It was time a decade ago. And people were. But few people listened.
I use unifi cameras that save to a local nvr which is inaccessible off my network.
Are there good local backup options? I have some Ubiquiti gear but their camera system seems too locked down
Yep. This is the way. G4 Pro is pretty good, too.
I agree with the sentiment of this article and warranted suspicion of connected cameras but its weird that the writer just jumps to food delivery apps part way through and then straight back to doorbell cameras.
Also, what’s this part supposed to mean?
…images that have been forwarded so many times they have the weary sheen of photocopies.
The number of times a digital image is forwarded won’t affect it’s appearance.
There truly is an XKCD for everything
Is there an xkcd comic for when people find an xkcd comic for everything?
It depends how you forward images. I assume they are referring to how many/most services (like whatsapp/discord/telegram etc) don’t just send the original file, but do some compression to save data. Do this a bunch of times and you end up with a photo that starts to show noticeable artifacts/pixellation.
That’s my take at least
I got a Eufy doorbell cam years ago because you can do local storage, but I think in 2022 or 23 they were called out for not being fully encrypted, iirc it was the thumbnails for push notifications that weren’t being properly encrypted.
And that somehow also turned into a realization that Eufy was using those thumbnails to build a facial database because each face had a unique ID in the metadata.
I should really switch away but haven’t had the money, hopefully soon.
I should really switch away but haven’t had the money
Why just not ditch the doorbell camera altogether?
Because I still think the safety and convenience for my family and I outweighs the privacy impact, it’s a camera pointed at a public street.
Convenience? Ok. But safety? Are door viewers unsafe?
Actually - yes, some models are really unsafe. There are “reverse peephole viewers” out there that allow people to, well, view into your apartement. And some models are just screwed together, so a burglar can unscrew them from the outside and then try to push down your handle via the hole.
Very telling that you put convenience on the same level as safety.
it’s so funny to see people on lemmy who fell for cloud connected cameras. you’d think this group would be the last to fall for it, maybe not. i’ve even received them as gifts (very expensive ones) but i just threw it in the trash because that is better than anyone using it.
i’ve even received them as gifts (very expensive ones) but i just threw it in the trash
Wouldn’t it have been better to tell the gift giver that you’re really happy that they thought if you, but for security/moral reasons you don’t want to install it? At least they could have returned it and got their money back.
Recycle or upcycle. Trash is one of the dumbest uses. I understand the total logic it’s just not the best case scenario.
Same. I went with them as a “good enough” option when I needed cameras because I have had a good experience with Anker products, but they’ve slowly enshitified to the point that I’d drop them in a heartbeat if the budget was there.
With violent criminals running the government, yeah, I kinda do. You can’t trust police body cams to work when they come knocking. Also useful for package thieves and people that deface your anti-nazi sign.
In the Netherlands the police have a network where people can add their home doorbell spy devices.
It’s horrid and there’s an extreme amount of privacy issues.
So yes, please continue the fight against excessive surveillance.
is it a “can” or a “must”? I don’t mind if it’s optional but yea it defo shouldn’t be required
It’s optional yes. But they manipulate you with the default scare tactics into registering.
Just the other day, I read an article about how much cases they are able to solve because of the footage. That is a good thing in my opinion.
The police also will ask for the footage, but you don’t have to give it. It’s entirely up to you if you want to do so.
Even so, I prefer not to be filmed at random by people’s door bells, thank you very much.
Yes, there’s always some sort of justification towards authoritarianism. The real solution is to fix underlying issues instead. For example, if there is a lot of theft, your social safety net has failed. Punishing people because they react to a problem without fixing the problem is how surveillance- and police states come to be.
We should therefor not fall into spy cameras following our every move. We have to fight them now while they are not too normalized yet. Otherwise, even if underlying problems are fixed, they will still be there, and might get used for far more sinister reasons.
Some good things to understand are the Boiling Frog Syndrome and Ratchet Effect.
Yes. In fact, it’s long past time, and it’s already been done countless times before; nobody seems to be listening. People have been pointing to growing authoritarian States for years, and yet the entire globe seems to be all-in on giving police states another try (or are so privileged they don’t care).
Time to take back your privacy yourself. Hopefully this article will reach some normies who didn’t give it any other thought.
I’ve noticed that anyone who has gotten one newly installed can’t stop looking at it for every small thing. It’s like built-in paranoia. Not to mention that every time I take a walk in my neighborhood I’m now on bunch of different people’s cameras without even knowing it.
Yet, somehow Google Glass was reason to beat up its nosy users.
@jandoenermann “Always has been”
TIL that Ring has a social media platform where neighbours can communicate and share videos /photos one with other like a civilian surveillance dystopia.
90% of it is idiots reporting deer/coyote sightings or falsely reporting fireworks as “gunshots?!?!” at 1:00am. I have literally been woken up by stupid Ring notifications more than by the fireworks themselves.
Some of my neighbors have them and I hate walking down the street. I know it’s a public sidewalk, but hearing all the little pings and “some one is at the front door” it creeps me out. I live in a single party consent state so there’s not like anything I can do but now there’s a database with a record of when I go to/come back from work. I don’t like that. Thankfully, when signing the lease, my landlord forbid in the contact the installation on those. He also owns the houses on either side of mine… a little strip of privacy in a sea of surveillance.
How close are the front doors? I live in a pretty dense city and I’ve never heard them go off like that.
I don’t think single party technically would cover that. The neighbors would have to be involved in the interaction to give themselves permission to record it.
From what I’m given to understand of my state’s laws, this would be covered under the same kind of thing as the surveillance cameras at a convenience store or shopping center parking lot and the expectations a person would have for their privacy… it just sucks.
If I don’t control it, I won’t install it.
