Ditch your internet connected shit and boycott these companies
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.
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 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.
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 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).
Idk about FOSS but unifi is all locally hosted!
Ah, the ol’ fascist switcheroo
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.
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.
It’s crazy how fast this is going.
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.
Corporations and fascists: name a better duo
Peanut butter and jelly.
betterMore evil
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.
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!”
Free law enforcement access to my private security system? Seems like a bad idea.
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.
How did they disable color view if you didn’t connect it to amazon?
They deliberately disabled an option in order to coerce you into buying a new one? That is insane.
