The only way this stops is if people give up their RING cameras.
It is never a good idea to trust corporations with anything if it can be avoided. Almost by definition corporations put profit above all else, and many are perfectly willing to engage in blatantly illegal actions if it’s profitable.
Amazon being trusted with video footage from inside and outside people’s home was bound to lead to a surveillance nightmare at some point.
The message that needs to be hammered in harder than anything is that times when these are used to solve crimes and find missing innocent people are the EXCEPTION and not the rule. nor are they are the purpose.
Most criminals are just as stupid today as they were 50 or 100 years ago, and despite massive advances in a shitload of surveillance and forensics, not to mention MASSIVE increases in police funding, the rates of unresolved crime have only increased. Crime rates have dropped since their peak in the early 90s, but that is more than likely due to environmental factors and an ageing population more than anything else (crime is generally a thing young people do, by the time they hit middle age they’ve either given it up or gotten so good at it that they know how to evade the system). In Canada for example, despite massive increases in car telemetry and tracking and all that shit, the overwhelming majority of car thefts are unsolved. This is often when the car theft itself is caught on camera and probably the car driving away is also captured by multiple cameras. Unless the car is then used in a homicide, the police rarely care to investigate that much.
The point of all of these is to document any form of organisation, protest, or activism. If some group of people want to unionize or protest an unpopular law being proposed, planning that isn’t like planning a burglary. It necessitates communication and organization, and you need transportation. Most protestors can leave their phones behind at home (with me I’d turn it off and put it in a Faraday bag). Also the whole ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ is utter shit. A single heated argument, sour facial expressions at hearing certain news reports (if you wanted to see me be visibly pissed off, look at me when I was seeing the horrific reports of how Palestinians were (are still) being killed). They can use this to develop a profile of what kind of person you are. Are you a super progressive person and also have skills useful in tech? Good luck getting that job now, because no matter how or where you apply, the AI will work to exclude your application.
I know some people who are VERY vocal about their views and also have a lot of highly in-demand skills but cannot find any work despite applying relentlessly. Their views also got them fired from their work since the companies they work for don’t like certain… leftist views. Those people are the squeakiest clean people in terms of the law, but that doesn’t mean the powers above like them.
Crime rates have dropped since their peak in the early 90s
At least partly due to the ban on lead additives in gasoline.
Won’t somebody please think of the
childrendogsThey don’t want to remind us of the children right now with the epstein stuff still washing up.
I thought they ment furries
Them too
Same. Had to read that headline twice just to be sure.
Lemmy has damaged us
Better start picking up some high powered laser pointers.
Would this work on municipal police cameras, asking for a friend.
I was curious so poked around a little online and found this very old albeit quite informative post: http://www.naimark.net/projects/zap/howto.html
It will work until they start calling it TERRORISM!!1!11
Sounds like free advertising.
I also despise everything this would mean in terms of state surveillance, but if you could isolate this capability, it 100% would help recover lost dogs. Speaking from experience. We lost our dog for 6 days and didn’t have any idea where he was until 3 days passed. The most effective way to recover lost dogs is by knowing their current location and setting out live traps with food for them to find at night. Scared dogs don’t recognize their owners by sound so driving around calling for them wouldn’t help.
So if it this technology could work solely as a lost pet sighting tool and not a dystopian state surveillance tool, it would be immensely helpful.
Slap an air tag on their collar if you’re that concerned. I’d rather have less surveillance.
Yeah, I would too. The argument wasn’t that it’s a net good. The argument is that if it were to work as they claim and only identify animals matching the description of lost pets using a mesh network, then that helps pets and pet owners. That’s objectively true.
And air tags rely on Bluetooth signaling. Lost pets often avoid people so they don’t work very well in most cases. The only options that do work are subscription based(gross) GPS trackers that use cell towers and GPS signals to determine their location. Which we have now, but thanks.
Air tags use UWB radio, not Bluetooth.
You have a subscription based collar tracker for your dog?
Put a collar with a tag with your phone number on it. You will get a call if they run off. Unless, well you will probably get a call.
That Melania documentary was financed by Besos. Reportedly $70M development cost can easily include some slush fund elements to, if not directly to Trump family, to friends of MAGA. That Ring revenue can include federal contracts for ICE to shoot more people or AWS paid to run Skynet, is predictable.
Depends on the identifiability of their fursuit surely
What a fucking dystopia we live in
Not like every Tesla hasn’t been doing this already…
Wait, which furries
The friends.
Any.
Not sure what would prevent the average person from buying Ring cameras unless it became commonplace for Ring cameras to be vandalized while other cameras were left alone.
That’s just going to grow adoption.
People are buying Ring cameras/AI surveillance because they feel unsafe and are using these cameras to feel safer. If cameras start to get damaged in a specific neighborhood, residents are likely going to see it as a coordinated attack and invest in more cameras, including cameras to watch the other cameras.
A better option might be a leafleting campaign.
It would need to bypass the “I’ve nothing to hide” effect. E.g. “Does your friend have an ex they don’t want to know where they are? Facial recognition would easily put them on your doorstep. Would you like a visit from them?”
Leaning on the ICE issues right now would also work in some areas.
If someone mocked up a few variants for different demographics, that could actually help.
Also, does anyone know an easy layman alternative to ring, that is more ethical?
I have a Reolink doorbell camera and other Reolink cameras. They record to a SD card in the camera and the app connects to the cameras via your LAN. Setting it up basically involves scanning the camera QR code with the app and then mounting the camera, so easier than Ring.
Yeah, but you got to be able to word it right.
Does your friend have an ex they don’t want to know where they are?
As I recall, Ring doesn’t provide camera footage to everyone on demand, just law enforcement. I can easily see Ring advertising back saying they only provide data to law enforcement to help prosecute criminals or willingly shared by Ring owners.
Leaning on the ICE issues right now would also work in some areas.
Some areas, yes. However, that could end up implying that the camera system is being used to capture criminals in general.
It is a better idea than vandalism, but it requires thinking though to make sure that Amazon doesn’t get a quick win.
Fully agreed that it needs to be done right. I’m definitely not the best person to try and write it.
It also needs to be area specific. A predominantly republican area would need a different message to a predominantly black community.
Has Amazon ever actually said it wouldn’t sell the results of face tracking to data brokers? I can easily see it happening. It’s a lot of tasty data to them.
I don’t think they’ve said anything yet, but I don’t know if the tech is there for identifying random people.
Simple: “do you trust Amazon to not give away private pictures of you getting home late at night or leaving early in the morning? What happens when Amazon thinks that you’ve committed a crime you know you haven’t? Your own devices will be used against you, your friends, and your family. It isn’t if, but when.”
Much darker than I originally thought.
Anyone know how this affects the U.K.?
