
Reject Google Nest or Amazon Ring Corp Surveillance and a Dystopic Future - nreece
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/google-nest-or-amazon-ring-just-reject-these-corporations-surveillance-ncna1102741
======
mh8h
Disclaimer: Apple employee, but not working on anything related to this.

You can achieve a privacy focused solution by doing the processing localy. I
am looking forward to more HomeKit Secure Video compatible hardware becoming
available. The idea is to process the video feed locally on an Apple TV or
iPad, and then send notifications to your iPhone. An encrypted video can be
uploaded to iCloud upon detecting some motion.

Also... with the photo library available on the Apple TV, I guess face
detection in the video feed might be possible in the future.

~~~
ezzzzz
Hmm... this is interesting. I would like to learn more about how this works,
given apple's history, my guess is they won't advertise such solutions until
they have either developed their own camera, or have struck some deal with a
3rd party. I'd still likely plunk down the inflated price if their privacy
model was _actually_ proven.

I've looked into flashing a CFW on a cheap Xaomi ip camera, running ZoneMinder
and a NAS for storage and backups and whatnot, and while setting all this up
is pretty trivial, I feel like I'd be better off just paying for a commercial
system rather than administering my own. But then you look into the security
practices in such systems and well, lets just say, off the shelf isn't really
a great option either.

~~~
syndeo
I used to work at a startup that built products for parents of infants and
toddlers, such as "smart socks" to monitor babies' vitals, and was involved in
the late-stage development of their smart baby monitor camera, which released
last year. (A quick web search of certain terms above should give you a good
guess as to which company I'm talking about.)

They—and dozens of other companies—use off-the-shelf commodity components from
the Chinese corporation Aoni, and their camera is essentially the device
linked below, but in a different case: [http://anc.cn/ip-camera/smart-
wireless-cube-camera/smart-wir...](http://anc.cn/ip-camera/smart-wireless-
cube-camera/smart-wireless-cube-camera-e966-g0109.html)

Check the specs, as well as the general appearance of the thing from the
front.

While inspecting the traffic coming in and out of this thing, I saw it making
a ton of requests to really weird Chinese IP addresses and uploading a lot of
data. It was encrypted, so I couldn't tell for sure what it was, but it
presumably was video footage. I raised these concerns to others on my team,
but besides a "huh, weird", none of them seemed to care enough to investigate
further or properly escalate it. I was just a temp, so I didn't have the pull
or influence that full-time employees had.

It was really concerning to me that this stuff wasn't properly addressed, but
instead was swept under the rug, despite the fact that it's going to be
pointed at babies and toddlers. There are some real disgusting folks out there
who _will_ take advantage of this, if they haven't already, especially since
it has the same two-way audio that "Santa" used with the Ring cameras.

(If any of my former co-workers are reading this, I genuinely don't mean you
any ill will in particular. But the company really needs to fix those issues,
and not simply re-case commodity camera systems from surveillance states.
There's _obviously_ a backdoor, and if Aoni/China can access it, so can the
aforementioned disgusting people.)

~~~
ezzzzz
Yeah, this is pretty much my understanding from reading reddit threads and
tutorials for running custom firmware. Even if you disable whatever 'cloud'
option your hardware ships with and run off, say, an SD card, your data is
still being dumped somewhere in China if you allow your device to talk outside
of you LAN.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when there are no real viable options for
consumers if you care about security.

------
bart_spoon
I am seeing increasing numbers of these types of articles, but I don't know
how I feel. First of all, many of them, like this one, seem to conflate two
separate issues: poor security practices and then the dystopic, surveillance
concerns. I don't see the two being particularly related.

I absolutely agree that Ring products should have better security features
like required 2FA. But I'm not sold on the idea of our society becoming a
surveillance state because people have video doorbells. It seems like a
stretch and one that is born out of a tendency for people to see all
technology as "the thing" that will be what ends our society and ushers in a
1984-esque dystopia. I'm skeptical.

I don't have to be convinced that I shouldn't be trusting Amazon or Google
with my best interests. But I don't see how security cameras, or at least the
video doorbells, are more dangerous than all of the other things we've just
already accepted, like constant tracking of our positions via smartphones and
our online browsing habits.

Perhaps I'm wrong, I suppose time will tell.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" First of all, many of them, like this one, seem to conflate two separate
issues: poor security practices and then the dystopic, surveillance concerns.
I don't see the two being particularly related."_

Since the poor security practices have led to people getting spied upon and
harassed, those poor security practices are clearly related to dystopic
surveillance concerns.

The article also directly addresses larger issues than poor security
practices. Two examples:

 _" And Amazon's surveillance doorbell cameras are just the start: The company
is selling a multitude of other gadgets equipped with microphones, cameras and
sensors, all designed to gather enormous amounts of data, which Amazon refines
-- like crude oil -- into power and profit. Alexa, the company's "home
assistant," is constantly listening and explosive investigations revealed that
Amazon employees have also listened, via Alexa, not just to private
conversations, but also to deeply intimate moments such as couples having sex
or kids singing in the shower. Amazon even marketed its microphone-enabled
Echo Dot Kids directly to children."_

 _" Amazon devices aren't just giving hackers and Amazon employees an eye or
an ear into our homes. The company has also partnered with more than 600
police departments across the country to tap into the surveillance network its
customers are creating for them, developing a seamless process for government
agents to request footage from tens of thousands of Ring cameras without
warrants or any judicial oversight."_

~~~
bart_spoon
> Since the poor security practices have led to people getting spied upon and
> harassed, those poor security practices are clearly related to dystopic
> surveillance concerns.

Typically, these dystopias generally imply state surveillance on an unwilling
or unsuspecting populace. Yes, hackers can gain access to your indoor security
cameras, but that only affects people willingly installing security cameras
inside their own homes and adhering to bad security practices. Doorbell
cameras aren't compelling targets for hackers, which is why all of the stories
we hear are about cameras installed in someone's bedroom. And I don't see how
this differentiates Ring's products in any way from having your bank account
hacked, or your email, or any other personal data. Problematic and worth
consideration? Yes. Dystopic? Not really.

> "And Amazon's surveillance doorbell cameras are just the start: The company
> is selling a multitude of other gadgets equipped with microphones, cameras
> and sensors, all designed to gather enormous amounts of data, which Amazon
> refines -- like crude oil -- into power and profit. Alexa, the company's
> "home assistant," is constantly listening and explosive investigations
> revealed that Amazon employees have also listened, via Alexa, not just to
> private conversations, but also to deeply intimate moments such as couples
> having sex or kids singing in the shower. Amazon even marketed its
> microphone-enabled Echo Dot Kids directly to children."

Entirely valid complaints, _regarding Alexa devices_. Its unrelated to Ring,
and especially doorbell cameras. Unless people are having numerous and long
private conversations in front of their doorbell, it seems again like those
concerns don't apply here.

> The company has also partnered with more than 600 police departments across
> the country to tap into the surveillance network its customers are creating
> for them, developing a seamless process for government agents to request
> footage from tens of thousands of Ring cameras without warrants or any
> judicial oversight.

Can someone verify this? Because I was under the impression that customers had
to opt in. And regardless, I still fail to see what people might be concerned
about regarding doorbell cams. They aren't capturing anything that isn't
readily available.

Perhaps these are arguments against putting Ring security cameras in your
house, but I still am not seeing the end of the world scenarios these articles
are prophesying resulting from doorbell cameras.

~~~
sharemywin
The biggest problem with door cameras is they're 24 hr survellence of the
houses across the street without their permission or a court order

~~~
tqi
Do police require a warrant to surveil a location from the street (or some
other location)?

~~~
LinuxBender
No. Anything they can see from the street, they can watch. The gray area AFAIK
is what a drone can see from the street, but at higher elevations. That said,
you and all your neighbors can file a complaint.

------
ropiwqefjnpoa
People seem all too willing to trade their privacy for inexpensive convenience
and novelty. Although they probably don't view it that way.

In any case, Google, Amazon and the like are chipping away at peoples desire
for privacy and soon, I imagine privacy will be viewed as a quaint notion from
the past. All this just to sell us more stuff.

~~~
drukenemo
I use Ring. Convenience and novelty were not the reasons I decide to buy it. I
did it because of its advertised feature: security.

~~~
ropiwqefjnpoa
Well, you know what has been said about purchasing security and giving up
liberty...

~~~
bart_spoon
Thats only applicable if you believe that owning a Ring doorbell requires
giving up some portion of your liberty. I have failed to be convinced that it
does.

Also, if you are going to make an argument, I would hope it would be more
substantial than a pithy argument from 300 years ago. Otherwise, you fall into
the same category as those who argue against climate change/evolution using
bible verses.

~~~
ropiwqefjnpoa
We'll see if in another 20 years the government and law authorities have easy
access to things like our Nest and Ring in the name of security.

------
bbmario
I own a couple of Arlo cameras that I bought 3 years ago. They still offer
free cloud storage because I'm an old customer, so it's kind of a good deal. I
only turn them on when I'm out of town. They have a separate router, so it's a
little bit harder to hack than Ring.

I wish, however, there was an affordable DIY solution to home cameras. And
yet, I still couldn't find a setup that is completely open-source and/or
provides me enough freedom. Has anyone started digging into this?

~~~
sirmoveon
Zoneminder is open source. A little hard to setup just right, but has a lot of
potential.

~~~
slantyyz
Zoneminder is pretty good, all things considered. It was my go-to NVR before I
switched to the Unifi ecosystem.

I guess the one drawback (when I was using it) was that it didn't record
audio, and that its UI was relatively unpolished. Having said that, setting up
motion sensing on the cameras in Zoneminder was far better than a lot of other
solutions that I had tried.

------
MandieD
"Convenient" is the new c-word.

"Because it's convenient" is the main excuse I hear for excessive plastic
packaging, disposable everything, taking a 3 hr drive instead of a 4 hr
train/transit ride, posting to Facebook instead of your own blog, placing
voice-"activated" spy devices in your home.

I'm coming to despise that word.

~~~
balladeer
I had bought an Echo Dot sometimes back. I had decided I'll use it
judiciously. After I acceded my past recording (all of it) on Alexa app and
heard some of them I just packed it away.

I also have a Smart TV. Of Vu brand -
[https://www.vutvs.com](https://www.vutvs.com) \- quite famous in India and
apparently a California company. I don't even know whether they listen in the
background. I tried looking for documents related to that and talking to the
customer care but they were clueless. They would get stuck at repeating "do
you want to schedule a repair?".

~~~
cbm-vic-20
> I tried looking for documents related to that and talking to the customer
> care but they were clueless. They would get stuck at repeating "do you want
> to schedule a repair?".

No company is going to train their first-, second- or even third-line support
to answer a question being asked of 0.00001% of their customers.

------
arkanciscan
I like my Eufy Cam. The video lives on an SD card in my house. NSA probably
still watches it, but at least it's not every other Google/Amazon employee.

~~~
bbmario
Never heard of that before. I love it. Thanks!

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Eufy IIRC is Anker’s video line, could be wrong.

The baby monitor they make is actually pretty great. 2.4Ghz propriety not-
WiFi. I was pretty impressed.

------
oxymoran
What I don’t understand is why people are putting internet connected cameras
INSIDE their house. How do indoor cameras, that catch somebody already inside
your house, make you safer? Why not just get door and window sensors? Outdoor
cameras make a bit more sense but a hacker could still use info about when you
are home or similar against you.

~~~
bobongo
> why people are putting internet connected cameras INSIDE their house

\- To monitor the animals in the house

\- To get alerts if a smoke alarm goes off

\- In case of break in, to capture the person's face and get a notification

\- Access historical and real-time feed to check when <event> happened

\- Etc

In an apartment with no other security system, a single indoors camera can do
these. (In a house, you're better off with a complete security system since
you have control over both indoor and outdoor configuration of your
residence.)

The alternative is time consuming and potentially less secure, though much
more fun to play with:

\- Set up a raspberry pi-based camera system that can be scaled to multiple
cameras and sensors

\- Set up an raspberry pi NextCloud instance for the cameras to save their
feeds to

\- Set up an ML algorithm to recognize faces, animals, and types of noises

\- Set up a Twilio instance to send SMS notifications

\- Set up a mail server to send email notifications

\- Set up a back up system in case the sdcard on one of the raspberry pis gets
corrupted

\- Set up a Home Assistant instance to control the cameras etc

\- Set up an Auth mechanism for your residents and guests to control the IoTs

\- Harden any systems that are exposed to the internet as a result of this set
up

------
LatteLazy
Getting a vpn, using a niche browser and binning your smart phone are the only
ways you get privacy. Complaining about nest and ring is "picking out a natt
and swallowing a camel".

~~~
brosinante
Exactly what google and amazon would like you to believe - that it's a case of
black and white, and privacy is supposedly impossible to achieve.

~~~
LatteLazy
Respectfully, can you have meaningful privacy with a (mainstream) smartphone?
How? On a desktop you could tor everything I guess, but on an android/iOS
device, everything down to the keyboard is compromised by design...

~~~
brosinante
You're absolutely correct and that's not an excuse to compromise or abandon
privacy universally.

~~~
LatteLazy
I mean, it is though isn't it? If Google know where I am at all times because
of my phone, and they have all my selfies, what privacy am I actually losing
because they know what time I got home from my doorbell which took a picture
of me? If the same phone is listening constantly to me incase I use voice
commands, what privacy am I losing by having a nest do the same thing, but
only when I'm home?

------
whitebread
The fact that this is coming from one of the massive, OG news networks is
pretty surprising. And refreshing

------
ptah
> In his book “1984,” George Orwell imagined that Big Brother-type
> surveillance would be imposed on us by a violent state

as predicted by william gibson, corporations are becoming more powerful than
states and the oppressive state in 1984 is more likely to be a corporation as
time progresses

also the "violent" is redundant as "state" already includes some form of
violence

~~~
caymanjim
The largest corporations have been more powerful than small states for
centuries. The Dutch East India company, the United Fruit Company, various
mining conglomerates. DEI was straight up put in charge of nations, complete
with a military force. UFC had governments overthrown and didn't even try to
hide it. They're better at PR now so their machinations aren't as proudly
displayed, but if a major natural resource company wants to operate in a
small, less-powerful nation, they're going to get their way, just as they have
for centuries.

------
tyingq
It really seems like there's a viable niche for a privacy focused line of
digital assistants, cameras, doorbells, thermometers, etc. Honeywell, for
example, seems to do well with their learning thermostat. You'll never own the
bigger market, but there does seem to be an opportunity.

~~~
daxorid
The niche of people who actually care about privacy is vanishingly small, and
I would hazard a guess that it overlaps strongly with the niche of people who
would buy a raspberry pi to tinker with.

At this point, we're better off rolling our own with cheap CMOS camera
modules, IR LEDs, 3d printed enclosures, arduinos, and rpis. Perhaps there's
room in the market for a few people to do this as a side hustle, and sell
completed boxes with software for those who don't have time to build their
own, but likely not much more than that.

Alternatively, any decent A/V store will still sell you wired cameras and base
stations that don't connect to the Internet at all. Then your inconvenience is
fishing coax or cat5 through the walls of your house.

~~~
tyingq
_" The niche of people who actually care about privacy is vanishingly small"_

You could market to adjacent fears, like "being hacked", "your videos go to
the police", etc.

Companies like Lifelock seem to do well.

------
onreact
Dear NBC editor: It's "topic" but "dystopian".

~~~
workthrowaway
both dystopic and dystopian are synonyms.

btw did you know that grep (as in the unix tool) is in the dictionary? it even
says it comes from the operating system.

~~~
onreact
"Dystopic" [sic!] may lead to misunderstandings. Also the article above states
that it isn't an actual word.

You can't even pronounce it. People will only hear "this topic" or something
like that.

------
RickJWagner
Huh.

I think there's a market for an upgrade that uses recognition software to see
the home owners, then omit them from tracking.

Only the bad guys get 'tracked'. Sounds better.

------
rasvj
How is this a dystopic future? Unlike a telescreen, you're not forced to put a
Nest in your home.

~~~
caymanjim
Maybe not, but many of your neighbors, the police (via ubiquitous public space
abuse), every store, every mode of public transportation, and an increasing
number of automobiles are all pointing cameras at you, whether you like it or
not, and companies like Amazon in particular are actively seeking to aid law
enforcement access to all these devices. It's not like you can opt out just
because you haven't installed one in your own home.

~~~
rasvj
>neighbors, the police (via ubiquitous public space abuse), every store, every
mode of public transportation, and an increasing number of automobiles are all
pointing cameras at you

Can be regulated, it is regulated in many places already (like, you can't
store recordings for more than 15 days, or you can ask for your images to be
removed).

>companies like Amazon in particular are actively seeking to aid law
enforcement access to all these devices

Good.

