Zyklon-B, the pesticide used in the gas chambers, was still being manufactured, sold and used (for its intended pesticide usage) all the way up until the 2010s iirc.
You presumably mean that Hugo Boss ‘designed the SS uniform’ — which he didn't, as he wasn't a designer and the company wasn't in fashion design until after his death. The uniform was designed by two dudes in the SS, and Hugo Boss' company was one of many manufacturers contracted for production.
When do you people WAKE UP? What accountability? What responsibility? When in the last decade plus has any if that happened?
I'm sure it's just around the corner....
Open your damn eyes. The entire planet can see it, why are Americans so blind?l is it intentional? You guys let J6 slide ffs, why would there be an ounce of accountability now or ever? UNREAL
It's very real. This is history repeating itself for the umpteenth time. You aren't the first, nor will you be the last one to scream into the void about people who have been deliberately disenfranchised by their government with the direct intent of making them toothless against what is essentially a fascist regime.
The problem is that you're screaming a lot but not offering actual solutions except a general idea of "Fight!". That's not helpful, and it sounds a lot like condescension.
I understand that you're expressing frustration and disbelief and anger. But people here are angry too and they are fighting where they can. But as this and other news is very demonstrative of, the system is rigged against them and things get worse in that regard every day.
App stores removing apps that track ICE. People who share their outrage but not solutions/who don't boost actual efforts to fight.
News articles that focus solely on the bad part and offer no solutions. The fact that you don't come across many posts with actual solutions isn't a bug, it's intentional. People ignore things that help so they can remain outraged, supercilious, and smug.
The problem is that you're screaming a lot but not offering actual solutions except a general idea of "Fight!". That's not helpful, and it sounds a lot like condescension.
None of this stopped USians from endlessly writing on Reddit for the past four years that Russians should've overthrown Putin, and I didn't see them helping plan a revolution.
I have tried to explain to Americans here and on reddit and other places too that the political landscape in Russia is very different and that what we think is possible is all passed through the lens of our own government and country. But people are gonna people.
For what it's worth, I don't agree with those people whole sale either. I recognize that what they're asking the Russian populace to do is tantamount to a death or slavery sentence.
All I've heard for 40 years of life is 2a this and 2a that. Turns out it was just an excuse for school shootings and gun nuts to keep their toys. Your answer is staring you in the face, whether you want to acknowledge or not is another thing.
Do you really believe the traditional channels will be of any use? Or have those already - long, long - been compromised?
Even if the channels had just been neutered yesterday, do yoy really think Trump would give back an inch? He'll TACO all day on tariffs, but on human rights violations he is consistent - take and never return.
You're platitudes are lovely, and in fairness, not even entirely incorrect. But what you, and eveidently millions and millions of Americans don't seem to understand, is the milk has already been spilled. The how and the why are for scholars a hundred years from now to sort out. For today, tomorrow and the day after, y'all need to find a way to stop the continous slide. It's not getting easier next week or the week after.
Label me WHATEVER you like that gets people's ASSES IN GEAR. As angry as I am, amazingly enough I am still on your side. I should be flushing every bloody word an American speaks to me straight down the toilet after your Dear Leader and half the country shit on an ally in ways never seen before. Yet here I am, trying to propel you people to acknowlegde the real situation for what it is. Why is that? Truthfully, I'm selfish. I'd love to not have to take up arms to defend my border, but let's be honest, that's inevitable if Americans don't clean up their own shit.
So before you come and tell me how smug and supercilious I'm being, take a moment to realize this - becuase of your people's patently obvius shitty decisions, I have to enlist and potentially PUT MY LIFE ON THE LINE to defend my country against an 'ally'. Pardon me for not giving a fuck about your spineless response and pages of assinine commentary.
There's a lot of armed people here willing to fight, but without some kind of organized call-to-arms (whether it be militias or state national guard), all that's gonna happen is you're going to be arrested and given a 20+ year prison sentence for assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon. It's easy to say you'd fight back, but a lot of us have families to provide for and can't just throw away our lives like that.
Right now, we're lacking leadership, and most democrats in power don't have the balls to openly call for resistance. I don't know what the future holds, but I feel we're nearing a breaking point where we might start seeing armed resistance.
You are clearly not wrong. However, the question I would return with: if not violence, what mechanism for change will actually move a lever?
I'm certainly at my most pessimistic moment, but sincerely I don't see how this changes for your countrymen at this point without violence...? What realistic compromise could we even draw up? The two sides are diametrically opposed. There isn't common ground because there isn't even a common reality. The legal system seems righed and there is no leadership. You have touched on some of these points yourself.
I'll take a try at what a compromise might look like:
-- Trump agrees to go door to door with Minnesota Police. This gurantees:
The process is done slowly and unchaotically. This is what MN wants.
Every single address is searched and the potential for immigrant removal is near 100%. This is what Trump wants.
This solution would save lives, but also give up significant civil liberties. It's the best I can think up. Hopefully you are more creative than I am.
My last comment: I too have a family. And many extended family. And friends across Canada. It is on behalf of these people that I'm so passionate. And I can also appreciate your concerns also because of these same people. These are two sides of the same coin.
You fail to understand that this wasn't an attack on you, but commentary about the state of things and how they look from the inside rather than the outside.
And as someone who did enlist, I'm gonna just point out something. Your country should never have allowed allyship with the USA to divest you of a fighting force worthy of protecting your own assets, borders, or sovereignty.
I absolutely don't agree that the US should be fucking about in any other country. But the entire world never even batted an eye when we were setting up puppet regimes and destabilizing whole countries where brown people live. So you'll figure me if our problematic behavior has finally landed on your doorstep. I don't agree with the shit we've done in South America, The Middle East, or half a dozen African countries.
But I also grew up in poverty and found my way out of that through enlistment, so I was part of the problem whether I wanted to be or not.
I am trying to have empathy for you and people like you while pointing out that our government is literally kidnapping people off the street and essentially using FLOK cameras as legal wiretaps. The people who are doing something need help to boost the signal and people are ignoring them.
There is something your citizenry could do, but unfortunately they lack the unity to do it nor can most of them put up with the hardship it would entail. The size of the nation in terms of distance isn’t a problem, smaller populations with just as much distance have successfully protested in unity. It’s unity itself and the inability to put up with hardship.
That is to stop work, stop buying anything you can, grind the means of production to a halt. Yeah, people would lose jobs they don’t want, healthcare which is inadequate anyway and housing that will still be available once the goal is achieved, which is to force the houses to act on impeachment and whatever amendments and institutional rules exist to remove this administration.
Violence or inciting violence is not the answer and I think I’d be preaching to the converted on this one, you said you were an ex serviceman. Sure, all your citizens should have on hand whatever means they can to defend themselves (as is their constitutional right) but you know as well as I do where that will end up.
The easiest method to stop this is voting; in every election where the position requires election from the people, you’re there. You tell your employer you will be before you take a new job, it’s that important. That’s why the Republicans are where they are, because their people vote. It might be the only redeeming quality they have.
That one’s done now though. The next easiest is what I suggested above and it has to be done, or you’re done because I can’t see a fair midterm happening. They have to be removed. It’ll work if enough stop.
I understand your frustration, but take a moment to remember you are where you are because you didn’t vote in numbers.
People overseas are threatened by this without having a choice in that. So yeah, they may have to defend themselves against your military because you are too lazy to vote as a collective.
Yes, everyone is a bot. You're right. And this is an alt account. Nice work Sherlock. I guess that makes everything I said incorrect? Because my account is 15 days old? Nice strawman.
I'll entertain this so it's in writing:
I had never heard of Lemmy until a few months ago. Why is that? Because I am actively divesting from US assets and companies. Why is that? Clearly Trump and the last 12 months.
I enjoyed Reddit. Quite a bit. I was reluctant to leave because of all subreddits I'd curated and they have great niche places. Their sports communities are second to none, for example.
I fully admit the first time I tried to setup Lemmy it was a fail. I went back to Reddit for another few months as a result.
Trump continues and continues to insult his allies and the 101 other things he's done to make humanity worse off than the day before. So again I made a push to divest.
SO I TRIED LEMMY AGAIN. Imagine the horror, I had to make an account at some point. Apologies I wasn't a super duper early adopter like you were. Frankly, if Trump isn't President I never show up here at all.
Do yoy wanna run that through ChatGPT to make sure it's authentic?
So back to the ACTUAL DISCUSSION POINT: This isn't about my spine you idiot. I didn't vote for him and I'm not an American citizen. YOU HAD THE CHANCE. He was voted out and then allowed to return. I had zero ability to influence any of that.
And because of your countries moral bankruptcy, now we are preparing to defend ourselves against an 'ally'. Many nations are doing so.
Just going to ignore all that?
And finally, I AM PROUD TO SERVE MY COUNTRY. AND I WILL ANSWER THE CALL WHEN THE TIME COMES. Even though I nor my nation had anything to do with the shit storm that is landing on our front step. Also while Americans themselves, who got us to this point, are being trampled on and not standing up for what is right. So yeah, if you guys did anything whatsoever, we wouldn't be here. He was voted out ffs.
Back over to your strawman. But before you start again, let's not forget letting that little J6 thing completely slide by without any consequence... what a joke.
EDIT: Calls me a bot and an alt, strawmans and then DELETES the comment outright. Guess that rebuttal was 10/10. Nice work @[email protected]
Here in the EU we have chat control trying to be forced through every year for mass surveillance and targeting like Spain targeting catalan independence movements.
Palantir is starting to expand into the EU and american fash-tech companies have been lobbying hard and giving money to fascist parties across the EU. Musk gave unprescidented money of AfD fascists, for example.
UK has been getting more and more fascist for years, they have had mass surveillance for years and have been arresting people for simply attending zoom meetings supporting a country being killed off en-masse. Palantir literally just landed a £240 million deal with the UK government
We don't have an ICE problem yet. Neither did america 10 years ago. It is being pushed HARD here to create an ICE problem.
feels like rest of the world, including Europe, is like "can we slip in a couple of ours while Trump is doing all these insane bat shit crazy stuff and distracting people"
Every time I thought the US was stupid for doing a thing, the rest of the world followed with the same bullshit a few years later. Some sooner, some later. The US is not more stupid, they're trendsetters.
There was a time when I thought that was impossible... now I don't even have an account
I think my wife keeps one because according to her (and I believe this is true) there are things you just can't buy elsewhere anymore. So far, I have been fine not buying something if it's only on Amazon but I can see cases where that would be impossible.
Yes and no. For example I had to buy double-sided tape and went into four different stores in different areas of my city and only found it in the fourth store after researching.
I checked on Amazon after the fact, and could have had it delivered to my door same-day lol.
I don't believe there's anything you can only buy on Amazon... but it IS so bloody convenient.
Oh look another smart technology I didn't adopt for the exact reason being talked about. You can't trust big tech to not collaborate with whoever it's the most profitable to collaborate with.
It's not really a trust thing. They are companies, not people. The top decision makers have a fubuciary responsibility to do whatever makes money. They can, and often do, get sued if they don't. So you can expect them to sell you out. It's literally thier purpose for existing.
You can't trust big tech to not collaberate with, big tech either. You don't want them with your information, even if it's not readily apparent how it could hurt you. Before you know it you could be in a fascist dictatorship and wondering how you got there, this is part of the reason. Or would be in that completely hypothetical situation that in no way mirrors our own situation with our dear most intelligent and not al all dickish supreme leader.
Have considered a plain old doorbel and a peep hole on the door?
Low tech, cheap, cheap to install, lasts a lifetime.
Heck, if safety is the concern, install a periscope. Yes, mirrora inside a tube, to get to see, from a distance, who is at the door.
You want footage? Photos?
Install a local camera. Like one of those that are setup by biologists to film animals in the wild. Triggered by motion sensing. Or talk with someone technically inclined and install a local system.
I've disconnected the doorbell at every place I've lived in the last 10 years. If I'm expecting you I'll be waiting and opening the door for you, everyone else can leave a message or find a different way to contact me
I'm at work for most of that window. And when I miss it, they'll try again the next day at the same time...believe it or not, I'll be at work then too.
What’s fun is now UPS wants a second shipping fee to schedule a time or hold your package for you. You can no longer presign their little paper to leave the package. The only option is to pay, or they’ll return your package.
It’s extortion.
Worse, I was home both days and they never knocked or rang the bell. I let them return the package, on them, took my full refund, then reordered. We cycled through this game until someone rang the bell.
Not everything is about me. My comment was more tongue-in-cheek than anything.
More seriously, the tracking numbers usually narrow it down to an hour or 2 if you actually follow it. Given the once every few years that I have a package requiring a signature, I think I can handle it.
Tells you when a package arrived and when the neighbor stole it off your porch. Tells you someone rang the bell when not home and lets you remotely yell ant the door to door sales people.
I mean they’re useful, but I sure wouldn’t ever trust one connected to any sort of cloud.
I do have a UniFi door cam that records to a local hard drive. I like it. Ties in with my other cameras to watch my vehicle in my driveway.
If you can see it’s a salesperson you can ignore them but answer if it’s the mailman/UPS. Get notified that a package was dropped off… or that shortly thereafter some rando walks up to said package.
If you get deliveries and they're mishandled, you have a recording of it.
If someone comes to your door when you're not home, you can talk to them.
You can also set up local AI alerts (AI here is mostly used for facial recognition) e.g. to alert you if your MIL comes around uninvited, or if your kids sneak out at 2am, and so on.
Once you begin appreciating a home CCTV camera setup (fully local mind you), you'll see the benefit of having your doorbell video-ed up as well.
You can also set up local AI alerts (AI here is mostly used for facial recognition) e.g. to alert you if your MIL comes around uninvited, or if your kids sneak out at 2am, and so on.
That sounds awful. I'd rather just not, and avoid that mindset altogether.
In the context of parenting there are certainly better things you can do to prevent "shennanigans" other than subjecting them to surveillance. Like you know... raising them?
Terrifying with a generation of peole grown up under total control and expected to be perfectly obedient. They will be shitty adults. But hey, at least they won't have memories of that time they snuck out at night to watch the stars.
Look, I’ve had a random person walk into my house uninvited before, and having a recording of it was useful. Just because you don’t like the idea of one of the examples given, doesn’t mean these devices have no use.
The idea of going back to a blind simple lock protecting my house, pets, and stuff is crazy to me - smart CCTV and an internet connected alarm system are so much better, plus there's no "monitoring" cost like some folks pay. $40 so you can call the cops for me? No.
In addition to "normal" uses, my kids got into the habit of leaving me messages on the camera when I'm in the office and they are leaving for school. I grew to love these messages.
Using Eufy with local storage. Don't know whether anything gets stored to the cloud, but I guess data still passes through Eufy servers when I view the videos.
Not getting off the sofa. Video doorbell pops up on my watch, no matter where I happen to be, so I can immediately decide whether it can interrupt what I’m doing.
Shut the hell up. Sometimes I turn off the chimes so I’m not bothered by yet another door to door sales drone. But I still have my watch in case whoever is at the door is legitimate
Intercom. My kid sometimes want to tell me something without coming inside
History. Yes, sometimes I want to scroll back through all motion trigger s in front of my door
Wildlife. Minor feature but it is occasionally fascinating to see what animals amble in front of my door. I’m urban so it’s limited but we have turkeys and coyotes
Never happened and I seriously doubt it ever will. But! I have a couple of maid outfits laying around if it ever does. I'll listen if they comply with my request.
You can have both. I have a 360 camera set up around my house that records to a local dvr. I can remote into it when I’m not home and I’m not supporting ghoulish companies like google or Amazon.
The cameras I inherited from the previous owner. They’re fairly low quality analog cameras but they get the job done. They had a Night Owl Brand system but I replaced it with a reolink dvr I have on a vlan so it’s separate from the rest of my network. When I have more time I’ll probably switch over to frigate though. That’ll likely come with me buying some higher quality cameras that are digital.
You can have both if you have the know how and time to do so. I'd rather just pay $60 a year and under $100 for the cameras. How does Wyze support Google and Amazon? I'm genuinely asking.
My bad, I mixed up wyze with nest, which google owns. Amazon owns blink and ring. I do know wyze was founded by former Amazon employees, which is definitely not the same as their being controlled or supported by Amazon. That said, you may want to read up on some of their security breaches, which have happened multiple times.
It’s not just a random person, you’re opening yourself up to the government subpoenaing wyze and collecting information about you without your knowledge or consent. In a normal world with a responsible government that wouldn’t be a huge deal provided you’re not doing anything seriously wrong, but that ship has sailed as of late. Don’t let them incriminate you with a fishing expedition for convenience
I saw that when it happened. I'm not really bothered by the fact that a random person somewhere may have seen my driveway. If it kept happening, sure. I don't have the wherewithal and time to set up a camera on a server, and in this day and age I feel like some sort of security camera is necessary. There's a serious case for privacy, but not all of us have the capability or concern that the echo-chamber on Lemmy does about immaculate privacy.
You'll get downvoted for having this opinion here but it's a real take. Everyone has their own level of privacy they're okay with and yours is a bit lower than the average user here.
If you're okay with the potential risk, then that is your own choice, no one is forcing you.
Thank you for understanding that. This platform assumes the whole world functions as they do and has no understanding for people who either just don't care or lack ability.
Can we all agree to print out flyers of this to share around with neighbors and our communities? People ARE under educated.
It starts with us educating because the oligarchs wont
I care. I have Ring because it was the fastest way to get cameras on my property after trouble with neighbors. I found out how liberal they are with user data and handing it over to law enforcement but I couldn't justify the expense in upgrading. For me this isn't a bridge too far in a moral sense but more like a powerful reminder I've been lax in my responsibility. I'm pricing out some Reolink cameras I can host locally at home and put on a private subnet I can just VPN into. I'll have to buy the kit piecemeal because I don't have a lot of money to toss around but I am firmly committed to getting off Ring cameras in light of this news.
This really highlights how important it is for people to understand what they’re opting into with smart devices. Transparency and informed choice matter more than ever.
Any cameras that can operate entirely offline are good. Dahua and Hikvision are good too. Look for cameras with RTSP and ONVIF support. ONVIF is a standardized API for interacting with cameras and can handle things like pan/tilt/zoom, sending events from the camera to the NVR (eg motion detection), and a bunch of other things.
I use Blue Iris as my NVR, which is usually regarded as the best, but there's other good software too (like Frigate), and hardware solutions too.
Just follow best practices - keep them isolated on a separate VLAN with no internet access. If you want remote access to your NVR, use a VPN like Tailscale.
Though, on the other hand, having the video saved offsite is useful because then anyone with physical access to your home can't get rid of the video showing they're there.
This is not an argument in favour of using cloud services, because that gives access to your video to anyone the company deems should have access (or sometimes individual workers who either have access as part of their job or gain access because businesses suck at security). It's in response to you saying isolate the cameras from the internet entirely; there is a good reason to have them connected (though you could have a PC handle that with a connection to two networks and no physical or software bridge between the two, just take video from one, upload (encrypted) to server on other).
Though, on the other hand, having the video saved offsite is useful because then anyone with physical access to your home can’t get rid of the video showing they’re there.
I have Blue Iris configured to send all alert videos to one of my storage VPSes via SFTP. As soon as someone is detected outside, the video clip is sent offsite.
The server and the PoE switch that powers the cameras are also on a UPS, which helps if the intruder tries to shut off the power at the main breaker (which, here in California, always needs to be located outside).
It’s in response to you saying isolate the cameras from the internet entirely
The cameras themselves should always be isolated. No internet access for the cameras at all. Your NVR can have network access, and is what would handle uploading the videos to internet storage somewhere.
Uh oh, you need to look into that right away. Most of the camera brands we're talking about CAN be run local, by which we mean you can sever their internet connection with firewall rules and they'll still operate. You have to do that though. They'll almost all connect to the internet if allowed to.
I enjoy having cameras on my house to see what's going on in the neighborhood. It has come in handy at least once when my neighbor's truck was stolen in broad daylight.
They are ring cameras because two were installed already when I moved in. What should I switch to? I just really want motion alerts and proof when something bad happens.
Unifi Ubiquiti products are one of the best option for completely local data hosting and camera services with really good "ai" detections all run locally, but they aren't that cheap and you'll need to buy one of their Unifi protect capable routers to get started, which is gonna be like $300 by itself.
Edit: Looks like they have a standalone recorder with a 3.5 inch drive bay but it's still $200, and also most of their cameras are Ethernet. They do have a couple wireless options but not many.
Ethernet is the standard for security cameras anyway. It's a higher quality feed which is important for indisputable evidence in a court of law. Just about every Wifi camera is either seriously lacking in resolution, frame rate, or both. Wifi cameras are also stupidly easy to jam with like $10 worth of equipment and minimal knowledge..
That might be some wishful thinking. I tried getting some Reolink cameras a neighbor decided to buy on his own, to work with Blue Iris the other day, there was no way to configure them without installing their shitty app. All they have to do is just like every other not-shitty camera, enable DHCP, RTSP and ONVIF by default and then fuck off. But that's not happening.
I told him to send them back, I wasn't going to deal with them.
NVR = Network Video Recorder. It's the box that has the hard drive(s) to record all the video streams coming in from the cameras over WiFi or Ethernet.
Initial setup with Reolink is hit or miss. You're right that those settings are off by default, which sucks. The better cameras host their own WebUI with which you can login and make changes with no app required, but the cheaper ones cut that corner and need the app. With that said, yes it is an initial hoop you might have to jump through, but once done and isolated you'll never have to deal with it again. It's a worthy trade off for the affordability and featureset IMO, but of course it could always be better.
Except they're not all that affordable for the features. Not many that are POE, and their MP/optizoom compared to cameras half their price isn't great. I can get Amcrest or Vikylin for less, and have everything that Reolink doesn't out of the box. You also have to be careful with them that you don't get Reolink NVR-locked cameras.
I've heard Reolink touted a lot and so far I'm not seeing the advantage.
I got a doorbell camera with full Home Assistant support and a 180 fisheye camera for around $100 each (don't remember the exact price). I could use the built in recording until i got my NVR setup and it scaled with me. I thought they were great value.
Now, if you want just a bunch of standard cameras to cover your house with, maybe those other options are better, I'll save your post and take a look if I'm ever in the market. I'm not a camera expert, just a tech/home auto enthusiast so they work for what I want.
In Estonia it's legal to have it film the public ground if you have signs making it clear
On the one hand it's useful to have cameras that show the street. On the other hand, when you post signage like that it kinda says "I have shit worth guarding"
I remember last year when there was a trend of AI generated videos that depicted animals or people doing ridiculous and crazy things on doorbell cameras. Everyone was surprised at how realistic they looked but never questioned why there was enough training data of doorbell cameras to make them in the first place.
Not that relevant, but it makes it pretty clear how "private" this data was in the first place.
To be fair, a LOT of people voluntarily post doorbell videos on public sites like Facebook, X, Next Door etc. plenty for AI to scrape without even touching "private" brands.
Also, even this is vastly overstating how difficult that it would be.
You don't need to train an entire network to make doorbell camera videos/pictures. There are techniques (like IP Adapters) that can take a single photo during inference and copy the style onto any other generated work. With applications like ComfyUI, this is a matter of dropping a node onto the generation graph and choosing a photo (or several photos), 3-4 clicks.
You can connect Eufy cameras to your NAS (RTSP) if you want to completely avoid sending the recording to the cloud, or only stored on the MicroSD card.
Not sure if it is open source, but I switched to ReoLink a while back and have been very happy with it. Good Home Assistant integration, no subscription, and everything can be local (store video clips to an onboard SD Card).
You can just use analog security cameras and a DVR of your choosing. Don't let the word analog fool you, the cameras are available in up to 4K resolution. Since the video is recorded to the DVR and not some random company's server it is safe. It requires a little more setup and know-how but it is by no means difficult. Check the surveillance section on B&H's website. There are tons of options.
I use ReoLink cameras blocked from the Internet. Locally, the app is p2p and works fine. For remote viewing, I have the rtmp proxied through my home server.
As far as I can tell it's still voluntary. This is their policy. It sounds like if you choose to share photos or video with public safety organizations, that now Flock and hence ICE can access it.
That all said, fuck Flock and I certainly don't want anything I share (which I never have) to contribute to the profits of a private surveillance company. The solution here appears to be share nothing with public safety at all ever so that contract is worth nothing.
Do commenters know they can copy text instead of break web accessibility?
From the article
The partnership, announced in October 2025, integrates Ring’s Community Requests feature directly into Flock’s law-enforcement platforms, FlockOS and Flock Nova, allowing police departments to request Ring camera footage through Ring’s Neighbors app.
Community Requests is a privacy-protected service that enables public safety agencies to put out public requests for help and efficiently and securely collect and manage digital evidence. Public safety agencies can post a request in the Neighbors feed asking community members within a specific area to share Ring video footage or information that may help their investigation. Videos customers choose to share in response to Community Requests go directly to Axon Evidence, a secure evidence management system where they can be verified for authenticity and integrity. This also creates a complete audit trail of how and when public safety agencies collect information.
Participation is always voluntary, and public safety agencies can only see what you choose to share.
The owner chooses what to share in response to a request.
Just like IRL when the police knock on an owner's door to request information.
The owner chooses what to share in response to a request. Just like IRL when the police knock on an owner’s door to request information.
Yes, through this program you are technically correct that the user has to press a button to send the video to law enforcement through this specific program.
This implies that the user has the ability to refuse to send the video to law enforcement, but that is not true.
The videos are stored on Flock/Amazon's servers and that means that the police can, via a subpoena or court order, access the footage or real-time video from any device or storage that the business can access. You have zero say in this and cannot opt out, the case law on requesting 'business records' is long settled as is the idea that digital files are considered 'business records'.
In addition, this program does not preclude Flock/Amazon from voluntarily providing access to anybody or any group that asks/pays. The data is theirs, not yours.
This program is whitewashing the creation of a nation-wide real-time video surveillance network, paid for by you or via your tax dollars.
I wonder how they define "Public safety agencies" since other programs refer to "Justice and Public Safety agencies". Is this difference an oversight or is something being excluded?
It doesn't matter, nobody would have a cause of action to challenge their interpretation if they decided that it meant any HOA or self-declared neighborhood watch.
In the end they are giving the data that they own to who they choose. The fact that it came from a device that you chose to bolt on the side of your house doesn't mean anything in this transaction. The data instantly becomes theirs by virtue of the TOS (that you read, right?) that you agreed to when you signed up for the service and you have no say in what someone else does with their data.
These kinds of programs are just whitewashing, it makes it look like there are significant barriers in place to prevent your data from being used to enable a nationwide real-time surveillance network. There are not.
Flock could start charging a subscription fee for access to their video feeds tomorrow and it would be within their rights as owners of that data. The reason that they create these 'programs' is because it creates the impression that the user has control of 'their' data.
Home "security" cameras cause far, far more angst and grief than they do benefit.
"Hey, mister policeman, here's a video of a guy stealing my truck."
"Yep, that's a guy stealing your truck, alright."
"..."
"Should'a put it in your garage."
"My garage is full of crap I bought on Amazon. Some of it, I haven't even opened. Also, the truck didn't fit in the garage after I had it lifted."
"The report is filed, I'll let you know if we find anything."
"You're not going to find anything, are you?"
"We're not even going to look."
One-third of Nextdoor is lost pets. One-third is people selling crap they bought at Goodwill. And, the last third is people asking about the "suspicious" (non-white) man who walked down the sidewalk past their house at 5AM.
Eh my cameras sit local and only get looked at when I am either board and want to do some frigate plus uploads or if something happens. Besides looking where delivery drivers have left packages I have only had one incident.
Dammit, I fell for rings assurances of “only in response to a warrant”. Mostly out of laziness, but still ….. I really am going to have to figure out self hosting a video doorbell, aren’t i
Reason I don't have any cameras is the whole "I want to wholly control my data" thing. There's just no good reason a "cloud" service can't use Client-Side encryption, other than they want to leave open the possibility of selling you out.
Someone throws something flammable at your front door (maybe even as innocuous as the classic "flaming bag of poo" prank. Nobody's home to notice. Fire burns the house down. Prankster was careless and caught on camera. Do you get footage from a slagged CCTV system?
Just because there is a scenario where it won't work doesn't mean that it's not useful. Every security system has some kind of scenario where it fails.
Yup, but if you can reduce or remove failure-cases without reducing security or making other sacrifices it makes little sense not to.
A system with local cache (hedging against Internet outages), batteries (hedging against power failures) and strong CSE (hedging against opt-out third-party access to your data) provides a significantly higher quality solution than something like Ring or even standard CCTV.
What exactly is the "benefit of cameras"? I never had any "security cameras" and my wife would probably call a psychiatrist if I wanted one. Also, nobody I know has one.
I use offline CCTV for this reason. I'm hacking together an old IP webcam for real-time viewing my front door from my phone with open source software, but that'll be view only, not record.
I will never have a goddamn camera in my home. If I did it will HAVE to be an old school disconnected one that records to a DVR or some SSD HD. I have zero interest in having any unauthorized or unknown access to the interior of my home. This is a goddamn outrage, how is everyone not throwing their ring cameras out already?
Mine is connected to a smart outlet that is only ever powered on when we are away from the house, and it's connected locally to my home assistant setup.
The only reason I have Unifi around. They support local-only. But totally worth if to have your faith in your own hands. I would never have gone with a cloud solution like Ring
I bought a ring camera in 2018 and I haven't replaced it. They disabled color view to try to get me to to buy a new one. Thankfully I haven't connected it to Amazon or anything yet. I immediately disconnected it after reading this, fucking Amazon.
Zoneminder/ Shinobi for Linux seems to be the software, and milestone is free up to eight camera channels if you only have a Windows box to run the cameras (I'm a dealer, so if you're a Windows person and you get lost ask me how.)
Cloud access is typically if you’re managing equipment at multiple sites. For me everything is accessed and managed locally and the recordings are saved to a local HDD and not uploaded to the cloud.
I meant more that products don't necessarily have to use the cloud just because the company behind them uses analytics to figure out their target audience for marketing reasons
You know they are in all of your cloud connected cameras, inside your home, inside your tesla, pretty much everywhere you have a camera... Definitely not just at your front door. The key thing to understand about the surveillance state is that they only acknowledge access of personal data if they intend to use it in a court room. Most of it is just used for spying, information gathering, and parallel construction if necessary.
Yeah, I feel my hypocrisy. I am trying to understand more, but my mind always ends up melting. Individuals I’ve met that maybe could do what I want done are a different breed from me. I am pushing myself to understand more, but I am pushing uphill and it will take years before I can achieve what probably so many all around the world could do now. While I sharpen myself, I ask: who were those in the V masks of years past?
Reason #186729 why it's insane to have no right to privacy in public.
Fun fact: Recording the public is illegal in Germany. Any private video camera must only be able to record your own property. If you do record (and store - smart doorbells without storage that are only active when they are rung are exempted) material you must have visible warnings (that others can see BEFORE being recorded) or else any evidence you collect is likely to be thrown out in court.
It's the same here in Sweden. You're definitely allowed to vlog and such, if you're recording yourself, or general environment stuff for a purpose that's okay. You aren't allowed to surveil public areas. Naturally this also means that doorbell cameras can be perfectly fine, provided they don't catch public spaces. If your door points sideways for example, and there's a hedge blocking any public space, you're fine.
If you're in a flat and you're recording the stairwell, well that's illegal.
My old ring is in a box ready to go to electronics resell/recycling. Maybe it needs a meeting with my friend Sledge before it goes out, so it can't hurt anyone again.
In case it wasn't obvious, you have to be pretty fucking stupid to install surveillance in your own house linked to tech corporations, with your own money, while generating a profit for them.
I’ve been using this for years and it’s about to become my main. I put a memory card in it and can access it globally without a subscription to any service. It’s “compatible with Alexa” but that’s not ever happening.
I think I want to print out a letter and put it in everyone's home in my neighborhood with one of these. To at least let them know who they're helping. I'd bet a vast majority have no idea.
It would be cool if we could hack the feeds shown by our own cameras to show images of Donald and Epstein together, so every time they look, everytime they use our cameras, it’s logged with images of Donny and his best friend
First and foremost I would never use one of these things.
That said, supposedly, you can opt out. That won't protect you from warranted access from law enforcement. Probably not worth it, the peephole works fine.
We can only hope these companies are treated as collaborators in the future.
How were collaborators treated the last time around though?
Volkswagen, Ford, UBS, and IBM are all doing pretty well.
Even the company that made the gas for hitlers gas chambers are still around
Zyklon-B, the pesticide used in the gas chambers, was still being manufactured, sold and used (for its intended pesticide usage) all the way up until the 2010s iirc.
and this was still under the Zyklon name.
Imagine all the jobs that would be lost if we stopped using zyklon b to gas undesirables! Wrings hands.
All those rocket engineers got cushy jobs with NASA too.
Not that it makes it any better, but at least they tried hiding operation paperclip. Hopefully indicating some kind of shame.
Volkswagen didn't even change their name
Barely changed the logo
"Yeah we were the nazi car company who helped do the holocaust. That was a doozy. Anyways, wanna buy a nazi car?"
If you see what was done to VW, I think it makes sense though. Not really familiar with the histories of the others in relation.
Nike, Adidas
How was Nike involved? They didn't exist until ~ the 70s I thought.
Sorry, Hugo Boss
You presumably mean that Hugo Boss ‘designed the SS uniform’ — which he didn't, as he wasn't a designer and the company wasn't in fashion design until after his death. The uniform was designed by two dudes in the SS, and Hugo Boss' company was one of many manufacturers contracted for production.
Hugo Boss was a member of the Nazi party, though.
Ah, that one makes sense.
the nazi scientists got employed in the US, so theres that. and plus we had a nazi party in the usa that was never sanctioned.
When do you people WAKE UP? What accountability? What responsibility? When in the last decade plus has any if that happened?
I'm sure it's just around the corner....
Open your damn eyes. The entire planet can see it, why are Americans so blind?l is it intentional? You guys let J6 slide ffs, why would there be an ounce of accountability now or ever? UNREAL
It's very real. This is history repeating itself for the umpteenth time. You aren't the first, nor will you be the last one to scream into the void about people who have been deliberately disenfranchised by their government with the direct intent of making them toothless against what is essentially a fascist regime.
The problem is that you're screaming a lot but not offering actual solutions except a general idea of "Fight!". That's not helpful, and it sounds a lot like condescension.
I understand that you're expressing frustration and disbelief and anger. But people here are angry too and they are fighting where they can. But as this and other news is very demonstrative of, the system is rigged against them and things get worse in that regard every day.
App stores removing apps that track ICE. People who share their outrage but not solutions/who don't boost actual efforts to fight.
News articles that focus solely on the bad part and offer no solutions. The fact that you don't come across many posts with actual solutions isn't a bug, it's intentional. People ignore things that help so they can remain outraged, supercilious, and smug.
None of this stopped USians from endlessly writing on Reddit for the past four years that Russians should've overthrown Putin, and I didn't see them helping plan a revolution.
I have tried to explain to Americans here and on reddit and other places too that the political landscape in Russia is very different and that what we think is possible is all passed through the lens of our own government and country. But people are gonna people.
For what it's worth, I don't agree with those people whole sale either. I recognize that what they're asking the Russian populace to do is tantamount to a death or slavery sentence.
All I've heard for 40 years of life is 2a this and 2a that. Turns out it was just an excuse for school shootings and gun nuts to keep their toys. Your answer is staring you in the face, whether you want to acknowledge or not is another thing.
Do you really believe the traditional channels will be of any use? Or have those already - long, long - been compromised?
Even if the channels had just been neutered yesterday, do yoy really think Trump would give back an inch? He'll TACO all day on tariffs, but on human rights violations he is consistent - take and never return.
You're platitudes are lovely, and in fairness, not even entirely incorrect. But what you, and eveidently millions and millions of Americans don't seem to understand, is the milk has already been spilled. The how and the why are for scholars a hundred years from now to sort out. For today, tomorrow and the day after, y'all need to find a way to stop the continous slide. It's not getting easier next week or the week after.
Label me WHATEVER you like that gets people's ASSES IN GEAR. As angry as I am, amazingly enough I am still on your side. I should be flushing every bloody word an American speaks to me straight down the toilet after your Dear Leader and half the country shit on an ally in ways never seen before. Yet here I am, trying to propel you people to acknowlegde the real situation for what it is. Why is that? Truthfully, I'm selfish. I'd love to not have to take up arms to defend my border, but let's be honest, that's inevitable if Americans don't clean up their own shit.
So before you come and tell me how smug and supercilious I'm being, take a moment to realize this - becuase of your people's patently obvius shitty decisions, I have to enlist and potentially PUT MY LIFE ON THE LINE to defend my country against an 'ally'. Pardon me for not giving a fuck about your spineless response and pages of assinine commentary.
GO DO SOMETHING.
There's a lot of armed people here willing to fight, but without some kind of organized call-to-arms (whether it be militias or state national guard), all that's gonna happen is you're going to be arrested and given a 20+ year prison sentence for assault on a federal officer with a deadly weapon. It's easy to say you'd fight back, but a lot of us have families to provide for and can't just throw away our lives like that.
Right now, we're lacking leadership, and most democrats in power don't have the balls to openly call for resistance. I don't know what the future holds, but I feel we're nearing a breaking point where we might start seeing armed resistance.
You are clearly not wrong. However, the question I would return with: if not violence, what mechanism for change will actually move a lever?
I'm certainly at my most pessimistic moment, but sincerely I don't see how this changes for your countrymen at this point without violence...? What realistic compromise could we even draw up? The two sides are diametrically opposed. There isn't common ground because there isn't even a common reality. The legal system seems righed and there is no leadership. You have touched on some of these points yourself.
I'll take a try at what a compromise might look like:
-- Trump agrees to go door to door with Minnesota Police. This gurantees:
This solution would save lives, but also give up significant civil liberties. It's the best I can think up. Hopefully you are more creative than I am.
My last comment: I too have a family. And many extended family. And friends across Canada. It is on behalf of these people that I'm so passionate. And I can also appreciate your concerns also because of these same people. These are two sides of the same coin.
You fail to understand that this wasn't an attack on you, but commentary about the state of things and how they look from the inside rather than the outside.
And as someone who did enlist, I'm gonna just point out something. Your country should never have allowed allyship with the USA to divest you of a fighting force worthy of protecting your own assets, borders, or sovereignty.
I absolutely don't agree that the US should be fucking about in any other country. But the entire world never even batted an eye when we were setting up puppet regimes and destabilizing whole countries where brown people live. So you'll figure me if our problematic behavior has finally landed on your doorstep. I don't agree with the shit we've done in South America, The Middle East, or half a dozen African countries.
But I also grew up in poverty and found my way out of that through enlistment, so I was part of the problem whether I wanted to be or not.
I am trying to have empathy for you and people like you while pointing out that our government is literally kidnapping people off the street and essentially using FLOK cameras as legal wiretaps. The people who are doing something need help to boost the signal and people are ignoring them.
There is something your citizenry could do, but unfortunately they lack the unity to do it nor can most of them put up with the hardship it would entail. The size of the nation in terms of distance isn’t a problem, smaller populations with just as much distance have successfully protested in unity. It’s unity itself and the inability to put up with hardship.
That is to stop work, stop buying anything you can, grind the means of production to a halt. Yeah, people would lose jobs they don’t want, healthcare which is inadequate anyway and housing that will still be available once the goal is achieved, which is to force the houses to act on impeachment and whatever amendments and institutional rules exist to remove this administration.
Violence or inciting violence is not the answer and I think I’d be preaching to the converted on this one, you said you were an ex serviceman. Sure, all your citizens should have on hand whatever means they can to defend themselves (as is their constitutional right) but you know as well as I do where that will end up.
The easiest method to stop this is voting; in every election where the position requires election from the people, you’re there. You tell your employer you will be before you take a new job, it’s that important. That’s why the Republicans are where they are, because their people vote. It might be the only redeeming quality they have.
That one’s done now though. The next easiest is what I suggested above and it has to be done, or you’re done because I can’t see a fair midterm happening. They have to be removed. It’ll work if enough stop.
I understand your frustration, but take a moment to remember you are where you are because you didn’t vote in numbers.
People overseas are threatened by this without having a choice in that. So yeah, they may have to defend themselves against your military because you are too lazy to vote as a collective.
Yes, everyone is a bot. You're right. And this is an alt account. Nice work Sherlock. I guess that makes everything I said incorrect? Because my account is 15 days old? Nice strawman.
I'll entertain this so it's in writing:
Do yoy wanna run that through ChatGPT to make sure it's authentic?
So back to the ACTUAL DISCUSSION POINT: This isn't about my spine you idiot. I didn't vote for him and I'm not an American citizen. YOU HAD THE CHANCE. He was voted out and then allowed to return. I had zero ability to influence any of that.
And because of your countries moral bankruptcy, now we are preparing to defend ourselves against an 'ally'. Many nations are doing so.
Just going to ignore all that?
And finally, I AM PROUD TO SERVE MY COUNTRY. AND I WILL ANSWER THE CALL WHEN THE TIME COMES. Even though I nor my nation had anything to do with the shit storm that is landing on our front step. Also while Americans themselves, who got us to this point, are being trampled on and not standing up for what is right. So yeah, if you guys did anything whatsoever, we wouldn't be here. He was voted out ffs.
Back over to your strawman. But before you start again, let's not forget letting that little J6 thing completely slide by without any consequence... what a joke.
EDIT: Calls me a bot and an alt, strawmans and then DELETES the comment outright. Guess that rebuttal was 10/10. Nice work @[email protected]
Oh noooo, that thing we warned people about when it came out is being misused in exactly the way we warned people it would be misused.
Oh nooooo.
I'm tired grandpa. Too damn many stupid people in this world.
yeah, 100%, and there is no satisfaction in being proven right for this shit, the vindication is absolutely hollow. It sucks for everyone.
The US. The rest of us don’t have an ICE problem nor an obsession with this kind of shit.
Edit: Americans really don’t like their actions and responsibility handed back to them do they? God they’re getting fucking tiring.
That is simply not true.
Here in the EU we have chat control trying to be forced through every year for mass surveillance and targeting like Spain targeting catalan independence movements.
Palantir is starting to expand into the EU and american fash-tech companies have been lobbying hard and giving money to fascist parties across the EU. Musk gave unprescidented money of AfD fascists, for example.
UK has been getting more and more fascist for years, they have had mass surveillance for years and have been arresting people for simply attending zoom meetings supporting a country being killed off en-masse. Palantir literally just landed a £240 million deal with the UK government
We don't have an ICE problem yet. Neither did america 10 years ago. It is being pushed HARD here to create an ICE problem.
Yes, it’s simply true.
They’re trying, as you point out. They’re not there yet.
Besides which, the use of the ‘world’ in place of the ‘US’ sterilises where the responsibility lies.
feels like rest of the world, including Europe, is like "can we slip in a couple of ours while Trump is doing all these insane bat shit crazy stuff and distracting people"
Every time I thought the US was stupid for doing a thing, the rest of the world followed with the same bullshit a few years later. Some sooner, some later. The US is not more stupid, they're trendsetters.
While you’re at it, don’t buy from amazon
There was a time when I thought that was impossible... now I don't even have an account
I think my wife keeps one because according to her (and I believe this is true) there are things you just can't buy elsewhere anymore. So far, I have been fine not buying something if it's only on Amazon but I can see cases where that would be impossible.
Other than that, fuck Amazon right off
Yes and no. For example I had to buy double-sided tape and went into four different stores in different areas of my city and only found it in the fourth store after researching.
I checked on Amazon after the fact, and could have had it delivered to my door same-day lol.
I don't believe there's anything you can only buy on Amazon... but it IS so bloody convenient.
What specifically is this true for?
Other than their Amazon basic branded trash.
People send me links to Amazon products and seem bewildered when I just don’t open them and or respond to send me the actual link to the mfr website.
Fuck amazon
*you're
You would think that text prediction would be better by now but no
Oh look another smart technology I didn't adopt for the exact reason being talked about. You can't trust big tech to not collaborate with whoever it's the most profitable to collaborate with.
It's not really a trust thing. They are companies, not people. The top decision makers have a fubuciary responsibility to do whatever makes money. They can, and often do, get sued if they don't. So you can expect them to sell you out. It's literally thier purpose for existing.
You're right, of course, but I really enjoyed "fubuciary". It's a deliblicious misplomuncitation.
I can't argue with that.
I really think you should try. This us the Internet after all!
But I thought the courts decided that companies are people. :|
Only when it is good for "business"
They are companies run by right wing shitbags. How many genocides were conducted on Facebook?
You can't trust big tech to not collaberate with, big tech either. You don't want them with your information, even if it's not readily apparent how it could hurt you. Before you know it you could be in a fascist dictatorship and wondering how you got there, this is part of the reason. Or would be in that completely hypothetical situation that in no way mirrors our own situation with our dear most intelligent and not al all dickish supreme leader.
Have considered a plain old doorbel and a peep hole on the door?
Low tech, cheap, cheap to install, lasts a lifetime.
Heck, if safety is the concern, install a periscope. Yes, mirrora inside a tube, to get to see, from a distance, who is at the door.
You want footage? Photos?
Install a local camera. Like one of those that are setup by biologists to film animals in the wild. Triggered by motion sensing. Or talk with someone technically inclined and install a local system.
I've disconnected the doorbell at every place I've lived in the last 10 years. If I'm expecting you I'll be waiting and opening the door for you, everyone else can leave a message or find a different way to contact me
I don't answer the phone unless you are in my contacts list or I am specifically expecting a call.
If someone calls and doesn't leave a voicemail or text, then it isnt important.
Filters out the junk (and often outright scam) calls.
Fed ex and UPS with sign for packages.
These would generally fall under the "expected" category.
Yes, in the
threeninefourteen hour window they might show up in.I'm at work for most of that window. And when I miss it, they'll try again the next day at the same time...believe it or not, I'll be at work then too.
What’s fun is now UPS wants a second shipping fee to schedule a time or hold your package for you. You can no longer presign their little paper to leave the package. The only option is to pay, or they’ll return your package.
It’s extortion.
Worse, I was home both days and they never knocked or rang the bell. I let them return the package, on them, took my full refund, then reordered. We cycled through this game until someone rang the bell.
So nothing relevant to you at all, in these circumstances.
Not everything is about me. My comment was more tongue-in-cheek than anything.
More seriously, the tracking numbers usually narrow it down to an hour or 2 if you actually follow it. Given the once every few years that I have a package requiring a signature, I think I can handle it.
If it doesn't use a BNC connector I don't trust it
Or just use one of the hundreds of other brands that provide smart doorbells.
Honest question: what is the reason to have a doorbell of this kind?
Tells you when a package arrived and when the neighbor stole it off your porch. Tells you someone rang the bell when not home and lets you remotely yell ant the door to door sales people.
I mean they’re useful, but I sure wouldn’t ever trust one connected to any sort of cloud.
I do have a UniFi door cam that records to a local hard drive. I like it. Ties in with my other cameras to watch my vehicle in my driveway.
If you can see it’s a salesperson you can ignore them but answer if it’s the mailman/UPS. Get notified that a package was dropped off… or that shortly thereafter some rando walks up to said package.
Think of it as a door-peephole-at-range.
Many.
If you get deliveries and they're mishandled, you have a recording of it.
If someone comes to your door when you're not home, you can talk to them.
You can also set up local AI alerts (AI here is mostly used for facial recognition) e.g. to alert you if your MIL comes around uninvited, or if your kids sneak out at 2am, and so on.
Once you begin appreciating a home CCTV camera setup (fully local mind you), you'll see the benefit of having your doorbell video-ed up as well.
That sounds awful. I'd rather just not, and avoid that mindset altogether.
Avoid the mindset that your kid might sneak out, or an unwanted guest might have shown up?
Ignorance may be bliss, but it certainly doesn’t stop shenanigans from happening.
In the context of parenting there are certainly better things you can do to prevent "shennanigans" other than subjecting them to surveillance. Like you know... raising them?
Terrifying with a generation of peole grown up under total control and expected to be perfectly obedient. They will be shitty adults. But hey, at least they won't have memories of that time they snuck out at night to watch the stars.
Look, I’ve had a random person walk into my house uninvited before, and having a recording of it was useful. Just because you don’t like the idea of one of the examples given, doesn’t mean these devices have no use.
Do tell, which part of that sounds awful?
The idea of going back to a blind simple lock protecting my house, pets, and stuff is crazy to me - smart CCTV and an internet connected alarm system are so much better, plus there's no "monitoring" cost like some folks pay. $40 so you can call the cops for me? No.
In addition to "normal" uses, my kids got into the habit of leaving me messages on the camera when I'm in the office and they are leaving for school. I grew to love these messages.
Using Eufy with local storage. Don't know whether anything gets stored to the cloud, but I guess data still passes through Eufy servers when I view the videos.
How else can you have the pleasure of telling Jehovah’s Witnesses to go away when you’re not at home?
I was waiting for this reply!
I love those guys! Trolling them always makes my day. Asking if they are willing to help clean the house never fails to get them off my door.
What if they agree to clean if you just listen to them?
Never happened and I seriously doubt it ever will. But! I have a couple of maid outfits laying around if it ever does. I'll listen if they comply with my request.
Make sure to put a cover on the peephole. There is some sort of lens or something that can allow someone outside to see through it.
I like to know when a package arrives, and when someone has stolen it.
Doorbell cams are just too convenient. You already have power there. There's footage and audio.
Of course, I'm technically inclined...
I'm more concerned about safety on my property than privacy. I use Wyze Cams. I'm fine with it.
You can have both. I have a 360 camera set up around my house that records to a local dvr. I can remote into it when I’m not home and I’m not supporting ghoulish companies like google or Amazon.
Which camera and software? I self-host some stuff, but there is a "too complex" point I sometimes reach.
The cameras I inherited from the previous owner. They’re fairly low quality analog cameras but they get the job done. They had a Night Owl Brand system but I replaced it with a reolink dvr I have on a vlan so it’s separate from the rest of my network. When I have more time I’ll probably switch over to frigate though. That’ll likely come with me buying some higher quality cameras that are digital.
Thanks, I'll look into those. I have a Wyze system without cloud features, but I'm sure privacy isn't perfect.
You can have both if you have the know how and time to do so. I'd rather just pay $60 a year and under $100 for the cameras. How does Wyze support Google and Amazon? I'm genuinely asking.
My bad, I mixed up wyze with nest, which google owns. Amazon owns blink and ring. I do know wyze was founded by former Amazon employees, which is definitely not the same as their being controlled or supported by Amazon. That said, you may want to read up on some of their security breaches, which have happened multiple times.
I'm aware. I just don't care that some random person could see my driveway momentarily. If it kept happening, I would cancel.
It’s not just a random person, you’re opening yourself up to the government subpoenaing wyze and collecting information about you without your knowledge or consent. In a normal world with a responsible government that wouldn’t be a huge deal provided you’re not doing anything seriously wrong, but that ship has sailed as of late. Don’t let them incriminate you with a fishing expedition for convenience
oh wow that's crazy. Why would they do that though? What does a fishing expedition mean?
You might want to consider a different brand:
“So violated”: Wyze cameras leak footage to strangers for 2nd time in 5 months
I saw that when it happened. I'm not really bothered by the fact that a random person somewhere may have seen my driveway. If it kept happening, sure. I don't have the wherewithal and time to set up a camera on a server, and in this day and age I feel like some sort of security camera is necessary. There's a serious case for privacy, but not all of us have the capability or concern that the echo-chamber on Lemmy does about immaculate privacy.
You'll get downvoted for having this opinion here but it's a real take. Everyone has their own level of privacy they're okay with and yours is a bit lower than the average user here.
If you're okay with the potential risk, then that is your own choice, no one is forcing you.
Thank you for understanding that. This platform assumes the whole world functions as they do and has no understanding for people who either just don't care or lack ability.
Can we all agree to print out flyers of this to share around with neighbors and our communities? People ARE under educated. It starts with us educating because the oligarchs wont
I doubt that anyone who has a ring camera, alexa and anything like that will care. Maybe people who think about getting one will, but a random flyer?
I care. I have Ring because it was the fastest way to get cameras on my property after trouble with neighbors. I found out how liberal they are with user data and handing it over to law enforcement but I couldn't justify the expense in upgrading. For me this isn't a bridge too far in a moral sense but more like a powerful reminder I've been lax in my responsibility. I'm pricing out some Reolink cameras I can host locally at home and put on a private subnet I can just VPN into. I'll have to buy the kit piecemeal because I don't have a lot of money to toss around but I am firmly committed to getting off Ring cameras in light of this news.
Don't buy anything from Amazon.
This really highlights how important it is for people to understand what they’re opting into with smart devices. Transparency and informed choice matter more than ever.
the contracts/terms/etc don't even matter.. they can change them at any time, without prior notice. stop buying stuff, plain and simple.
Tl;dr surveillance equipment working perfectly, used for dystopian surveillance. Major shocker.
Even better, getting the general public to pay to install and power them
this is great news for my leftist in-laws who decided to get ring cameras out of the convenience they offered.
I did warn them that this would happen, but like most people, "that would never happen!"
Ring is owned by Amazon, so it makes sense. You can't really trust any company fully, but Anker and Reolink are OK for now
Any cameras that can operate entirely offline are good. Dahua and Hikvision are good too. Look for cameras with RTSP and ONVIF support. ONVIF is a standardized API for interacting with cameras and can handle things like pan/tilt/zoom, sending events from the camera to the NVR (eg motion detection), and a bunch of other things.
I use Blue Iris as my NVR, which is usually regarded as the best, but there's other good software too (like Frigate), and hardware solutions too.
Just follow best practices - keep them isolated on a separate VLAN with no internet access. If you want remote access to your NVR, use a VPN like Tailscale.
Hikvision is app only which is really annoying. I wouldn't recommend it. (it also crashes my emulator for some reason)
Doesn't Hikvision support RTSP?
Though, on the other hand, having the video saved offsite is useful because then anyone with physical access to your home can't get rid of the video showing they're there.
This is not an argument in favour of using cloud services, because that gives access to your video to anyone the company deems should have access (or sometimes individual workers who either have access as part of their job or gain access because businesses suck at security). It's in response to you saying isolate the cameras from the internet entirely; there is a good reason to have them connected (though you could have a PC handle that with a connection to two networks and no physical or software bridge between the two, just take video from one, upload (encrypted) to server on other).
I have Blue Iris configured to send all alert videos to one of my storage VPSes via SFTP. As soon as someone is detected outside, the video clip is sent offsite.
The server and the PoE switch that powers the cameras are also on a UPS, which helps if the intruder tries to shut off the power at the main breaker (which, here in California, always needs to be located outside).
The cameras themselves should always be isolated. No internet access for the cameras at all. Your NVR can have network access, and is what would handle uploading the videos to internet storage somewhere.
Anker owns Eufy right? The company that had all their cameras recording to a publicly accessible cloud storage?
Yeah not trusting them either.
My eufys are supposed to be local only. Shit I hope so... That's why I bought them in the first place
Uh oh, you need to look into that right away. Most of the camera brands we're talking about CAN be run local, by which we mean you can sever their internet connection with firewall rules and they'll still operate. You have to do that though. They'll almost all connect to the internet if allowed to.
HKSV does not get sent to ICE.
Corporations and fascists: name a better duo
Peanut butter and jelly.
betterMore evil
Here's an archive link in case anyone else refuses to give Substack views due to their affinity for Nazis: https://archive.is/ns4Yq
Ditch your internet connected shit and boycott these companies
I enjoy having cameras on my house to see what's going on in the neighborhood. It has come in handy at least once when my neighbor's truck was stolen in broad daylight.
They are ring cameras because two were installed already when I moved in. What should I switch to? I just really want motion alerts and proof when something bad happens.
Unifi Ubiquiti products are one of the best option for completely local data hosting and camera services with really good "ai" detections all run locally, but they aren't that cheap and you'll need to buy one of their Unifi protect capable routers to get started, which is gonna be like $300 by itself.
Edit: Looks like they have a standalone recorder with a 3.5 inch drive bay but it's still $200, and also most of their cameras are Ethernet. They do have a couple wireless options but not many.
Ethernet is the standard for security cameras anyway. It's a higher quality feed which is important for indisputable evidence in a court of law. Just about every Wifi camera is either seriously lacking in resolution, frame rate, or both. Wifi cameras are also stupidly easy to jam with like $10 worth of equipment and minimal knowledge..
https://reolink.com/
Offers all the features Google/Amazon do, but without the subscriptions.
Plus they joined the open home foundation, so they're unlikely to enshitify.
That might be some wishful thinking. I tried getting some Reolink cameras a neighbor decided to buy on his own, to work with Blue Iris the other day, there was no way to configure them without installing their shitty app. All they have to do is just like every other not-shitty camera, enable DHCP, RTSP and ONVIF by default and then fuck off. But that's not happening.
I told him to send them back, I wasn't going to deal with them.
I have a Reolink setup that's entirely air-gapped. No app required, just configure everything through the NVR unit.
What is an NVR unit?
NVR = Network Video Recorder. It's the box that has the hard drive(s) to record all the video streams coming in from the cameras over WiFi or Ethernet.
Yeah initial setup requires their app (once).
But you can use their app without creating an account, which is such a breath of fresh air compared to everyone else.
Initial setup with Reolink is hit or miss. You're right that those settings are off by default, which sucks. The better cameras host their own WebUI with which you can login and make changes with no app required, but the cheaper ones cut that corner and need the app. With that said, yes it is an initial hoop you might have to jump through, but once done and isolated you'll never have to deal with it again. It's a worthy trade off for the affordability and featureset IMO, but of course it could always be better.
Except they're not all that affordable for the features. Not many that are POE, and their MP/optizoom compared to cameras half their price isn't great. I can get Amcrest or Vikylin for less, and have everything that Reolink doesn't out of the box. You also have to be careful with them that you don't get Reolink NVR-locked cameras.
I've heard Reolink touted a lot and so far I'm not seeing the advantage.
I got a doorbell camera with full Home Assistant support and a 180 fisheye camera for around $100 each (don't remember the exact price). I could use the built in recording until i got my NVR setup and it scaled with me. I thought they were great value.
Now, if you want just a bunch of standard cameras to cover your house with, maybe those other options are better, I'll save your post and take a look if I'm ever in the market. I'm not a camera expert, just a tech/home auto enthusiast so they work for what I want.
How is the legal situation in the US? Are you allowed to permanently film and record the public space?
In Germany, you have to limit the camera to your public ground, due to private reasons
In Estonia it's legal to have it film the public ground if you have signs making it clear
On the one hand it's useful to have cameras that show the street. On the other hand, when you post signage like that it kinda says "I have shit worth guarding"
We don't have any expectation of privacy in the US. You can place cameras anywhere you like on your property and can film anything in public.
Unfortunately we have to make our own privacy here (by closing the shades, etc.)
I remember last year when there was a trend of AI generated videos that depicted animals or people doing ridiculous and crazy things on doorbell cameras. Everyone was surprised at how realistic they looked but never questioned why there was enough training data of doorbell cameras to make them in the first place.
Not that relevant, but it makes it pretty clear how "private" this data was in the first place.
To be fair, a LOT of people voluntarily post doorbell videos on public sites like Facebook, X, Next Door etc. plenty for AI to scrape without even touching "private" brands.
Also, even this is vastly overstating how difficult that it would be.
You don't need to train an entire network to make doorbell camera videos/pictures. There are techniques (like IP Adapters) that can take a single photo during inference and copy the style onto any other generated work. With applications like ComfyUI, this is a matter of dropping a node onto the generation graph and choosing a photo (or several photos), 3-4 clicks.
Is there some really good open source and local cameras that people are using? Because many people default to ring.
I am looking at using Eufy, no subscription. Unsure of potential of it joining the darkside.
Edit: China-owned, so it's a pick-your-poison kind of deal.
Eufy is a sub-brand of Anker, for those unaware.
You can connect Eufy cameras to your NAS (RTSP) if you want to completely avoid sending the recording to the cloud, or only stored on the MicroSD card.
Not sure if it is open source, but I switched to ReoLink a while back and have been very happy with it. Good Home Assistant integration, no subscription, and everything can be local (store video clips to an onboard SD Card).
You can just use analog security cameras and a DVR of your choosing. Don't let the word analog fool you, the cameras are available in up to 4K resolution. Since the video is recorded to the DVR and not some random company's server it is safe. It requires a little more setup and know-how but it is by no means difficult. Check the surveillance section on B&H's website. There are tons of options.
This guy just did a privacy review of wireless home security cameras. ReoLink was a good option.
I use ReoLink cameras blocked from the Internet. Locally, the app is p2p and works fine. For remote viewing, I have the rtmp proxied through my home server.
Idk about FOSS but unifi is all locally hosted!
As far as I can tell it's still voluntary. This is their policy. It sounds like if you choose to share photos or video with public safety organizations, that now Flock and hence ICE can access it.
That all said, fuck Flock and I certainly don't want anything I share (which I never have) to contribute to the profits of a private surveillance company. The solution here appears to be share nothing with public safety at all ever so that contract is worth nothing.
Nice of them to completely undermine what "public safety" means for the 326,774,980th time.
Do commenters know they can copy text instead of break web accessibility?
From the article
Ring Community Requests feature
The owner chooses what to share in response to a request. Just like IRL when the police knock on an owner's door to request information.
Yes, through this program you are technically correct that the user has to press a button to send the video to law enforcement through this specific program.
This implies that the user has the ability to refuse to send the video to law enforcement, but that is not true.
The videos are stored on Flock/Amazon's servers and that means that the police can, via a subpoena or court order, access the footage or real-time video from any device or storage that the business can access. You have zero say in this and cannot opt out, the case law on requesting 'business records' is long settled as is the idea that digital files are considered 'business records'.
In addition, this program does not preclude Flock/Amazon from voluntarily providing access to anybody or any group that asks/pays. The data is theirs, not yours.
This program is whitewashing the creation of a nation-wide real-time video surveillance network, paid for by you or via your tax dollars.
Broken as intended on the Ring website. Couldn't copy/paste text. Would've forced the issue were I on desktop at the time.
Looks like you didn't read the whole article.
I wonder how they define "Public safety agencies" since other programs refer to "Justice and Public Safety agencies". Is this difference an oversight or is something being excluded?
It doesn't matter, nobody would have a cause of action to challenge their interpretation if they decided that it meant any HOA or self-declared neighborhood watch.
In the end they are giving the data that they own to who they choose. The fact that it came from a device that you chose to bolt on the side of your house doesn't mean anything in this transaction. The data instantly becomes theirs by virtue of the TOS (that you read, right?) that you agreed to when you signed up for the service and you have no say in what someone else does with their data.
These kinds of programs are just whitewashing, it makes it look like there are significant barriers in place to prevent your data from being used to enable a nationwide real-time surveillance network. There are not.
Flock could start charging a subscription fee for access to their video feeds tomorrow and it would be within their rights as owners of that data. The reason that they create these 'programs' is because it creates the impression that the user has control of 'their' data.
stallmanwasright.jpg
Home "security" cameras cause far, far more angst and grief than they do benefit.
"Hey, mister policeman, here's a video of a guy stealing my truck."
"Yep, that's a guy stealing your truck, alright."
"..."
"Should'a put it in your garage."
"My garage is full of crap I bought on Amazon. Some of it, I haven't even opened. Also, the truck didn't fit in the garage after I had it lifted."
"The report is filed, I'll let you know if we find anything."
"You're not going to find anything, are you?"
"We're not even going to look."
One-third of Nextdoor is lost pets. One-third is people selling crap they bought at Goodwill. And, the last third is people asking about the "suspicious" (non-white) man who walked down the sidewalk past their house at 5AM.
The only reason to contact the police if something gets stolen is so that you can show the report to your insurance company.
Eh my cameras sit local and only get looked at when I am either board and want to do some frigate plus uploads or if something happens. Besides looking where delivery drivers have left packages I have only had one incident.
Dammit, I fell for rings assurances of “only in response to a warrant”. Mostly out of laziness, but still ….. I really am going to have to figure out self hosting a video doorbell, aren’t i
Sorry, wasn't meant as a slight against you.
Remember people: Proprietary systems are never yours. And in this case, they own you.
Bare in mind that the government requires a warrant to obtain data against you, the barrier in which to get a warrant requires probable cause.
Obtaining data about you from a company only requires a subpoena if the company doesn't cooperate.
BUYING data about you from the same company is completely allowed.
Until we get privacy laws, we are truly fucked.
Ubiquiti offers a product that will do that out of the box iirc but I have no idea if it's good.
Still ring has been handing stuff to the cops for years at this point. They only "stopped" recently and I guess started again.
Only problem with the Ubiquiti offering iirc is that it offers no storage, you need a controller with storage installed.
I mean that is expected, though I guess that is my bias. I just meant that is was more "layman" than running your own storage system.
It's easy to do. Mine is a reolink piped through Home Assistant.
@[email protected]
Reason I don't have any cameras is the whole "I want to wholly control my data" thing. There's just no good reason a "cloud" service can't use Client-Side encryption, other than they want to leave open the possibility of selling you out.
The gov will just require them to add backdoors
Why not use CCTV and then you get the benefit of cameras without the cloud...
@[email protected]
Storage reliability/off-siting.
Scenario:
Someone throws something flammable at your front door (maybe even as innocuous as the classic "flaming bag of poo" prank. Nobody's home to notice. Fire burns the house down. Prankster was careless and caught on camera. Do you get footage from a slagged CCTV system?
Just because there is a scenario where it won't work doesn't mean that it's not useful. Every security system has some kind of scenario where it fails.
@[email protected]
Yup, but if you can reduce or remove failure-cases without reducing security or making other sacrifices it makes little sense not to.
A system with local cache (hedging against Internet outages), batteries (hedging against power failures) and strong CSE (hedging against opt-out third-party access to your data) provides a significantly higher quality solution than something like Ring or even standard CCTV.
Just put some NFS server with some storage pool duplication at your buddies house, bing bang boom dogshit arson proof.
What exactly is the "benefit of cameras"? I never had any "security cameras" and my wife would probably call a psychiatrist if I wanted one. Also, nobody I know has one.
I use offline CCTV for this reason. I'm hacking together an old IP webcam for real-time viewing my front door from my phone with open source software, but that'll be view only, not record.
I will never have a goddamn camera in my home. If I did it will HAVE to be an old school disconnected one that records to a DVR or some SSD HD. I have zero interest in having any unauthorized or unknown access to the interior of my home. This is a goddamn outrage, how is everyone not throwing their ring cameras out already?
Mine is connected to a smart outlet that is only ever powered on when we are away from the house, and it's connected locally to my home assistant setup.
Local only is the way to go.
The only reason I have Unifi around. They support local-only. But totally worth if to have your faith in your own hands. I would never have gone with a cloud solution like Ring
I bought a ring camera in 2018 and I haven't replaced it. They disabled color view to try to get me to to buy a new one. Thankfully I haven't connected it to Amazon or anything yet. I immediately disconnected it after reading this, fucking Amazon.
They deliberately disabled an option in order to coerce you into buying a new one? That is insane.
How did they disable color view if you didn't connect it to amazon?
Of course that happened, that happens every time when you buy things but then don't own them.
I'll buy cams for my home, but they'll be for ME alone because they're MY cameras, MY video.
Obligatory fuck Amazon and fuck the USA
Zoneminder/ Shinobi for Linux seems to be the software, and milestone is free up to eight camera channels if you only have a Windows box to run the cameras (I'm a dealer, so if you're a Windows person and you get lost ask me how.)
On Linux, Frigate is the new hotness in self-hosted NVR software.
Oooh home assistant integration with frigate, I'll check it out.
I’ve got a Ubiquiti setup with cameras and a doorbell. It isn’t cheap but it’s local and I highly recommend them if you have the budget.
Does that use a cloud? I went to their site one time and thought it had Google trackers.
Cloud access is typically if you’re managing equipment at multiple sites. For me everything is accessed and managed locally and the recordings are saved to a local HDD and not uploaded to the cloud.
Whose website doesn't have Google trackers?
I get that plausible and such exist too, but using Google is industry standard unfortunately.
There are many that do not. I see all queries in my domain filter. All who do are kindly blocked.
I meant more that products don't necessarily have to use the cloud just because the company behind them uses analytics to figure out their target audience for marketing reasons
It would not surprise me if this inspired systematic vandalism of these devices. Not that I would ever advocate for such a thing.
It's crazy how fast this is going.
You know they are in all of your cloud connected cameras, inside your home, inside your tesla, pretty much everywhere you have a camera... Definitely not just at your front door. The key thing to understand about the surveillance state is that they only acknowledge access of personal data if they intend to use it in a court room. Most of it is just used for spying, information gathering, and parallel construction if necessary.
There's a term I haven't heard for a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
I don't. Not a single one. If I spotted one in the neighborhood, I'd take it down.
Free law enforcement access to my private security system? Seems like a bad idea.
Where are the hactivists?! Are they all too well employed?
Be the change you want to see in the world
Yeah, I feel my hypocrisy. I am trying to understand more, but my mind always ends up melting. Individuals I’ve met that maybe could do what I want done are a different breed from me. I am pushing myself to understand more, but I am pushing uphill and it will take years before I can achieve what probably so many all around the world could do now. While I sharpen myself, I ask: who were those in the V masks of years past?
Are people going to start listening to their "paranoid" nephews yet?
Reason #186729 why it's insane to have no right to privacy in public.
Fun fact: Recording the public is illegal in Germany. Any private video camera must only be able to record your own property. If you do record (and store - smart doorbells without storage that are only active when they are rung are exempted) material you must have visible warnings (that others can see BEFORE being recorded) or else any evidence you collect is likely to be thrown out in court.
It's the same here in Sweden. You're definitely allowed to vlog and such, if you're recording yourself, or general environment stuff for a purpose that's okay. You aren't allowed to surveil public areas. Naturally this also means that doorbell cameras can be perfectly fine, provided they don't catch public spaces. If your door points sideways for example, and there's a hedge blocking any public space, you're fine.
If you're in a flat and you're recording the stairwell, well that's illegal.
Crazy how a company owned by Amazon would do this. /s
This may finally convince my parents to get rid of their ring camera. Thank you
I've been trying to talk my wife out of using the them, hopefully this will. Good luck.
Time to put a goatse picture in front of the camera!
Thank God I still haven't looked that up.
Every once in a while, I come across someone who makes me jealous.
And make it repeat you're the man now, dog!
Yeah, the idea of Amazon running my home security did NOT appeal to me. I went with another brand.
My old ring is in a box ready to go to electronics resell/recycling. Maybe it needs a meeting with my friend Sledge before it goes out, so it can't hurt anyone again.
+1 - Break out that hammer!
It's just out in the open, you're too stupid if you think they didn't do it already.
Ah, the ol' fascist switcheroo
In case it wasn't obvious, you have to be pretty fucking stupid to install surveillance in your own house linked to tech corporations, with your own money, while generating a profit for them.
Find me in your local library
This was the kick in the ass I needed. Removing that device tomorrow.
Wish somebody would open source these things... Was gifted a really nice flood light cam with audio and hate to bin it. Their decent hardware.
I’ve been using this for years and it’s about to become my main. I put a memory card in it and can access it globally without a subscription to any service. It’s “compatible with Alexa” but that’s not ever happening.
What happens when you turn the light switch off? Does it have a battery?
No battery but I’m sure I could rig something up.
Don’t turn off the light switch.
The light is activated by motion or by you leaving it on inside the app. Your choice.
Same i had canceled the monthly but I suspect they still have access..
I canceled my subscription a few minutes ago. I’m not fucking around. The device will be ripped off the entryway as soon as it’s light outside.
This is fucking wrong and I won’t stand for it.
Did OP know the form to create/edit posts has a field named URL?
Are any brands decent? Unfortunately my door doesn't have a peep hole so I need a camera.
Make the hole
Frosted glass door.
Just a bigger hole
I have an Aqara doorbell camera thats been really nice
I am not 100% sure about their privacy but the camera can record local as well as to iCloud when used with HomeKit
My IoT approach for the last 7 years has been HomeKit or DIY and I have not been disappointed too much
You know you can install one pretty easily, right?
Its a frosted glass door.
It's probably still possible.
I think I want to print out a letter and put it in everyone's home in my neighborhood with one of these. To at least let them know who they're helping. I'd bet a vast majority have no idea.
my inlaws live next door and have a ring camera. both me and my partner are trans and i dont think we will be able to convince them to take it down..
Are you able to sell it as an upgrade? There are better cameras than ring.
i could. they are stubborn emeffers who do what they want and dont really think there is anything to worry about
just ask them if they're willing to accept ICE coming to abduct you and their child without their knowledge.
of it's a yes, it's time to move.
Orwell would be proud, or horrified, or both.
We need more community defense classes. Seriously!
Time to invest in some CC cameras.
the best time to invest in those was February 2025. now the prices are 2-3x higher than they should be because "tariffs".
It would be cool if we could hack the feeds shown by our own cameras to show images of Donald and Epstein together, so every time they look, everytime they use our cameras, it’s logged with images of Donny and his best friend
piece of paper, stick, tape
Love the digital panopticon, love being tracked by Nazi pedophiles at all times
Fuucking collabos
First and foremost I would never use one of these things.
That said, supposedly, you can opt out. That won't protect you from warranted access from law enforcement. Probably not worth it, the peephole works fine.
Who willingly has this crap in and on their houses?
Every liberal yuppie that got one of these things is an idiot and a hypocrite.
Everyone else who got one is an idiot, but goddamnit were these trendy amongst the hypocrite liberal yuppie crowd.
EDIT:
2 hours, 2 upset liberal yuppie hypocrites.