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I don’t trust Amazon Alexa’s privacy standard, let alone a video camera.
by prattcmp 4y ago
I don’t trust Amazon Alexa’s privacy standard, let alone a video camera.
- walterbell 4y agoAmazon's Blink motion-detecting cameras don't have a hardware power switch.. https://safetywish.com/how-to-disable-blink-cameras/ https://safetywish.com/how-to-disable-blink-cameras/
- asddubs 4y agoi mean that kind of makes sense for a security camera, right?
- walterbell 4y agoFor an indoor camera used by consumers? Perhaps they only want the security camera turned on when they are not at home. Is there any other camera without an off switch, consumer or enterprise?
- jibe 4y agoI have a bunch of different cameras, nest, Wyze, Amazon - none have on/off switches. Just plug in USB for power and they start up.
- walterbell 4y agoAt least they can be unplugged.
- prattcmp 4y agoSimplisafe cameras have a powered privacy cover that physically blocks the lens.
- formerly_proven 4y agoIf you get close enough to a CCTV camera that you can remove the panel covering the reset switch and network connection, you can just put tape over the lens.
- andrepd 4y agoI sometimes wonder what would the great dystopian writers of the 20th century make of the fact that people would one day say "hey telescreen, show me recipes for spaghetti" after buying it for the low low price of 49.99.
- deanCommie 4y agoCan I ask why? You have every reason not to want a smart speaker that learns about your questions and prompts to give you better targeted ads. You also have every reason not to want to buy a piece of hardware fundamentally dependent on a server-side service the company could choose to turn off at any moment leaving you with a brick. But people seem to treat these smart speakers with the kind of suspicion that would only be appropriate if you actually thought the speaker was listening all the time to your everyday conversations to truly INVADE your privacy. Which - maybe you would think about a random piece of junk from a disreputable company (if you ignore the monumental amount of bandwidth this would involve that would likely be infeasible). But I feel like you can probably trust weirdly enough companies like Amazon and Facebook NOT to do this because of the colossal news story it would be. The other reason I can imagine technologists on here to not trust smart devices is that they might be used as a weakspot to hack into your network. Again - I can see not trusting that from a random 3rd party, but Amazon knows how to create strong secure systems. If you trust Cisco or Asus or 3Com to buy a router from them, it's really no different.
- devmor 4y agoThe problem isn't even intentional spying, it's what data about you becomes available via the metadata saved from every day filtering.
- jojobas 4y agoBecause everything you said in your own home will be stored somewhere forever, ready for dragnet batch processing, just waiting for an appropriate witch-hunt, wrongthink prosecution or whatever. It's possible to verify that a router doesn't ship your (presumably encrypted when you care) traffic somewhere for permanent storage, with these devices it's their exact job.
- deanCommie 4y agoHUH? you realize the device only enables the microphone based on the wakeword, and only then starts sending traffic out. This is easily verifiable, and has been done so multiple times by independent parties.