan of Ring or similar, though the reasons are slightly different. We lost our cat recently, and I went round my neighbourhood knocking/ringing on every door to ask around. It was a strange experience as around 30% had these ring doorbells. It was unpleasant to know I was being recorded and judged, and often as a result, not answered. I vowed at that point we would never consider one, if only because I don't agree that everyone should be treated with suspicion by default.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  I had two suspicious people come to my door (separate incidents) which resulted in me getting a video doorbell (I'm going to migrate from a cloud one to a closed circuit one). I've also had two cases of salespeople who didn't understand the phrase "not interested". One escalated to me threatening a trespass call before he left. (This is with No Soliciting signs clearly visible) I worry my wife would not get the same effect.
  - dm319 4y ago
    How do you judge how suspicious someone is through a video feed?
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      If it's 90° on a hot summer day and they are wearing a big bulky jacket, that raises eyebrows. Are they wearing a uniform? If they are pretending to be part of a company and not wearing a uniform, that is suspicious. What about the time of day? ADT sales people don't knock on my door at 8pm at night. How are they acting? Are they waiting calmly? Are they checking their pockets or waistline? Are they glancing around seeing if other people are around? Are they hiding their face? Did they ignore a no soliciting sign? Did they walk by and check out the property before approaching the door? Did they knock on my neighbors door first? Or did they come straight to my door? Did they park? Where did they park? Was it a company vehicle? How many people is it? Are those people dressed in a similar way? Are they all standing together or did one of them wander off? If you don't answer immediately, how do they act? Do they get annoyed and wander off or do they become insistant? Do they escalate to knocking or shouting?
vorpalhex 4y ago
It would be a crime for you to use an air pellet rifle and sabotage the device. It would also be a crime if you used spray paint for the same end. I suspect the cameras are sensitive to IR light blinding them, but again, any kind of sabotage could be criminal.
- kcb 4y ago
  Ring will gladly send them a free replacement.
lkxijlewlf 4y ago
I would be having some fun. Friend: Have you any success bringing your neighbors on board. Me: There's been a setback. They're currently not speaking with me. Friend: That is unfortunate. We're talking a lot of money. Me: I know. I'll fix it. Friend: You better.
- MerelyMortal 4y ago
  "Have they found the gold that was burried in their backyard by the previous owners?"
treesknees 4y ago
On one hand, it bothers me that I can't walk around the block without ending up on a dozen security cameras because everybody has a video doorbell. You can modify the motion and privacy zones to exclude certain areas such as the sidewalk, but I'm willing to bet most people do not do this. On the other hand, I've personally had success with the police and court systems based on video evidence I could provide from my doorbell camera. Also, previously I had a long-lasting issue with a neighbor at my old house who would get really nasty about my yard and other issues (I suspected old age and mental issues) that completely ended once I put up a security camera to record the area he was doing this from. If I do end up ever getting more security cameras, my plan is to show my neighbors exactly what angle they're recording and make sure they're OK with it. While I technically have the right to record whatever I want to in my state, I'd rather not make anyone feel uncomfortable. I recently came across a video where someone ended up pointing IR lasers at their neighbor's cameras and it was an effective way to disable the cameras without breaking any laws [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyYm2UwAaeQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyYm2UwAaeQ
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  > You can modify the motion and privacy zones to exclude certain areas such as the sidewalk, but I'm willing to bet most people do not do this. I have to do that or I get notifications constantly. I told my front cameras to only say something if someone shows up on my front step, or drives into my driveway. I don't want to get a notification every time someone walks down the sidewalk, or when the neighbors get home. Although honestly, I get lots of notifications for the neighbors anyway. Because they seem to think a 30 foot wide road is narrow and they end up using my driveway regularly when getting into and out of their own. Not really a camera problem though.
rootusrootus 4y ago
Ha, you'd hate me. I have cameras pointing out the front of my house that record my driveway, the road, and incidentally the neighbor's driveways and front yards and such. No audio, though. But they're all cool with it, so there's that.
- unfocused 4y ago
  I wouldn't hate you! :) Clearly you've engaged your neighbors if they are cool with it. You also mentioned no audio. I even told them it's fine with audio, now that I understood how the system works. Alas, no audio is obviously better as I don't have to ask my friends to walk further away from the line of side of the camera.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    Yeah audio is sketchy, I don't want to record that anyway. The impetus for the whole thing was my neighbors having a porch pirate experience. We all got together and since I'm the only nerd in this immediate area, I got nominated to run a couple cameras in case it ever happens again. Not like it'd likely result in anybody being caught, we're realistic about it, but still.
mtalantikite 4y ago
I live in a block-long grouping of condos in Brooklyn. Every so often the management company sends out exterminators and one day as I was talking to him he pointed to these environmental monitors installed on a lamppost on our block. He says “what’s with that, the government spying on us?” and I explained it’s just some environmental data collectors, but pointed to my neighbor’s Ring and mentioned “although that thing records me every time I enter or leave my condo”. He said “oh, I have one of those, it’s great”. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with the fact that Amazon was sharing the videos with law enforcement without consent. The cognitive dissonance was maddening but not at all surprising.
- user_7832 4y ago
  I hope you let him know about Amazon's stellar privacy?
  - mywittyname 4y ago
    Or that they are in cahoots with "The Government" and will gladly share any and all data through back channels because AWS has very freaking lucrative contracts with them.
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      Or if you live in a two-party consent state that you don't consent. That should be enough. Someone that doesn't respect your consent doesn't respect you.
      - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
        The recording as I understand it would still be illegal in a one-party consent state. Conversations that OP has in their house with their guests and/or children are being recorded by none of: OP, OP's guests, or OP's children. It seems to be very sketchy what they're doing.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
CaptainZapp 4y ago
I would think (alas, I'm not a lawyer) that that's outright illegal in most of Europe.
RektBoy 4y ago
Wild, don't you have any laws against this? Here in CZ(EU), you can't put camera facing public property just like that, I don't even mention facing private property of somebody else, lol. Even camera facing your property and like corner of view is public property, I can send formal complaint to "GDPR" bureau, they will warn the property owner, if nothing happens, fine incoming which can be pretty huge.
- jimmaswell 4y ago
  Absurd. The right to record in public, which this is, should be respected.
  - RektBoy 4y ago
    I don't know about your US "rights". But here it's illegal to record somebody without permission and store it somewhere. Basically against GDPR. Of course, as a property owner you can request cameras facing public space, but you must be GDPR compliant then and you're put into register and anybody can requests deletion. Also you must provide valid reason for this request. To me(us) is absurd that you can record private citizens and do whatever you want with it. Ridiculous.
gist 4y ago
> I believe these cameras haven't decreased crime. They also don't really add more security. It's a shame though they are everywhere, with disregard for privacy right on people's property. So yes, I'm biased. I have no love for Ring. Impossible to believe with the ubiquity that they haven't decreased crime. Or at least certain types of crimes. Prior to this type of video only a small amount of people had security cameras and generally they were easily spotted. Today anyone committing (again a certain type of) crime knows that if they drive into a neighborhood or walk around they will be on a camera somewhere and multiple times. That has to have an impact even if there isn't data to prove it.
- unfocused 4y ago
  I live downtown. The same "folks" that steal things, that I've seen for a better part of a decade, drug addictions and all, still steal stuff. It's just the police are not going to bother with it. One of them tried to steal our plant! Yes, our $5 plant. But I caught them in person, and they apologized, but they were high on some drugs. No camera will deter someone like that.
cyral 4y ago
I just got a Ring cam and during setup it asks if you'd like to black out any regions to prevent recording neighbors, so that may be an option they just aren't aware of. Doesn't solve the audio issue if they aren't willing to disable it though.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  do we know this is respected for the material they eagerly/secretly fork over to piggies?
- unfocused 4y ago
  Yes, in fact, during the engagement, they even showed us where the camera trigger zone is, which they reduced to their driveway, and even added the blackout region for when I'm on my porch, as the wide angle of the lens made it impossible to point it away from my front porch. They were really cooperative and I tried to ensure that I wasn't being demanding. I even tried to meet them half way and said you can keep recording audio and video, now that I understand the trigger zone, but I was met with hostility the next day when I saw one of them in person. Although, even with the trigger zone, they can just live stream it anyways, not that they are that kind of people, but clearly, I struck a nerve with them. I am still friends with one of them, and all their kids. So it's just one family member that sees things differently.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
throwawaymanbot 4y ago
daniel-cussen 4y ago
Their crossing the street to avoid you is a confession of having spied on you deliberately. It's their kame-hame-ha of scorn, they have to do it because otherwise you'll see what they've been peeking at, means they're guilty as shit.
- unfocused 4y ago
  Most likely. I certainly didn't bring any of that up, nor will I. I've spoken to this person on a couple of occasions since then for some other matters that were urgent, and they didn't run away. But I'm not going to engage them to talk about the weather. So hopefully they mature and see that they overreacted.
ls15 4y ago
> I believe these cameras haven't decreased crime. They are the crime
lmkg 4y ago
This type of thing is actually one of the cases were GDPR has been enforced, although it varies from country to country. Seems CCTV is most heavily enforced in Spain. Go to https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ and filter by "CCTV," a few are for residential cases, e.g. https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ETid-1226 https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ETid-1226.
kodah 4y ago
I don't mind people in my neighborhood running security cameras as long as they store the footage locally. I can't consent to the terms that a managed service provider presents them with respect to footage I am in or conversations I have. I am concerned that given a sizeable enough populace with locally stored footage, that it could become the target of robo-warrants for proxy-surveillance, but we're a bit off from that. The reason I support people running their own security cameras is because I recently had a woman go off on some wild diatribe about how my property looked (which actually belongs to my landlord) and she became very upset to the point of trying to force my front gate open as I shut it. Since then she's gone on some proxy wars with other people in the neighborhood. Obviously her behavior will continue to escalate and because I have no cameras I have no way to show she was willing to use force and intimidation from step 1.
chrisBob 4y ago
I think you can set up a video camera pretty much anywhere you want, but there are a lot of laws about audio recording. I would check on your state's laws. I don't even think this would be covered by 1-party consent.
- Domenic_S 4y ago
  The front porch is a "public" area, in the sense that there's no expectation of privacy. It's as legal as if you were taking an iphone video or live photo of your car in the driveway and happened to catch the neighbor in the background. Ring does have the ability to set "blackout zones" in the camera's FOV, and as a good neighbor the ring owner could have excluded the neighbor's driveway/porch with a few clicks.
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    The front porch is a "public" area, in the sense that there's no expectation of privacy. Parent commenter is correct. The laws in your area are not the laws in every area. Some states and cities have restrictions on recording, even in public areas. Illinois is one of the states with laws that prohibit many kinds of incidental audio recordings, while video is allowed. As was explained to me by a downstate communications lawyer, it's because the laws were passed by mobbed-up politicians before video was a thing, in order to protect mobsters from federal investigations. Even today, when you see undercover recordings taken by local TV news stations in Illinois, there's never any audio.
    - Domenic_S 4y ago
      No they aren't. Intent matters. According to this article [0] by the senior counsel and ethics officer for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, > The threshold questions are whether the conversation is private, and whether the recording is done secretly. The law allows recording if the conversation is not private, that is, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy as defined above. Also, there is no violation unless the recording is “surreptitious,” defined as “obtained or made by stealth or deception, or executed through secrecy or concealment.” [0] https://www.isba.org/committees/governmentlawyers/newsletter/2018/09/applyingillinoiseavesdroppinglawtog https://www.isba.org/committees/governmentlawyers/newsletter...
kyrra 4y ago
Depending on your state and country, you may have a legal angle here if you care, see: https://recordinglaw.com/party-two-party-consent-states/ https://recordinglaw.com/party-two-party-consent-states/ I believe it's the reason Nest defaults to not recording audio, because the law various by state, and even mixed within some states. For 2-party (all-party) states, you can't record audio on security cameras (or at least it's a bad idea, and likely illegal).
- lbwtaylor 4y ago
  >>For 2-party (all-party) states, you can't record audio on security cameras (or at least it's a bad idea, and likely illegal). You can record audio in public, and a street facing audio recording is low risk, unless the microphone is so sensitive that there is an argument you are picking up audio from, for example, a neighbor's back yard. I think a sign indicating audio and video recording is sensible. That said, a backyard facing camera has real risks about the video and certainly the audio coverage. A reasonable person would not use audio recording and would carefully manage coverage to exclude neighbor's private spaces.
  - MertsA 4y ago
    No, I'm quite certain the parent comment is correct. I'm only familiar with Florida's laws on the subject but I've personally had to deal with setting up intermittent audio recording in a "public" area (private business but not a room that anyone would think is "private") and state law was very clear that we had to make sure there was some reasonable signage to notify anyone entering the area that audio recording was being used. A sign indicating audio recording was taking place is directly comparable to the standard "This call is being recorded for quality assurance" that's ubiquitous on corporate call queues. That's reasonable enough for consent in the context of security cams. If someone wants to talk on your doorstep after seeing the notice that's reasonable enough, if you don't consent then don't go up to the camera and talk about some private subject.
dekhn 4y ago
The camera may be acting as a deterrent (if they didn't have any additional thefts) without it being obvious. I never would give a neighbor a hard time about a camera pointing at a publicly visible spot on my property- just into windows and other semi-private locations. That includes both audio and video. I ascribe to the "it's legal for journalists to go through your trash, so if you want privacy, shred your trash first" philosophy. I added a new camera that includes the school across the street and if the cops come by and ask for footage, I generally provide it (they asked for a breakin across the street, but my camera wasn't pointed there). One important details is that I buy fairly generic cameras that aren't talking to the outside world/cloud services although it's still a risk.
- ls15 4y ago
  > I never would give a neighbor a hard time about a camera pointing at a publicly visible spot on my property In Germany people have successfully sued their neighbours for that and I fully agree with the courts. Filming others without consent is invasive.
  - pc86 4y ago
    In the US you don't have any expectation of privacy in public (or at least severely limited) and the courts have upheld again and again that recording public areas, even from a private area, is completely find. Some jurisdictions require notification or consent for audio recording, but not all.
    - jerry1979 4y ago
      But do you enjoy that people in the US don't have this expectation of privacy? Do you believe those laws could change?
    - ls15 4y ago
      I find it really unfortunate that the US is so blatantly disregarding data privacy. In a world of eroding freedom, lack of data privacy can become a severe safety risk. The return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the reversal of Roe v. Wade and Russia's recent moves give me an idea of dynamics that can turn dark quickly.
duxup 4y ago
Can confirm I use them to watch my kids. I don't think they provide any security / can't imagine they would. Having said that the cameras only trigger recording action that happens on my property. Other places might appear in view but they don't trigger a recording.
noasaservice 4y ago
> I asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway, just theirs. and they lost their shit. Wear a mask, and smear it with peanut butter. Or spraypaint. Or, since they are wifi based devices, do a deauth attack against all devices on their network. The Rings don't have much of a local storage buffer.
anigbrowl 4y ago
There are multiple homes near me that just point cameras straight out into the street, recording everyone else's comings and goings. This seems deeply anti-social to me, not much different from spying on the neighbors with binoculars. Meanwhile, police in San Francisco now propose that they should have realtime access to private networked surveillance systems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32077528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32077528
l33t2328 4y ago
I understand your concern, but if it’s something that can be seen/heard from the next property over, I don’t know that you can reasonably expect such things to be private. Although now I’m imagining this taken to the extreme, like if your neighbors set up a 24/7 HD video feed with a hyperbolic microphone etc aimed directly at your front porch. That sort of behavior is certainly weird.
koonsolo 4y ago
In Belgium that would be illegal. It's even illegal to point it at a public space such as the road. Only your own property is allowed.
nedwin 4y ago
Def sounds like shitty behaviour from your neighbours. In terms of decreasing crime I live in Oakland in a duplex. Downstairs was empty and crooks broke in and stole a bunch of stuff over several hours earlier this year. We only had a camera doorbell for our upstairs unit and I have footage of one of the crooks walking around the corner with a crowbar, seeing the camera and immediately turning around and walking away. The camera was a huge deterrent for them and I believe the only reason our upstairs didn't get broken into where we were fast asleep. We now have cameras on every door + a floodlight in the backyard.
- tomkat0789 4y ago
  A middle option could be to install a fake ring camera as a deterrent without the privacy hazards.
  - pwthornton 4y ago
    You could do that. The cheapest and easiest option is just to get yard signs saying that you are recording 24/7. Nest, Ring, and others sell there. There are plenty of generic ones too. If you want to use video cameras as a deterrent, you need to make sure people think you actually have them. I sometimes see people with their cameras pretty well hidden. That's not going to work as a deterrent!
    - brewdad 4y ago
      I use both strategies. I have an obvious camera on my porch pointed at my front door. I also have a camera hidden in a bush near the opposite side of the porch. Any potential troublemaker turning away from the obvious camera gives me a perfect view of their face from the hidden one.
- yomkippur 4y ago
  Good idea on the flood lights have you thought of night vision as well because it can become very difficult to see in low light situation. what i also suggest is play police radio. nothing scares this demographic than hearing police radio chatter describing what is happening
gleenn 4y ago
Depending on the state you live in, e.g. California has two party consent to record audio, meaning if you don't consent then what they're doing is illegal.
- gpt5 4y ago
  These only apply to private conversation, and not ones occurred in public (i.e. it's fair game to record the driveway, but not the backyard).
  - parineum 4y ago
    Is your front porch "public"? Usually things like this hinge on a reasonable expectation of privacy and I think a conversation at your front door can be expected to be relatively private.
- thatfunkymunki 4y ago
  are you certain this applies to things occuring in public? IANAL but it strains reason to believe it's illegal for cameras in public to have audio recording enabled.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
joshu 4y ago
Extremely bright IR lamp that flickers randomly at night? They'll get a lot of notifications.
dijonman2 4y ago
Unfortunately this is a reason for single family homes on large lots. Privacy. I have large hedges between me and my neighbors which block visuals and all but the loudest noises.
wittyusername 4y ago
I wonder if this Ultrasound Directional Jammer would be the right mix of legal and proportionate. https://www.tinytxs.com/products/ultrasonic-jammer https://www.tinytxs.com/products/ultrasonic-jammer
jonnycomputer 4y ago
You made a reasonable request, and they should have complied with an 'oh yeah, sure, sorry.'
jonnycomputer 4y ago
That said, my neighbors did catch a bike thief with one of those. Even got the bike back.
Miner49er 4y ago
It's probably illegal too. It's illegal in most states to record conversations unless you have consent from one or all parties in the conversation.
- mywittyname 4y ago
  But will anyone actually enforce the law? I haven't been following this very closely, but my assumption is that the proliferation of recording devices have rendered these laws impractical to enforce, thus somewhat moot.
- woofyman 4y ago
  Single party recording is legal in 38 states. https://fireflies.ai/blog/call-recording-laws-in-50-states-3/ https://fireflies.ai/blog/call-recording-laws-in-50-states-3...
  - treesknees 4y ago
    It's also specific to phone call recording. Nothing about recording the audio of someone talking outside your house.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    First-- this is a summary of statutes for recording phone calls; the laws are not always the same in each jurisdiction for making an audio recording in public. And we're in a thread where someone is describing a scenario where neighbor A records person B talking to child C. Neighbor A is not a party to the conversation. Whether a state has a one party or two party statute, this behavior would likely violate it.
    - TuringNYC 4y ago
      >> Whether a state has a one party or two party statute, this behavior would likely violate it. Fascinating. How does Ring get around this? Has no one tried to sue to force the issue?
mywittyname 4y ago
Is there a way to trigger this so that it is always on? Something like a white noise generator?
twoxproblematic 4y ago
odysseus 4y ago
I have a non-Ring doorbell camera and while I can't prove it has deterred theft, it's pretty useful in at least: * Getting a partial face/partial vehicle ID of someone who stole our package * Seeing the sneaky method in which they stole the package (allowing me to talk to neighbors warning them about the method used) * Getting a private instant announcement of who exactly is at the door (if they've been here before and they're in my contacts) * Notifying us while on vacation that someone out of the ordinary is at the door (and being able to speak to them as if we were home) * Deterring raccoons (bright light on the front of the camera) Not-so-useful things: * Seeing the large number of cars that like to use our driveway to make a U-turn There is an option to turn off audio recording and all footage is encrypted.
alasdair_ 4y ago
Something to consider would be pointing a directed beam of sound towards the microphone. Bonus points if it’s an endless loop of you saying “I like to spy on my neighbors” over and over again.
heavyset_go 4y ago
I've wrote about it before on HN, but a local busybody saw me committing the crime of walking down the street in my own neighborhood on their Ring camera and used that as pretext for calling the cops on me, who then harassed me for being "suspicious" without having actually looked at the footage themselves at all. Unsurprisingly, I am not a fan of the surveillance state that's found itself at my literal doorstep.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  For what it's worth, that same neighbor could have called the cops to harass you after seeing you walking with their own eyeballs, or the ancient art of lying to the cops that they saw anything at all. The presence of the Ring in this story adds nothing to the risk scenario
  - heavyset_go 4y ago
    I've been walking in the neighborhoods I've lived in everyday for literal decades, and this only became a problem recently. The difference here is that Ring and its companion apps like Neighbors continuously send their users scary alerts and video clips of innocuous neighborhood activities they'd otherwise miss entirely, or just ignore. I see this all the time with such apps like Nextdoor and Neighbors, where in the past loud sounds in the summer would be written off as fireworks and ignored, but now we have legions of people working themselves into frenzies about how "gun shots" were detected, with calls to action for video evidence of the "perpetrators". What then happens is that people start sharing clips of their neighbors doing essentially nothing and accusing them of actually committing crimes.
- MetaWhirledPeas 4y ago
  Sounds like your real problem is your neighbor being a jerk. If they didn't have Ring that wouldn't stop them from calling the cops on a "suspicious" person.
  - heavyset_go 4y ago
    I think there's a big difference between a busybody staring out the window sometimes and being upset with what they see versus a busybody with a 24/7 security system that pings them at all hours of the day with alerts and video clips about "suspicious" activity it detects, along with apps like Nextdoor, Citizen and the Ring Neighbors app that allow the paranoid to continuously share said clips and create local echo chambers of paranoia, suspicion and distrust.
shadowgovt 4y ago
This is one of the perennial tug-of-wars in the general principle "Your rights end where my nose begins." If you're emitting pressure waves or reflecting radiation flux and it crosses into my property, am I allowed to record and analyze it? And both the law and morality basically say "kinda, maybe, I dunno, depends." To wit: it's generally considered gauche to take photographs of you doing harmless things in your backyard, but if you're building a meth lab back there, you can be certain a neighbor will take photos and submit them as evidence. But how do they know it's a meth lab without looking in the first place? The rights and responsibilities around data storage and analysis are context-specific and complicated.
Johnny555 4y ago
I asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway Ring also lets you set up privacy blocks on recorded footage, so you could ask them to black out your driveway. I did that with the camera that shows my driveway, due to the curve of the driveway, it also shows part of the neighbor's house, so I blacked out their windows in the camera feed. I sent them a screenshot and asked if they wanted me to black out their entire yard, but they were fine with my video capturing any activity in their little used side yard.
pyuser583 4y ago
> Amazon isn't exactly the king of privacy Is there something specific you’re talking about?
IncRnd 4y ago
Robert Frost first coined the saying, "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors."
sizzle 4y ago
Floodlights are great for security and I like the cams to get a notification when packages arrive or to see if I closed the garage or if there v is any suspicious persons coming on my property, etc. Wyze has great AI person and package detection from my usage. I don’t actively monitor video unless something happened that warranted it. I also do not put it in places that it can pick up neighbors private moments.
alanh 4y ago
I’m sympathetic to your privacy concerns (neighbors shouldn't be recording much of your space although some may be unavoidable if you are close by). You really lose me with this, though: > I believe these cameras haven't decreased crime. They also don't really add more security. Based on what?
5-more-minutes 4y ago
Did you steal the bicycles...
jimmaswell 4y ago
You have no right not to be recorded in public in my opinion. You're the one shooting photons onto their property (the camera) that they should be able to do what they want with.
- dieortin 4y ago
  So I should be able to peer through your bathroom’s window because you’re shooting photons outside?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jimmaswell 4y ago
    if I left it open, yes.
14 4y ago
There is only one way to reach the mindset of a person like that and that is to install your own cameras on your property and face all of them at his house. Any of them that you can face directly into his windows the better. This may get negative attention here on HN but sometimes a pissing contest is the only way to get through to someone. You already tried the nice approach.
Tangurena4 4y ago
> I asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway, just theirs. and they lost their shit. My sister has cameras on the outside of our house. When neighbors asked her to point them away from their houses, my sister also lost her shit. Even when the police came by, she got so upset that the police re-aimed her cameras when they got her distracted. For some reason people who get involved in shootings try to hide their guns in our neighborhood (there are some unique cars and unique landscaping in this neighborhood). Her cameras have resulted in the police recovering about a dozen guns during 2021 and several arrests when the perps come by a few hours later to pick them up.
- balderdash 4y ago
  Holy crap - that’s not the rAndom porch pirate!
twothamendment 4y ago
It sounds like it is time for a white noise generator, right on the property line and make sure they don't hear anything.
twawaaay 4y ago
I have this theory that cameras do not reduce crime because "amount" of crime depends on supply of people willing to do crime. If you are a person that is willing to do crime and you see a camera, you do not stop doing crime. You find another target.
user00012-ab 4y ago
You could mount a small laser pointer in your window pointing directly into their camera.
NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
I see where you're coming from, but in the US at least there is no legal right to privacy outside/in public. That Amazon can and will turn over recordings - possibly without even a warrant - is horrifying. But that's basically the reality in the UK with CCTV. Should something be done about it? Sure. But that's where we are.
autokad 4y ago
I'm pretty sure its against the law to have a camera pointed at someone else's property like that.
tpl 4y ago
Depending on where you live you might have recourse since they are recording audio.I would look into wiretapping laws for your state.
jiveturkey 4y ago
Why not take some active measures? Bright IR light directed at the camera. Maybe there's an ultrasonic noise that would effectively disable the mic. I assume there's an auto gain control so a loud enough (but inaudible to us) sound might do it.

krnlpnc 4y ago

If feasible a physical barrier on the porch along your property line might be the simplest option. Simply block the line of sight, and optionally install white noise generators on your side to mask noise.

MichaelZuo 4y ago

If your houses are close together I don't think it's reasonable to have an expectation of privacy on the driveway or front porch. After all sound at normal speaking volume can easily travel 100 feet on a quiet day, if there's nothing in-between.

doublerabbit 4y ago
Its more than reasonable. It's called respect. Their house and their drive and just because voice could travel 100-feet sill doesn't mean they have the right to record it. If the speed limit is twenty and someone is driving thirty, does that give you the right to drive thirty too?
- ZoF 4y ago
- BeetleB 4y ago
  You're comparing apples and oranges. One is legal and the other isn't. They absolutely have the right to record audio that is audible on their property. It used to be the norm that if you don't want your neighbors hearing you the onus is on you to speak quietly in a private place. With the increase in such devices the norm too will shift to "know that a device is recording audio in certain zones"
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    Is there a "you're both wrong and I hope you live far away from me" option? One should travel about the same speed as all the other traffic and one should not record people without their express consent regardless of the law. The behavior both you and the person you replying to are advocating for are just examples of being a jerk within the letter of the law.
  - mikodin 4y ago
    I agree but to a point. I am curious how this plays out when what is recorded wouldn't necessarily be audible or intelligible by the human ear but is able to be picked up and amplified via post processing or more sensitive devices. Will we then just have to always assume that a device is recording audio in all zones? Countermeasures will be figured out, but it's an interesting thought process.
    - 4y ago

_benedict 4y ago

Depending where you live this might be illegal. In the U.K. you have an obligation not to record your neighbour’s property, and not to record conversations of members of the public.

mdp2021 4y ago
A related article appeared earlier, and I submitted it, Dystopian doorbells: how the humble door buzzer turned into mass surveillance network https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32079896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32079896 https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/video-doorbells-amazon-ring-google-nest-surveillance-privacy-b1008920.html https://www.standard.co.uk/homesandproperty/property-news/vi... A very interesting piece of info is that «microphones that can pick up audio from up to 25 feet away». The Evening Standard is a British newspaper, and the article tackles the legal matters, but does not mention audio recording. Maybe an overlook, or maybe concerned people should check the audio related regulations further. > Video doorbell owners must be careful not to place their cameras in areas where they might breach neighbours’ privacy. Any footage detected outside of your property is likely to breach UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws
- _benedict 4y ago
  The ICO[1] and case law[2] corroborate that audio recording outside your property with CCTV is generally prohibited. [1] https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/domestic-cctv-systems-guidance-for-people-using-cctv/ https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/domestic-cctv-systems-g... [2] https://www.icaew.com/library/subject-gateways/law/legal-alert/2017-03/case-law-neighbour-s-cctv-and-audio-equipment-breached-data-protection-law https://www.icaew.com/library/subject-gateways/law/legal-ale...
iso1631 4y ago
Yet every local facebook group is full of the curtain twitchers posting pictures of "person walking past, looks suspicious, keep save everyone x" in blatant disregard for the law, yet nothing happens
mdavis6890 4y ago

dm319 4y ago

I am also no fan of Ring or similar, though the reasons are slightly different. We lost our cat recently, and I went round my neighbourhood knocking/ringing on every door to ask around. It was a strange experience as around 30% had these ring doorbells. It was unpleasant to know I was being recorded and judged, and often as a result, not answered. I vowed at that point we would never consider one, if only because I don't agree that everyone should be treated with suspicion by default.

vorpalhex 4y ago
I had two suspicious people come to my door (separate incidents) which resulted in me getting a video doorbell (I'm going to migrate from a cloud one to a closed circuit one). I've also had two cases of salespeople who didn't understand the phrase "not interested". One escalated to me threatening a trespass call before he left. (This is with No Soliciting signs clearly visible) I worry my wife would not get the same effect.
- dm319 4y ago
  How do you judge how suspicious someone is through a video feed?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    If it's 90° on a hot summer day and they are wearing a big bulky jacket, that raises eyebrows. Are they wearing a uniform? If they are pretending to be part of a company and not wearing a uniform, that is suspicious. What about the time of day? ADT sales people don't knock on my door at 8pm at night. How are they acting? Are they waiting calmly? Are they checking their pockets or waistline? Are they glancing around seeing if other people are around? Are they hiding their face? Did they ignore a no soliciting sign? Did they walk by and check out the property before approaching the door? Did they knock on my neighbors door first? Or did they come straight to my door? Did they park? Where did they park? Was it a company vehicle? How many people is it? Are those people dressed in a similar way? Are they all standing together or did one of them wander off? If you don't answer immediately, how do they act? Do they get annoyed and wander off or do they become insistant? Do they escalate to knocking or shouting?

vorpalhex 4y ago

It would be a crime for you to use an air pellet rifle and sabotage the device. It would also be a crime if you used spray paint for the same end. I suspect the cameras are sensitive to IR light blinding them, but again, any kind of sabotage could be criminal.

kcb 4y ago
Ring will gladly send them a free replacement.

lkxijlewlf 4y ago

I would be having some fun. Friend: Have you any success bringing your neighbors on board. Me: There's been a setback. They're currently not speaking with me. Friend: That is unfortunate. We're talking a lot of money. Me: I know. I'll fix it. Friend: You better.

MerelyMortal 4y ago
"Have they found the gold that was burried in their backyard by the previous owners?"

treesknees 4y ago

On one hand, it bothers me that I can't walk around the block without ending up on a dozen security cameras because everybody has a video doorbell. You can modify the motion and privacy zones to exclude certain areas such as the sidewalk, but I'm willing to bet most people do not do this. On the other hand, I've personally had success with the police and court systems based on video evidence I could provide from my doorbell camera. Also, previously I had a long-lasting issue with a neighbor at my old house who would get really nasty about my yard and other issues (I suspected old age and mental issues) that completely ended once I put up a security camera to record the area he was doing this from. If I do end up ever getting more security cameras, my plan is to show my neighbors exactly what angle they're recording and make sure they're OK with it. While I technically have the right to record whatever I want to in my state, I'd rather not make anyone feel uncomfortable. I recently came across a video where someone ended up pointing IR lasers at their neighbor's cameras and it was an effective way to disable the cameras without breaking any laws [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyYm2UwAaeQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyYm2UwAaeQ

rootusrootus 4y ago
> You can modify the motion and privacy zones to exclude certain areas such as the sidewalk, but I'm willing to bet most people do not do this. I have to do that or I get notifications constantly. I told my front cameras to only say something if someone shows up on my front step, or drives into my driveway. I don't want to get a notification every time someone walks down the sidewalk, or when the neighbors get home. Although honestly, I get lots of notifications for the neighbors anyway. Because they seem to think a 30 foot wide road is narrow and they end up using my driveway regularly when getting into and out of their own. Not really a camera problem though.

rootusrootus 4y ago

Ha, you'd hate me. I have cameras pointing out the front of my house that record my driveway, the road, and incidentally the neighbor's driveways and front yards and such. No audio, though. But they're all cool with it, so there's that.

unfocused 4y ago
I wouldn't hate you! :) Clearly you've engaged your neighbors if they are cool with it. You also mentioned no audio. I even told them it's fine with audio, now that I understood how the system works. Alas, no audio is obviously better as I don't have to ask my friends to walk further away from the line of side of the camera.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Yeah audio is sketchy, I don't want to record that anyway. The impetus for the whole thing was my neighbors having a porch pirate experience. We all got together and since I'm the only nerd in this immediate area, I got nominated to run a couple cameras in case it ever happens again. Not like it'd likely result in anybody being caught, we're realistic about it, but still.

mtalantikite 4y ago

I live in a block-long grouping of condos in Brooklyn. Every so often the management company sends out exterminators and one day as I was talking to him he pointed to these environmental monitors installed on a lamppost on our block. He says “what’s with that, the government spying on us?” and I explained it’s just some environmental data collectors, but pointed to my neighbor’s Ring and mentioned “although that thing records me every time I enter or leave my condo”. He said “oh, I have one of those, it’s great”. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with the fact that Amazon was sharing the videos with law enforcement without consent. The cognitive dissonance was maddening but not at all surprising.

user_7832 4y ago
I hope you let him know about Amazon's stellar privacy?
- mywittyname 4y ago
  Or that they are in cahoots with "The Government" and will gladly share any and all data through back channels because AWS has very freaking lucrative contracts with them.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    Or if you live in a two-party consent state that you don't consent. That should be enough. Someone that doesn't respect your consent doesn't respect you.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
      The recording as I understand it would still be illegal in a one-party consent state. Conversations that OP has in their house with their guests and/or children are being recorded by none of: OP, OP's guests, or OP's children. It seems to be very sketchy what they're doing.
CobrastanJorji 4y ago

CaptainZapp 4y ago

I would think (alas, I'm not a lawyer) that that's outright illegal in most of Europe.

RektBoy 4y ago

Wild, don't you have any laws against this? Here in CZ(EU), you can't put camera facing public property just like that, I don't even mention facing private property of somebody else, lol. Even camera facing your property and like corner of view is public property, I can send formal complaint to "GDPR" bureau, they will warn the property owner, if nothing happens, fine incoming which can be pretty huge.

jimmaswell 4y ago
Absurd. The right to record in public, which this is, should be respected.
- RektBoy 4y ago
  I don't know about your US "rights". But here it's illegal to record somebody without permission and store it somewhere. Basically against GDPR. Of course, as a property owner you can request cameras facing public space, but you must be GDPR compliant then and you're put into register and anybody can requests deletion. Also you must provide valid reason for this request. To me(us) is absurd that you can record private citizens and do whatever you want with it. Ridiculous.

gist 4y ago

> I believe these cameras haven't decreased crime. They also don't really add more security. It's a shame though they are everywhere, with disregard for privacy right on people's property. So yes, I'm biased. I have no love for Ring. Impossible to believe with the ubiquity that they haven't decreased crime. Or at least certain types of crimes. Prior to this type of video only a small amount of people had security cameras and generally they were easily spotted. Today anyone committing (again a certain type of) crime knows that if they drive into a neighborhood or walk around they will be on a camera somewhere and multiple times. That has to have an impact even if there isn't data to prove it.

unfocused 4y ago
I live downtown. The same "folks" that steal things, that I've seen for a better part of a decade, drug addictions and all, still steal stuff. It's just the police are not going to bother with it. One of them tried to steal our plant! Yes, our $5 plant. But I caught them in person, and they apologized, but they were high on some drugs. No camera will deter someone like that.

cyral 4y ago

I just got a Ring cam and during setup it asks if you'd like to black out any regions to prevent recording neighbors, so that may be an option they just aren't aware of. Doesn't solve the audio issue if they aren't willing to disable it though.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
do we know this is respected for the material they eagerly/secretly fork over to piggies?
unfocused 4y ago
Yes, in fact, during the engagement, they even showed us where the camera trigger zone is, which they reduced to their driveway, and even added the blackout region for when I'm on my porch, as the wide angle of the lens made it impossible to point it away from my front porch. They were really cooperative and I tried to ensure that I wasn't being demanding. I even tried to meet them half way and said you can keep recording audio and video, now that I understand the trigger zone, but I was met with hostility the next day when I saw one of them in person. Although, even with the trigger zone, they can just live stream it anyways, not that they are that kind of people, but clearly, I struck a nerve with them. I am still friends with one of them, and all their kids. So it's just one family member that sees things differently.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

throwawaymanbot 4y ago

daniel-cussen 4y ago

Their crossing the street to avoid you is a confession of having spied on you deliberately. It's their kame-hame-ha of scorn, they have to do it because otherwise you'll see what they've been peeking at, means they're guilty as shit.

unfocused 4y ago
Most likely. I certainly didn't bring any of that up, nor will I. I've spoken to this person on a couple of occasions since then for some other matters that were urgent, and they didn't run away. But I'm not going to engage them to talk about the weather. So hopefully they mature and see that they overreacted.

ls15 4y ago

> I believe these cameras haven't decreased crime. They are the crime

lmkg 4y ago

This type of thing is actually one of the cases were GDPR has been enforced, although it varies from country to country. Seems CCTV is most heavily enforced in Spain. Go to https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ and filter by "CCTV," a few are for residential cases, e.g. https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ETid-1226 https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ETid-1226.

kodah 4y ago

I don't mind people in my neighborhood running security cameras as long as they store the footage locally. I can't consent to the terms that a managed service provider presents them with respect to footage I am in or conversations I have. I am concerned that given a sizeable enough populace with locally stored footage, that it could become the target of robo-warrants for proxy-surveillance, but we're a bit off from that. The reason I support people running their own security cameras is because I recently had a woman go off on some wild diatribe about how my property looked (which actually belongs to my landlord) and she became very upset to the point of trying to force my front gate open as I shut it. Since then she's gone on some proxy wars with other people in the neighborhood. Obviously her behavior will continue to escalate and because I have no cameras I have no way to show she was willing to use force and intimidation from step 1.

chrisBob 4y ago

I think you can set up a video camera pretty much anywhere you want, but there are a lot of laws about audio recording. I would check on your state's laws. I don't even think this would be covered by 1-party consent.

Domenic_S 4y ago
The front porch is a "public" area, in the sense that there's no expectation of privacy. It's as legal as if you were taking an iphone video or live photo of your car in the driveway and happened to catch the neighbor in the background. Ring does have the ability to set "blackout zones" in the camera's FOV, and as a good neighbor the ring owner could have excluded the neighbor's driveway/porch with a few clicks.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  The front porch is a "public" area, in the sense that there's no expectation of privacy. Parent commenter is correct. The laws in your area are not the laws in every area. Some states and cities have restrictions on recording, even in public areas. Illinois is one of the states with laws that prohibit many kinds of incidental audio recordings, while video is allowed. As was explained to me by a downstate communications lawyer, it's because the laws were passed by mobbed-up politicians before video was a thing, in order to protect mobsters from federal investigations. Even today, when you see undercover recordings taken by local TV news stations in Illinois, there's never any audio.
  - Domenic_S 4y ago
    No they aren't. Intent matters. According to this article [0] by the senior counsel and ethics officer for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, > The threshold questions are whether the conversation is private, and whether the recording is done secretly. The law allows recording if the conversation is not private, that is, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy as defined above. Also, there is no violation unless the recording is “surreptitious,” defined as “obtained or made by stealth or deception, or executed through secrecy or concealment.” [0] https://www.isba.org/committees/governmentlawyers/newsletter/2018/09/applyingillinoiseavesdroppinglawtog https://www.isba.org/committees/governmentlawyers/newsletter...

kyrra 4y ago

Depending on your state and country, you may have a legal angle here if you care, see: https://recordinglaw.com/party-two-party-consent-states/ https://recordinglaw.com/party-two-party-consent-states/ I believe it's the reason Nest defaults to not recording audio, because the law various by state, and even mixed within some states. For 2-party (all-party) states, you can't record audio on security cameras (or at least it's a bad idea, and likely illegal).

lbwtaylor 4y ago
>>For 2-party (all-party) states, you can't record audio on security cameras (or at least it's a bad idea, and likely illegal). You can record audio in public, and a street facing audio recording is low risk, unless the microphone is so sensitive that there is an argument you are picking up audio from, for example, a neighbor's back yard. I think a sign indicating audio and video recording is sensible. That said, a backyard facing camera has real risks about the video and certainly the audio coverage. A reasonable person would not use audio recording and would carefully manage coverage to exclude neighbor's private spaces.
- MertsA 4y ago
  No, I'm quite certain the parent comment is correct. I'm only familiar with Florida's laws on the subject but I've personally had to deal with setting up intermittent audio recording in a "public" area (private business but not a room that anyone would think is "private") and state law was very clear that we had to make sure there was some reasonable signage to notify anyone entering the area that audio recording was being used. A sign indicating audio recording was taking place is directly comparable to the standard "This call is being recorded for quality assurance" that's ubiquitous on corporate call queues. That's reasonable enough for consent in the context of security cams. If someone wants to talk on your doorstep after seeing the notice that's reasonable enough, if you don't consent then don't go up to the camera and talk about some private subject.

dekhn 4y ago

The camera may be acting as a deterrent (if they didn't have any additional thefts) without it being obvious. I never would give a neighbor a hard time about a camera pointing at a publicly visible spot on my property- just into windows and other semi-private locations. That includes both audio and video. I ascribe to the "it's legal for journalists to go through your trash, so if you want privacy, shred your trash first" philosophy. I added a new camera that includes the school across the street and if the cops come by and ask for footage, I generally provide it (they asked for a breakin across the street, but my camera wasn't pointed there). One important details is that I buy fairly generic cameras that aren't talking to the outside world/cloud services although it's still a risk.

ls15 4y ago
> I never would give a neighbor a hard time about a camera pointing at a publicly visible spot on my property In Germany people have successfully sued their neighbours for that and I fully agree with the courts. Filming others without consent is invasive.
- pc86 4y ago
  In the US you don't have any expectation of privacy in public (or at least severely limited) and the courts have upheld again and again that recording public areas, even from a private area, is completely find. Some jurisdictions require notification or consent for audio recording, but not all.
  - jerry1979 4y ago
    But do you enjoy that people in the US don't have this expectation of privacy? Do you believe those laws could change?
  - ls15 4y ago
    I find it really unfortunate that the US is so blatantly disregarding data privacy. In a world of eroding freedom, lack of data privacy can become a severe safety risk. The return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the reversal of Roe v. Wade and Russia's recent moves give me an idea of dynamics that can turn dark quickly.

duxup 4y ago

Can confirm I use them to watch my kids. I don't think they provide any security / can't imagine they would. Having said that the cameras only trigger recording action that happens on my property. Other places might appear in view but they don't trigger a recording.

noasaservice 4y ago

> I asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway, just theirs. and they lost their shit. Wear a mask, and smear it with peanut butter. Or spraypaint. Or, since they are wifi based devices, do a deauth attack against all devices on their network. The Rings don't have much of a local storage buffer.

anigbrowl 4y ago

There are multiple homes near me that just point cameras straight out into the street, recording everyone else's comings and goings. This seems deeply anti-social to me, not much different from spying on the neighbors with binoculars. Meanwhile, police in San Francisco now propose that they should have realtime access to private networked surveillance systems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32077528 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32077528

l33t2328 4y ago

I understand your concern, but if it’s something that can be seen/heard from the next property over, I don’t know that you can reasonably expect such things to be private. Although now I’m imagining this taken to the extreme, like if your neighbors set up a 24/7 HD video feed with a hyperbolic microphone etc aimed directly at your front porch. That sort of behavior is certainly weird.

koonsolo 4y ago

In Belgium that would be illegal. It's even illegal to point it at a public space such as the road. Only your own property is allowed.

nedwin 4y ago

Def sounds like shitty behaviour from your neighbours. In terms of decreasing crime I live in Oakland in a duplex. Downstairs was empty and crooks broke in and stole a bunch of stuff over several hours earlier this year. We only had a camera doorbell for our upstairs unit and I have footage of one of the crooks walking around the corner with a crowbar, seeing the camera and immediately turning around and walking away. The camera was a huge deterrent for them and I believe the only reason our upstairs didn't get broken into where we were fast asleep. We now have cameras on every door + a floodlight in the backyard.

tomkat0789 4y ago
A middle option could be to install a fake ring camera as a deterrent without the privacy hazards.
- pwthornton 4y ago
  You could do that. The cheapest and easiest option is just to get yard signs saying that you are recording 24/7. Nest, Ring, and others sell there. There are plenty of generic ones too. If you want to use video cameras as a deterrent, you need to make sure people think you actually have them. I sometimes see people with their cameras pretty well hidden. That's not going to work as a deterrent!
  - brewdad 4y ago
    I use both strategies. I have an obvious camera on my porch pointed at my front door. I also have a camera hidden in a bush near the opposite side of the porch. Any potential troublemaker turning away from the obvious camera gives me a perfect view of their face from the hidden one.
yomkippur 4y ago
Good idea on the flood lights have you thought of night vision as well because it can become very difficult to see in low light situation. what i also suggest is play police radio. nothing scares this demographic than hearing police radio chatter describing what is happening

gleenn 4y ago

Depending on the state you live in, e.g. California has two party consent to record audio, meaning if you don't consent then what they're doing is illegal.

gpt5 4y ago
These only apply to private conversation, and not ones occurred in public (i.e. it's fair game to record the driveway, but not the backyard).
- parineum 4y ago
  Is your front porch "public"? Usually things like this hinge on a reasonable expectation of privacy and I think a conversation at your front door can be expected to be relatively private.
thatfunkymunki 4y ago
are you certain this applies to things occuring in public? IANAL but it strains reason to believe it's illegal for cameras in public to have audio recording enabled.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

joshu 4y ago

Extremely bright IR lamp that flickers randomly at night? They'll get a lot of notifications.

dijonman2 4y ago

Unfortunately this is a reason for single family homes on large lots. Privacy. I have large hedges between me and my neighbors which block visuals and all but the loudest noises.

wittyusername 4y ago

I wonder if this Ultrasound Directional Jammer would be the right mix of legal and proportionate. https://www.tinytxs.com/products/ultrasonic-jammer https://www.tinytxs.com/products/ultrasonic-jammer

jonnycomputer 4y ago

You made a reasonable request, and they should have complied with an 'oh yeah, sure, sorry.'

jonnycomputer 4y ago

That said, my neighbors did catch a bike thief with one of those. Even got the bike back.

Miner49er 4y ago

It's probably illegal too. It's illegal in most states to record conversations unless you have consent from one or all parties in the conversation.

mywittyname 4y ago
But will anyone actually enforce the law? I haven't been following this very closely, but my assumption is that the proliferation of recording devices have rendered these laws impractical to enforce, thus somewhat moot.
woofyman 4y ago
Single party recording is legal in 38 states. https://fireflies.ai/blog/call-recording-laws-in-50-states-3/ https://fireflies.ai/blog/call-recording-laws-in-50-states-3...
- treesknees 4y ago
  It's also specific to phone call recording. Nothing about recording the audio of someone talking outside your house.
- mlyle 4y ago
  First-- this is a summary of statutes for recording phone calls; the laws are not always the same in each jurisdiction for making an audio recording in public. And we're in a thread where someone is describing a scenario where neighbor A records person B talking to child C. Neighbor A is not a party to the conversation. Whether a state has a one party or two party statute, this behavior would likely violate it.
  - TuringNYC 4y ago
    >> Whether a state has a one party or two party statute, this behavior would likely violate it. Fascinating. How does Ring get around this? Has no one tried to sue to force the issue?

mywittyname 4y ago

Is there a way to trigger this so that it is always on? Something like a white noise generator?

twoxproblematic 4y ago

odysseus 4y ago

I have a non-Ring doorbell camera and while I can't prove it has deterred theft, it's pretty useful in at least: * Getting a partial face/partial vehicle ID of someone who stole our package * Seeing the sneaky method in which they stole the package (allowing me to talk to neighbors warning them about the method used) * Getting a private instant announcement of who exactly is at the door (if they've been here before and they're in my contacts) * Notifying us while on vacation that someone out of the ordinary is at the door (and being able to speak to them as if we were home) * Deterring raccoons (bright light on the front of the camera) Not-so-useful things: * Seeing the large number of cars that like to use our driveway to make a U-turn There is an option to turn off audio recording and all footage is encrypted.

alasdair_ 4y ago

Something to consider would be pointing a directed beam of sound towards the microphone. Bonus points if it’s an endless loop of you saying “I like to spy on my neighbors” over and over again.

heavyset_go 4y ago

I've wrote about it before on HN, but a local busybody saw me committing the crime of walking down the street in my own neighborhood on their Ring camera and used that as pretext for calling the cops on me, who then harassed me for being "suspicious" without having actually looked at the footage themselves at all. Unsurprisingly, I am not a fan of the surveillance state that's found itself at my literal doorstep.

shadowgovt 4y ago
For what it's worth, that same neighbor could have called the cops to harass you after seeing you walking with their own eyeballs, or the ancient art of lying to the cops that they saw anything at all. The presence of the Ring in this story adds nothing to the risk scenario
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  I've been walking in the neighborhoods I've lived in everyday for literal decades, and this only became a problem recently. The difference here is that Ring and its companion apps like Neighbors continuously send their users scary alerts and video clips of innocuous neighborhood activities they'd otherwise miss entirely, or just ignore. I see this all the time with such apps like Nextdoor and Neighbors, where in the past loud sounds in the summer would be written off as fireworks and ignored, but now we have legions of people working themselves into frenzies about how "gun shots" were detected, with calls to action for video evidence of the "perpetrators". What then happens is that people start sharing clips of their neighbors doing essentially nothing and accusing them of actually committing crimes.
MetaWhirledPeas 4y ago
Sounds like your real problem is your neighbor being a jerk. If they didn't have Ring that wouldn't stop them from calling the cops on a "suspicious" person.
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  I think there's a big difference between a busybody staring out the window sometimes and being upset with what they see versus a busybody with a 24/7 security system that pings them at all hours of the day with alerts and video clips about "suspicious" activity it detects, along with apps like Nextdoor, Citizen and the Ring Neighbors app that allow the paranoid to continuously share said clips and create local echo chambers of paranoia, suspicion and distrust.

shadowgovt 4y ago

This is one of the perennial tug-of-wars in the general principle "Your rights end where my nose begins." If you're emitting pressure waves or reflecting radiation flux and it crosses into my property, am I allowed to record and analyze it? And both the law and morality basically say "kinda, maybe, I dunno, depends." To wit: it's generally considered gauche to take photographs of you doing harmless things in your backyard, but if you're building a meth lab back there, you can be certain a neighbor will take photos and submit them as evidence. But how do they know it's a meth lab without looking in the first place? The rights and responsibilities around data storage and analysis are context-specific and complicated.

Johnny555 4y ago

I asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway Ring also lets you set up privacy blocks on recorded footage, so you could ask them to black out your driveway. I did that with the camera that shows my driveway, due to the curve of the driveway, it also shows part of the neighbor's house, so I blacked out their windows in the camera feed. I sent them a screenshot and asked if they wanted me to black out their entire yard, but they were fine with my video capturing any activity in their little used side yard.

pyuser583 4y ago

> Amazon isn't exactly the king of privacy Is there something specific you’re talking about?

IncRnd 4y ago

Robert Frost first coined the saying, "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors."

sizzle 4y ago

Floodlights are great for security and I like the cams to get a notification when packages arrive or to see if I closed the garage or if there v is any suspicious persons coming on my property, etc. Wyze has great AI person and package detection from my usage. I don’t actively monitor video unless something happened that warranted it. I also do not put it in places that it can pick up neighbors private moments.

alanh 4y ago

I’m sympathetic to your privacy concerns (neighbors shouldn't be recording much of your space although some may be unavoidable if you are close by). You really lose me with this, though: > I believe these cameras haven't decreased crime. They also don't really add more security. Based on what?

5-more-minutes 4y ago

Did you steal the bicycles...

jimmaswell 4y ago

You have no right not to be recorded in public in my opinion. You're the one shooting photons onto their property (the camera) that they should be able to do what they want with.

dieortin 4y ago
So I should be able to peer through your bathroom’s window because you’re shooting photons outside?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jimmaswell 4y ago
  if I left it open, yes.

14 4y ago

There is only one way to reach the mindset of a person like that and that is to install your own cameras on your property and face all of them at his house. Any of them that you can face directly into his windows the better. This may get negative attention here on HN but sometimes a pissing contest is the only way to get through to someone. You already tried the nice approach.

Tangurena4 4y ago

> I asked them to point their front porch camera so that it doesn't record my front driveway, just theirs. and they lost their shit. My sister has cameras on the outside of our house. When neighbors asked her to point them away from their houses, my sister also lost her shit. Even when the police came by, she got so upset that the police re-aimed her cameras when they got her distracted. For some reason people who get involved in shootings try to hide their guns in our neighborhood (there are some unique cars and unique landscaping in this neighborhood). Her cameras have resulted in the police recovering about a dozen guns during 2021 and several arrests when the perps come by a few hours later to pick them up.

balderdash 4y ago
Holy crap - that’s not the rAndom porch pirate!

twothamendment 4y ago

It sounds like it is time for a white noise generator, right on the property line and make sure they don't hear anything.

twawaaay 4y ago

I have this theory that cameras do not reduce crime because "amount" of crime depends on supply of people willing to do crime. If you are a person that is willing to do crime and you see a camera, you do not stop doing crime. You find another target.

user00012-ab 4y ago

You could mount a small laser pointer in your window pointing directly into their camera.

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago

I see where you're coming from, but in the US at least there is no legal right to privacy outside/in public. That Amazon can and will turn over recordings - possibly without even a warrant - is horrifying. But that's basically the reality in the UK with CCTV. Should something be done about it? Sure. But that's where we are.

autokad 4y ago

I'm pretty sure its against the law to have a camera pointed at someone else's property like that.

tpl 4y ago

Depending on where you live you might have recourse since they are recording audio.I would look into wiretapping laws for your state.

jiveturkey 4y ago

Why not take some active measures? Bright IR light directed at the camera. Maybe there's an ultrasonic noise that would effectively disable the mic. I assume there's an auto gain control so a loud enough (but inaudible to us) sound might do it.