Yeah it's buried way down the article that all the clips are user submitted. I don't like these cloud surveillance devices, but I like even less being lied to by the media.
"troubleshooting" is like a catch all description. What does that even mean?
It's like Google "to improve our services" phrases, basically we'll troubleshoot until we figure out to how to rip our customers off the best and get as much money as possible out of each single one of them.
This implies your clip might be forever in Amazon's training dataset, potentially exposed to public. Not sure you'd sign up for that from the mere troubleshooting perspective.
What is the killer feature of these cams over a local camera setup that lets you check on your home from an app, but without uploading your data to a cloud service?
Compared to an Axis-style network webcam with recording to SD card, the Ring doorbell offers the following:
1. The Ring doorbell costs less. In my country, £89 for a basic Ring vs £203 for a basic Axis webcam.
2. The Ring is battery powered, which is only possible because it doesn't have to run its radio and CPU all the time in order to be a web server. Being battery-powered makes allows self-installation by a much wider audience.
3. If someone steals your webcam with microsd recording, they steal the video of themselves doing it at the same time; with the Ring that is not the case.
4. IoT devices are famously insecure, and network webcams famous for being inadvertently made public. The Ring doorbell doesn't need you to open a port in your firewall (exposing it to the public internet) to be remotely monitored.
With that said, personally I still wouldn't buy a Ring doorbell.
One could always send video files to their own cloud. Nextcloud instance, sftp, rsync, etc. Rsyncd supports write-only. SFTP could write to an append-only directory (via xattrs) so even if they figure out how to use the ssh key, it won't matter.
I also would never use the ring doorbell. Not only is that a security risk, but it also provides eyes on neighbors across the street. Legal, sure, but dodgy.
A Synology NAS with its built-in/free camera software, and cameras of your choice. Recordings live on the local NAS, you figure out how to get Synology's DS Cam app access to the local network. (I just use Synology's dynamic DNS service.)
I run a NEST Hello and Nest Cam Indoor/Outdoor IQ system. Everything is streamed to the cloud. I was able to catch the local criminal breaking into homes.
One of the neighbours has an 12 camera setup with a NVR. They just took the NVR.
“Google Workers May Be Watching Your Home Footage Submitted to YouTube” - future Bloomberg article.
I always had a lot of sympathy for telemarketers as that seems like a soul deadening job that I lie to friends and family about doing just because I need a job and have bills to pay. I think if I had to write these articles, I would also be really sad and disappointed in myself.
Recently I saw the news about the Hikvision cameras being blacklisted. This came after a time where my office just installed cameras throughout our office.
Firstly, do they phone home with data like this?
Secondly, is there an open source system that could manage these cameras that anyone can recommend?
The correct way to setup security cameras is to slap them on their own segregated network, completely disconnected from the internet. Your IPVMS appliance has two NICs, one to connect to the camera network, and one to connect to your main network / the internet.
Readit News
While Amazon should have been more explicit in telling people that submitting a clip means someone will watch it, it's not exactly unexpected.
The title suggests something much bigger.
>”Teams in India and Romania use video snippets sent by customers for troubleshooting purposes and to train artificial intelligence algorithms.”
Very misleading.
Also, if you send someone email, your email may be read by someone!
It's like Google "to improve our services" phrases, basically we'll troubleshoot until we figure out to how to rip our customers off the best and get as much money as possible out of each single one of them.
This implies your clip might be forever in Amazon's training dataset, potentially exposed to public. Not sure you'd sign up for that from the mere troubleshooting perspective.
There is no privacy without strong encryption.
It's just a little too personal to not be in control
Basically HomeAssistant
Should work fine on a raspberry too
1. The Ring doorbell costs less. In my country, £89 for a basic Ring vs £203 for a basic Axis webcam.
2. The Ring is battery powered, which is only possible because it doesn't have to run its radio and CPU all the time in order to be a web server. Being battery-powered makes allows self-installation by a much wider audience.
3. If someone steals your webcam with microsd recording, they steal the video of themselves doing it at the same time; with the Ring that is not the case.
4. IoT devices are famously insecure, and network webcams famous for being inadvertently made public. The Ring doorbell doesn't need you to open a port in your firewall (exposing it to the public internet) to be remotely monitored.
With that said, personally I still wouldn't buy a Ring doorbell.
I also would never use the ring doorbell. Not only is that a security risk, but it also provides eyes on neighbors across the street. Legal, sure, but dodgy.
On notification you could choose whether or not to record the stream and save it as a file on the client.
Said service could provide a guarantee that all data passing through its servers will not be recorded, persisted or even decrypted.
If you are viewing it while not physically present it must be uploaded somewhere - otherwise it couldn't be on your phone right ?
Deleted Comment
One of the neighbours has an 12 camera setup with a NVR. They just took the NVR.
I always had a lot of sympathy for telemarketers as that seems like a soul deadening job that I lie to friends and family about doing just because I need a job and have bills to pay. I think if I had to write these articles, I would also be really sad and disappointed in myself.
Firstly, do they phone home with data like this? Secondly, is there an open source system that could manage these cameras that anyone can recommend?
Open source solutions include https://zoneminder.com/ https://www.ispyconnect.com/ https://www.bluecherrydvr.com/
Hikvision cameras typically support the common ONVIF standard even if it needs to be turned on https://securitycamcenter.com/enable-onvif-hikvision-cameras...
Open source IPVMS: https://zoneminder.com/
Paid ($90 per cam for lifetime license): https://digital-watchdog.com/productdetail/DW-Spectrum-IPVMS...
(Not affiliated, have just installed hundreds of cameras on DW systems and have never had a bad experience.)