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.
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.
Ditch your internet connected shit and boycott these companies
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.
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.
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.
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).
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!
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
It would not surprise me if this inspired systematic vandalism of these devices. Not that I would ever advocate for such a thing.
Corporations and fascists: name a better duo
Peanut butter and jelly.
betterMore evil
It’s crazy how fast this is going.
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.
Ah, the ol’ fascist switcheroo
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!”
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.
world
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.
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.
Free law enforcement access to my private security system? Seems like a bad idea.
