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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.
I did that for about 6 months, mostly to see how good the detection was in frigate (new 0.15.0 release last week, fyi) when I first got it running but the novelty wore off.
I see people in line at the grocery store watching their family watch TV in their living room. That's creepy to me.
I use unifi cameras that save to a local nvr which is inaccessible off my network.
Yep. This is the way. G4 Pro is pretty good, too.
If I don't control it, I won't install it.
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.
Everything related to consumer IoT is more expensive and/or difficult to implement as a local-only service.
But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would cloud access make anything cheaper?
Hmmmmm
As someone who self hosts I understand the economies of scale that would allow it to be much cheaper to make products tied to cloud service. For example my servers for my house could easily support my entire extended family and more.
But of course, that profit isn't enough, and they all double dip into selling their customers' privacy.
And self hosting can also be cheaper, unless you're a huge consumer of the service. How many people watch enough Netflix to make the sub cheaper than buying the media instead? We cancelled Disney Plus and bought the few series they like and we've already saved money.
Economies of scale are absolutely a thing, but I think there's a sweet spot where self hosting can be cheaper for a lot of people.
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?
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.
I use a POE doorbell camera that is blocked from the Internet.
I use a hardwired button that makes a bell sound inside my house.
I use a specialised hammer-and-anvil system that produces an audible notification whenever someone use it.
I get stakeholders in the me-visiting community to self-empower their activity through user induced notification media
I tie a toy chicken to a wall that when honked, creates an audible sound.
If you are going to use a cloud camera system, look into the company and make sure that they have proper E2EE.
An NVR is probably the best bet, but if you want a dumb consumer cloud cam, HomeKit Secure cameras like Eve are a reasonable solution. It’s all encrypted in iCloud, which cops still hate, which is a good sign.
If you're okay with self hosted take a look at scrypted for HomeKit
Or HomeAssistant with Frigate
My favorite part is how cops will break cover or obscure doorbell cams all the time.
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.
TIL that Ring has a social media platform where neighbors can communicate and share with each other videos/photos that Ring systems collect just 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.
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.
My neighbor's camera caught someone doing a hit and run on my car, eternally grateful for that!
Which I agree with... IE I like the system of "your camera catches a hit and run", you can go knock on their door, ask them to share the footage with you... and you give it to your lawyer, cops or insurance adjusters as you see fit.
What people like me don't like is the idea that the cops decide to search your permission, use your footage to prosecute a crime you wouldn't want to. Imagine the same scenerio... except instead of a hit and run... lets say it was say someone delivering pot... or a hispanic person just going home for the day, and ICE was looking for someone to bother, etc...
Point is we're all happy to be witnesses to crimes that hurt people. but we also know you give cops too much power.. and you'll find horrible things happening
Well, after we put in our cameras, the cops did come knocking to investigate a shooting across the street.
As I explained to the cops: "The cameras trigger on motion, not sound, and they're only pointed at our property, not across the street. No records."
Cops left after that.
Except they can do the same thing without opted into a massive surveillance system that tracks your comings and goings and hands it over to the government to be used against you.
It was time a decade ago. And people were. But few people listened.
95 percent of the folks I've known literally get them as a 'oh my Amazon package is here' device, not for security. Granted security is a bonus, but if you actually wanted security you'd get perimeter cams, not a doorbell with a very limited FoV.
It's been time, dumbass
