Posted on 02/18/2020 9:05:10 AM PST by ransomnote
Margaret Cudia thought her Ring doorbell camera was "the best thing since sliced bread." She loved watching the world pass by through her suburban New Jersey neighborhood, guarding vigilantly for suspicious strangers and porch pirates from the comfort of her phone.
She hadn't expected the camera also might capture awkward moments closer to home, like the time it caught her daughter grabbing a beer and talking about how controlling her mother was. "I never told her about that one," she said with a laugh.
Amazon's Ring, Google's Nest and other Internet-connected cameras - some selling for as little as $59 - have given Americans the tools they need to become a personal security force, and millions of people now seeing what's happening around their home every second - what Ring calls the "new neighborhood watch." (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
But the allure of monitoring people silently from afar has also proved more tempting than many expected. Customers who bought the cameras in hopes of not becoming victims joke that instead they've become voyeurs.
The Washington Post surveyed more than 50 owners of in-home and outdoor camera systems across the United States about how the recording devices had reshaped their daily lives. Most of those who responded to online solicitations about their camera use said they had bought the cameras to check on package deliveries and their pets, and many talked glowingly about what they got in return: security, entertainment, peace of mind. Some said they worried about hackers, snoops or spies.
But in the unscientific survey, most people also replied that they were fine with intimate new levels of surveillance - as long as they were the ones who got to watch.
They analyzed their neighbors. They monitored their kids and house guests.
MORE AT LINK
(Excerpt) Read more at greenwichtime.com ...
It IS really scary, actually.
Gov will easily be using it all they can, next. Even if it means co-opting someone’s “private” equipment.
Even these “smart”phones where I can track my husband...vice-versa....pretty scary when you think about it.
As a kid I thought Mrs Kravitz was a wacky charecter but there is a lot of Mrs Kravitz in the American female. My wife knows the comings and goings of EVERYONE around us. It seems compulsive.
I’ve read that some communities allow police to access ring accounts (or Nest, I forget which one) at will w/o asking homeowner.
Am trying to remember the name of a sci fi book from at least a few years ago where this was all SO prevalent, that the “next” generation dispensed with clothing and did EVERYTHING in public.
Amazon says police can keep videos from Ring doorbells forever and share them with anyone
Amazon keeps the video, not you. In theory, police have to get homeowner consent, but with Trump's travails, we've seen how requirements for authorization can be gotten around.
Seems like every house I deliver to has a Ring doorbell these days.
In the movie Clue one character questions that J.Edgar Hoover is on the phone.
Wadsworth response is why should the be? He’s on everyone else’s.
But not today, nope, these days we call our espionage devices electronic assistants, Siri etc. And with the Cloud the liberation of computing from data centers that was a great achievement of the personal computers is likewise being undone.
Young people these days have no idea about a world with privacy. They are poorer for it, not richer.
My brother wanted to give me a Ring doorbell system. I respectfully said no thanks.
It has its’ pros, if you have a lot of packages delivered to your house via Amazon.com, it’s nice to know when the package arrives. And I actually do think it will deter crime because now criminals know they are watched.
But as with anything, it can be abused, and people have to be vigilant about that.
The Brit cops, Scotland Yard detectives and MI5/6 in London have UK/London official cameras everywhere.
For about 10 plus years, apparently a simple search warrant will allow the “authorities” to ‘borrow and retrieve’ any data on those private monitors if an unsolved crime happened on the streets/sidewalks covered by those monitors.
Apparently, telephone call records and internet data is easily accessed by the UK authorities with basic no limits via a summons/search warrant or court order.
In some communities, the city subsidizes Ring cameras. But part of the deal is, if you accept a subsidized camera, police get access automatically and without needing your consent.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/five-concerns-about-amazon-rings-deals-police
“ I’ve read that some communities allow police to access ring accounts (or Nest, I forget which one) at will w/o asking homeowner.”
I almost got the ring cameras. I didn’t for exactly your comment.
What has caused this increase in criminal behavior? Used to be you could leave your doors unlocked and never worry about a thing.
Two parents working, nobody home during the day.
Also, neighbors don’t interact anymore, people don’t look out for each other like they used to.
If women are staying home, then they are the ones who can’t help but notice what else is going on.
And many of us DO stay at home, at least alot more than the husband, I must say. Trust me, my husband is really curious sometimes postulating what is happening across the street; he just doesn’t have the time to see all that I see.
If data exists anywhere on the net, it can be retrieved from anywhere on the net.
Study this axiom.
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