I found this dropbox link to Ring's marketing video for Police Departments to use their smart video cameras for mass surveillance. This was made before Amazon acquired them. At the end of the demo the CEO states that their facial recognition search feature will be available soon.
This software is made in Ukraine and the hardware is manufactured in China. There was no private company contract bid - Ring is just giving this to cops for free and offering customers a discount for letting their video surveillance from their home / doorbell be shared with the police in this portal.
over 50+ local police departments are now partners.
There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial recognition algorithms.
Ring Ukraine is hiring aggressively, they grew from 10 engineers to 500 in two years. It's one of the top image processing R&D labs in Eastern Europe. Based on their job descriptions.... the facial recognition search being deployed in the police portals of Ring is pretty advanced.
for more on Ring Ukraine www.ring-ukraine.com
I got this ring marketing video from officer.com / a website for police industry news.
Huh? How did you get something entirely different from the article. The article says police will have access to the neighborhoods law enforcement portal, which only gives them access to public posts of Ring users. The only addition that the law enforcement portal appears to give is the fact that they can request video clips from homeowners.
There are some valid concerns there but you’re mischaracterizing this tool and how it works.
> There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial recognition algorithms.
Those are some interesting claims. Where is this information sourced from?
> There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial recognition algorithms.
Yes and no lawsuit will be won either. Every judge will strike it based on being in public assumption of lack of privacy. If you walk on public street, don't assume your privacy is protected :(
> Ring is just giving this to cops for free and offering customers a discount for letting their video surveillance from their home / doorbell be shared with the police in this portal
That's a hell of a market strategy. Do you have a source on that discount story? Because I'm not able to find one right now.
I'm a Ring customer. The Ring Portal is optional and opt-in. People want this. This is similar but not the same as Yc's Flock https://www.flocksafety.com/ but it doesn't require a home owner's association to set up and it's inexpensive. (Flock focuses on storing license plates.)
Stuff like this helps police do something about robberies and burglaries. It's harder to ignore and file away when there's video evidence.
Megapixel IP cameras are getting cheaper and cheaper every day. We already live in a mass surveillance society with microphones and cameras in almost all of our rooms, with some people even installing Echos in their bathrooms. Instead of bad Big Brother, we get helpful Little Sister (Alexa, Siri, Kortana, ...). imo The only real way to completely escape it, is to avoid technology and live outside of large metros; away from civilization
I can not imagine developing this and thinking that it is Good. This type of product and platform completely ignores the reality of how it will be used and how police behave in American society.
In the demo video, their example has someone sharing a photo of "suspicious people" walking around outside their house, and has neighbors commenting "oh no!" on it. Now the police are alerted to this "crime" which may not even be a crime. Anyone who has an account on NextDoor knows the hysteria around a minor event like a car that someone doesn't recognize being in the neighborhood.
The next step is police or homeowner arresting or shooting someone captured on video and posted to this social feed as having committed a crime.
The developers, marketers, SV investors, etc who promote this type of surveillance as a good idea need a course in ethics and reality.
Anyone who has an account on NextDoor knows the hysteria around a minor event like a car that someone doesn't recognize being in the neighborhood.
Happened to me. I saw myself in a Nextdoor video as someone "suspicious," followed pleas from the homeowner and a chorus of cabbageheads for more videos from anyone living nearby so they could identify the car I drive.
That's what I get for walking through a public park that backs into a group of homes two hours before closing time.
The level of paranoia in the suburbs is just off the charts. I can't wait until I can move back to a city like New York or Chicago or Houston, where I can be safe from my neighbors, and only have to worry about the criminals.
This would make it so much easier for the neighborhood nosybody to report dark people walking around in a light people neighborhood. See something racial; say something racist.
The television commercials for Ring are ridiculous. They act like it's a magical talisman against criminals, who scuttle away like cockroaches under its wary gaze.
I agree completely. It also feel's like the worst part of dystopian by integrating a somewhat clean/modern UI, almost like an SNL commercial for a SaaS platform.
I can't stand nextdoor. Bunch of idiots scared of their own shadow sharing photos and videos of "suspicious" people and dumbasses asking about "gunshots" any time a car backfires or a firecracker is set off.
Here is an example of Ring partnering with a police department - Orlando - to offer discounted video surveillance IoT devices to citizens, with caveat that they can share their videos with cops to fight crime.
Orlando police department was called out for civil rights violations when they partnered with Amazon's facial recognition technology. The thing about Ring is it's marketed to consumers as a cheap camera....not a hard core image processing face rec AI tool for policing built by Ukraine's biggest tech company.
Every single security article you read about Ukraine's cyber attacks warns about IoT and russian intelligence officials penetrating the private sector. Do american police forces even care about the vulnerability of having this portal app on their phones? Again, nothing is encrypted.
So you mean the discount is for the hardware under the assumption that the users will consent, not actually direct compensation for sending data to the police?
Can’t say why this feels strange, but’s it’s also not as sensational as the title. Ring Users have to choose to share the information. As someone who has a Ring device, I find the neighborhood feature more a nuisance than anything. It’s mostly people posting videos from their doorbell cams asking if anyone knows why’s the guy with a clipboard was at their door, or posting videos of “suspicious” people in their neighborhood without any crime to report. Not hard to guess what the “suspicious” people shared usually look like.
Before these cameras lots of people knocked on your door while you were at work at you never knew.
> Ring Users have to choose to share the information.
According to user emcarey:
>There is no encryption
If /u/emcarey is correct (haven't verified this), then the fact that you have "choose to share" is a moot point, the data is out there for anyone to see.
I've argued for a long time, that Nest, Ring, etc., will all become free or highly discounted services soon as long as you're willing to allow them to share the video data.
Based on your camera's location they would have tons of valuable data about the people who live in that area.
Do they go on walks? If so, with who & what.
Do they go to nearby stores?
I can see coming home & getting ads for "winter clothes" & "dog food" after walking my dog in shorts on a cold day.
I'm curious if people who live in more optimal areas would get any additional benefits. Kind of like social media influencers.
"Live in a popular metro area? Receive $100/month for installing a camera in your apartment."
There is significant room for private policing in this space.
This past Saturday I went for my run at approximately 9:45AM, on my run I got a text from my bank of suspicious activity on both my credit and debit card for a total of $1,000. When I got back to my car it all made sense as my passenger window was smashed and my “run bag” with my keys and wallet stolen.
By the time I the cops got there for the report, I spoke to the bank located the time/store (footlocker) the cards were used, I had spoken with the store manager and confirmed 2 men used multiple cards that were declined and confirmed the store had video but the request must be made through HQ.
The cops dont follow up on this and request the video and footlocker won’t give it to me. I know I could go to the store and grease the wheel to get a copy of the video (which I may do). It’s so crazy because no one care more than the victim of crimes to see the criminals face justice, and the technology is in place for things like stolen credit cards or stolen phones but then corporate America gets in the way.
I’d love to have a public platform where victims of crimes could force corporations to playall and publish the facts of these cases and crowdsource the identity of the criminals. Any advice?
> I’d love to have a public platform where victims of crimes could force corporations to playall and publish the facts of these cases and crowdsource the identity of the criminals. Any advice?
Well, it's not exactly crowdsourcing, but the “private injured parties force corporations (or anyone else) to play ball and provide factual evidence related to the identity of wrongdoers” facility exists, and is called “the civil courts”.
File a John Doe lawsuit. Identify the entity in possession of evidence useful for identifying the actual perpetrator and issue a subpoena to that party for the evidence. (You might recognize this from how media companies go after copyright pirates with IP information, but the same can be done for other civil offenses, too.)
You can also publish, in any medium, a request for people to voluntarily provide information for the crowdsourcing part; I'm not sure a special platform helps since you then depend on the informants not only being willing to provide info but being reachable via a dedicated purpose-specific platform, and who is going to do that in advance?
So this is just anecdotal, but here's my 'running and car broken into story':
I parked next to a busy dog park and went for my run. Came back to broken window. There was a lady there who took pictures of the perpetrators and their license plate. I filed a report with the police. Guess what the police did. That's right! Absolutely nothing. Not even swing by the people's house and ask for my shit back (I was cool with paying for the broken window, even).
The idea that this kind of surveillance will be used for your benefit is simply wrong, in my opinion. It's a weapon. How does that NWA song go? The one about the police?
> I’d love to have a public platform where victims of crimes could force corporations to playall and publish the facts of these cases and crowdsource the identity of the criminals. Any advice?
I believe you're thinking of the "discovery" phase of a lawsuit.
It sucks that criminals get away with this crap all the time and I am sorry that happened to you but do you really think releasing videos of alleged criminals to the public is a good idea?
The cops don’t care because it’s a lot of work with little or no outcome.
I had a guy steal deliveries over a period of months and was able to get the video on the TV news. The cops were awesome — they caught him and plead it to petty larceny with a $150 fine. I probably spent more money on vacation time to talk to the cops, parole officer, DA, etc.
^ Completely adequate description - especially low-friction
Won't need to force people to do something they'll willingly do themselves (e.g., police each other via their ignorance in regards to IoT devices and their use)
This type of stuff is specifically why I bought a Doorbird, which is very privacy conscious and made in Germany. Also, Doorbird has public API docs (it is just a bad http "REST-ish" API): https://www.doorbird.com/api
This seems fairly reasonable, as long as they keep the commitment that officers have to request videos from camera owners. Now, in theory, the PD could subpoena videos from ring without permission, but that's a higher bar than this.
I mean, I feel as if everything seems reasonable as long as the original commitment is kept. Thing is, the original commitment is rarely if ever kept at all. This is nothing more than a problem waiting to happen, as are most things where large bureaucracies involve themselves.
Once I read that the data is completely unencrypted (oh, I can do a man-in-the middle and just send my own backend a copy of this video stream? awesome!) and anyone's face (i.e., those simply walking by) could potentially be recorded, I pretty much gave up any hope of this working responsibly.
But hey, just read another comment about Walmart apparently sending surveillance video to the Feds (which sounds like a very Walmart thing to do actually), so apparently we have larger issues to deal with.
I see a lot of comments about how this is "opt-in". By definition, all of the videos that officers can see the existence of through this portal exist on Ring's servers, not on some individually-owned machine.
So if you decline to "share" your video with the police, they can just request it from Ring, who won't and can't decline to share. You won't be notified.
Anyone can download the Ring app and view this same content. You don't even need to own a Ring device, your phone just needs to geolocate to the area you say you live in.
Ring customer here. I recently shared a video of crime on my property using the neighborhoods feature. I also downloaded the video to my phone, in order to email a copy of it to cops who asked for it (and apparently don't participate in the portal described here). The offender was subsequently caught thanks to the video, and the cops recovered my property for me.
The opt-in is limited to per video shared, as far as I've been led to believe and in my experience. I'd be quite alarmed to learn anyone could access anything I haven't designated without that specific sharing step on my part.
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My neighbor has such a doorbell. My facial data is captured every time I come over or walk by with my dog. When was I given an opportunity to consent to this?
2. Police can't view unshared videos without requesting
3. The whole thing is opt-in
I don't see an issue here. It's a technical framework around something that already exists: police going door-to-door and asking for video clips. Why not make this more efficient?
I can see the potential for abuse, as it is all centralized. But I think "portal for mass surveillance" is a bit of an exaggeration.
Just another example of the utter amorality of the silicon valley mindset–which has been exported globally. Everybody cares about what they can achieve technically, while virtually no one cares whether they should or not.
[+] [-] _r3e4|7 years ago|reply
This software is made in Ukraine and the hardware is manufactured in China. There was no private company contract bid - Ring is just giving this to cops for free and offering customers a discount for letting their video surveillance from their home / doorbell be shared with the police in this portal.
over 50+ local police departments are now partners.
There is no encryption. There is no 2FA. There is no legal protection for privacy of citizens face's caught in these cameras and added to their facial recognition algorithms.
Ring Ukraine is hiring aggressively, they grew from 10 engineers to 500 in two years. It's one of the top image processing R&D labs in Eastern Europe. Based on their job descriptions.... the facial recognition search being deployed in the police portals of Ring is pretty advanced.
for more on Ring Ukraine www.ring-ukraine.com
I got this ring marketing video from officer.com / a website for police industry news.
[+] [-] alphabettsy|7 years ago|reply
There are some valid concerns there but you’re mischaracterizing this tool and how it works.
[+] [-] Someone1234|7 years ago|reply
Those are some interesting claims. Where is this information sourced from?
[+] [-] joering2|7 years ago|reply
Yes and no lawsuit will be won either. Every judge will strike it based on being in public assumption of lack of privacy. If you walk on public street, don't assume your privacy is protected :(
[+] [-] fixermark|7 years ago|reply
That's a hell of a market strategy. Do you have a source on that discount story? Because I'm not able to find one right now.
[+] [-] conanbatt|7 years ago|reply
The concerns of allowing a surveillance state are real. I hope Jamie addresses all these concerns.
[+] [-] zyren|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaostheory|7 years ago|reply
Stuff like this helps police do something about robberies and burglaries. It's harder to ignore and file away when there's video evidence.
Megapixel IP cameras are getting cheaper and cheaper every day. We already live in a mass surveillance society with microphones and cameras in almost all of our rooms, with some people even installing Echos in their bathrooms. Instead of bad Big Brother, we get helpful Little Sister (Alexa, Siri, Kortana, ...). imo The only real way to completely escape it, is to avoid technology and live outside of large metros; away from civilization
[+] [-] ndespres|7 years ago|reply
In the demo video, their example has someone sharing a photo of "suspicious people" walking around outside their house, and has neighbors commenting "oh no!" on it. Now the police are alerted to this "crime" which may not even be a crime. Anyone who has an account on NextDoor knows the hysteria around a minor event like a car that someone doesn't recognize being in the neighborhood.
The next step is police or homeowner arresting or shooting someone captured on video and posted to this social feed as having committed a crime.
The developers, marketers, SV investors, etc who promote this type of surveillance as a good idea need a course in ethics and reality.
[+] [-] reaperducer|7 years ago|reply
Happened to me. I saw myself in a Nextdoor video as someone "suspicious," followed pleas from the homeowner and a chorus of cabbageheads for more videos from anyone living nearby so they could identify the car I drive.
That's what I get for walking through a public park that backs into a group of homes two hours before closing time.
The level of paranoia in the suburbs is just off the charts. I can't wait until I can move back to a city like New York or Chicago or Houston, where I can be safe from my neighbors, and only have to worry about the criminals.
[+] [-] logfromblammo|7 years ago|reply
The television commercials for Ring are ridiculous. They act like it's a magical talisman against criminals, who scuttle away like cockroaches under its wary gaze.
[+] [-] sbr464|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qmr|7 years ago|reply
Ridiculous.
[+] [-] _r3e4|7 years ago|reply
Orlando police department was called out for civil rights violations when they partnered with Amazon's facial recognition technology. The thing about Ring is it's marketed to consumers as a cheap camera....not a hard core image processing face rec AI tool for policing built by Ukraine's biggest tech company.
Every single security article you read about Ukraine's cyber attacks warns about IoT and russian intelligence officials penetrating the private sector. Do american police forces even care about the vulnerability of having this portal app on their phones? Again, nothing is encrypted.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange/os-orlando-ring-...
[+] [-] tossimba|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fixermark|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] alphabettsy|7 years ago|reply
Before these cameras lots of people knocked on your door while you were at work at you never knew.
[+] [-] zepto|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] java_script|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaxtellerSoA|7 years ago|reply
According to user emcarey:
>There is no encryption
If /u/emcarey is correct (haven't verified this), then the fact that you have "choose to share" is a moot point, the data is out there for anyone to see.
[+] [-] mattferderer|7 years ago|reply
Based on your camera's location they would have tons of valuable data about the people who live in that area.
Do they go on walks? If so, with who & what.
Do they go to nearby stores?
I can see coming home & getting ads for "winter clothes" & "dog food" after walking my dog in shorts on a cold day.
I'm curious if people who live in more optimal areas would get any additional benefits. Kind of like social media influencers.
"Live in a popular metro area? Receive $100/month for installing a camera in your apartment."
[+] [-] will_brown|7 years ago|reply
This past Saturday I went for my run at approximately 9:45AM, on my run I got a text from my bank of suspicious activity on both my credit and debit card for a total of $1,000. When I got back to my car it all made sense as my passenger window was smashed and my “run bag” with my keys and wallet stolen.
By the time I the cops got there for the report, I spoke to the bank located the time/store (footlocker) the cards were used, I had spoken with the store manager and confirmed 2 men used multiple cards that were declined and confirmed the store had video but the request must be made through HQ.
The cops dont follow up on this and request the video and footlocker won’t give it to me. I know I could go to the store and grease the wheel to get a copy of the video (which I may do). It’s so crazy because no one care more than the victim of crimes to see the criminals face justice, and the technology is in place for things like stolen credit cards or stolen phones but then corporate America gets in the way.
I’d love to have a public platform where victims of crimes could force corporations to playall and publish the facts of these cases and crowdsource the identity of the criminals. Any advice?
[+] [-] dragonwriter|7 years ago|reply
Well, it's not exactly crowdsourcing, but the “private injured parties force corporations (or anyone else) to play ball and provide factual evidence related to the identity of wrongdoers” facility exists, and is called “the civil courts”.
File a John Doe lawsuit. Identify the entity in possession of evidence useful for identifying the actual perpetrator and issue a subpoena to that party for the evidence. (You might recognize this from how media companies go after copyright pirates with IP information, but the same can be done for other civil offenses, too.)
You can also publish, in any medium, a request for people to voluntarily provide information for the crowdsourcing part; I'm not sure a special platform helps since you then depend on the informants not only being willing to provide info but being reachable via a dedicated purpose-specific platform, and who is going to do that in advance?
[+] [-] ant_li0n|7 years ago|reply
The idea that this kind of surveillance will be used for your benefit is simply wrong, in my opinion. It's a weapon. How does that NWA song go? The one about the police?
[+] [-] fixermark|7 years ago|reply
I believe you're thinking of the "discovery" phase of a lawsuit.
[+] [-] mrbombastic|7 years ago|reply
https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-falsely-accuses-sunil...
[+] [-] Spooky23|7 years ago|reply
I had a guy steal deliveries over a period of months and was able to get the video on the TV news. The cops were awesome — they caught him and plead it to petty larceny with a $150 fine. I probably spent more money on vacation time to talk to the cops, parole officer, DA, etc.
[+] [-] conatus|7 years ago|reply
https://medium.com/s/story/im-an-amazon-employee-my-company-...
[+] [-] sitkack|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayvy|7 years ago|reply
^ Completely adequate description - especially low-friction
Won't need to force people to do something they'll willingly do themselves (e.g., police each other via their ignorance in regards to IoT devices and their use)
[+] [-] kevin_thibedeau|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SEJeff|7 years ago|reply
It made it much easier to integrate with Home Assistant: https://www.home-assistant.io/components/doorbird/
Bonus points that the Doorbird is of a much higher build quality than the Ring or Ring Pro.
[+] [-] _r3e4|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] secabeen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayvy|7 years ago|reply
> This seems fairly reasonable...
> ...as long as they keep the commitment...
I mean, I feel as if everything seems reasonable as long as the original commitment is kept. Thing is, the original commitment is rarely if ever kept at all. This is nothing more than a problem waiting to happen, as are most things where large bureaucracies involve themselves.
Once I read that the data is completely unencrypted (oh, I can do a man-in-the middle and just send my own backend a copy of this video stream? awesome!) and anyone's face (i.e., those simply walking by) could potentially be recorded, I pretty much gave up any hope of this working responsibly.
But hey, just read another comment about Walmart apparently sending surveillance video to the Feds (which sounds like a very Walmart thing to do actually), so apparently we have larger issues to deal with.
[+] [-] jellicle|7 years ago|reply
So if you decline to "share" your video with the police, they can just request it from Ring, who won't and can't decline to share. You won't be notified.
[+] [-] En_gr_Student|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tlrobinson|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conquistadog|7 years ago|reply
The opt-in is limited to per video shared, as far as I've been led to believe and in my experience. I'd be quite alarmed to learn anyone could access anything I haven't designated without that specific sharing step on my part.
[+] [-] jefe_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikeCotton45|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|7 years ago|reply
My cities redlight camera system records 24x7 and retains for 30 days. All data is local and the camera is internet accessible.
[+] [-] Kocrachon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fromthestart|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrisfosterelli|7 years ago|reply
1. Users opt to share video clips
2. Police can't view unshared videos without requesting
3. The whole thing is opt-in
I don't see an issue here. It's a technical framework around something that already exists: police going door-to-door and asking for video clips. Why not make this more efficient?
I can see the potential for abuse, as it is all centralized. But I think "portal for mass surveillance" is a bit of an exaggeration.
[+] [-] pfschell|7 years ago|reply