Ring sting

[Scooter]

I would think that any recordings they receive will serve the same purpose.

[Joe Guy]

Non-white, and especially Black people, seen doing absolutely nothing except minding their own business in a predominantly white or well-to-do neighborhood nevertheless seem to always attract the suspicion of police. That is just the way things are. This just creates another tool for making that happen.

You may be right about that but it would require an actual person to report a suspicious person. The police can't monitor my camera and they wouldn't get any of my videos unless I sent one to them. They don't have direct access to my camera or to my cloud storage.

I don't see how Ring or other home video security cameras are any different than security videos from a store or at gas stations etc. Also, you don't need to subscribe to Amazon's cloud storage. You can save the videos yourself without a subscription if you want to but it would require more effort than I want to spend. My videos that are stored on the cloud are auto-deleted after 90 days so if I want to keep a permanent copy of one I have to save it to my own storage device.

[Big RR]

And I don't see sending the police the video all that different from a person (maybe a crank) call the poice and saying "there's a strange man walking in my neighborhood" and the police sending a car to check.

[Scooter]

I see it working something like this - a crime is reported in a certain neighbourhood, police are either given voluntarily or get a subpoena for video from every doorbell cam in the area. A black person who is walking or driving through there is flagged as someone who "doesn't belong" in that area, even though nothing ties them to the crime and anything they are actually doing that is captured by video is completely innocent. The racial bias is further compounded by the use of facial recognition technology whose grotesque racial bias may or may not identify the person actually captured in the video.

[ex-khobar Andy]

More on this from the Guardian.

It seems that, unless you opt out, your Alexa or doorbell can hook into a neighbor's wifi.

[Crackpot]

the first mention of that I saw was from Breitbart now the Guardian, slightly more respected and from the other ideological "side". this whole story seems odd as it would be using someone else's "property".

[Joe Guy]

I checked my Ring app, and in order for the "Sidewalk" feature to be enabled, you need to have one of the Ring cameras that comes with a spotlight or floodlight (which I don't) and would have to manually enable the device for it to use that feature. It sure doesn't sound like it would be legal that Amazon could somehow override your settings but it wouldn't surprise me if your consent to allow them to absorb you is written into one of their user agreements that nobody ever reads.

[Gob]

Do you have to set it specifically to look out for black people, or is that a default setting?

[MajGenl.Meade]

you need to have one of the Ring cameras that comes with a spotlight

Back in the 70s that had a different meaning than the one intended here

[Econoline]

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

[Burning Petard]

Big part of the sales pitch for "ring" is that you can get the pictures on your wireless gadget even when you are not home. If you can get it wirelessly somebody else is/will develop a way to hack it.

On the other hand, to defend Amazon, I have a Yahoo email address that I only use for Amazon orders. I have been used the same address for this same purpose for more than 15 years and I have NEVER received spam on it.

snailgate

[Long Run]

I have two Yahoo email accounts that I use for every day (my main personal account and a purchases account) and get no spam on either. On the other hand, the paid email at work which has an infuriating spam filter still lets some stuff through. So, maybe good for Amazon for not selling its email addresses, but the credit may go to Yahoo for doing a good job at blocking spam.

[Joe Guy]

Do you have to set it specifically to look out for black people, or is that a default setting?

Black and Hispanic people detection are default settings. I'm thinking about turning off the Asian detector setting. I get too many alerts and all they do is walk by and ignore everyone. The only time they approach your property is if they want to buy your house.

[Long Run]

[Scooter]

Do you have to set it specifically to look out for black people, or is that a default setting?

What will happen is any black people captured on video in an area they don't "belong" will automatically be targeted for suspicion, notwithstanding the lack of any evidence of wrongdoing on their part. Plus the accompanying use of facial recognition technology will mistakenly identify black people at several times the error rate for whites. So giving law enforcement another tool to fuck with the lives of innocent people.

[Joe Guy]

What will happen is any black people captured on video in an area they don't "belong" will automatically be targeted for suspicion, notwithstanding the lack of any evidence of wrongdoing on their part. Plus the accompanying use of facial recognition technology will mistakenly identify black people at several times the error rate for whites. So giving law enforcement another tool to fuck with the lives of innocent people.

Except it doesn't work that way. As it is right now, if your camera records someone snooping around or stealing something on your property and you send it to law enforcement and/or to the "neighborhood" app, there's a possibility that the person may be recognized by either the police or by someone else in your neighborhood. If nothing else, it alerts people that someone is snooping around in their neighborhood and they become aware of it and can take extra precautions.

[Scooter]

And what will constitute "snooping" around? Among other things, it will include being black where you don't "belong".

And how will that "snooper" be identified by police? Using facial recognition technology that is extremely unreliable at identifying black faces.

The scenario you posit is the one I laid out, except that you don't bring it to its conclusion.

[Joe Guy]

In my case, and on most other neighborhood videos I've seen, a person would need to be on my (or the camera owner's) property in order for the camera to record him/her/non-binary etc. So, unless I know you, you are most likely a salesperson, delivery person or a snoop. The police might patrol an area more at certain times if enough incidents are reported. If they have several videos of the same person, it could help to catch the bad guy. Also, neighbors might recognize the person in some cases.

[Scooter]

Or it will only take one video of a person because, you know, walking while black.

[Joe Guy]

Or it will only take one video of a person because, you know, walking while black.

The only time a video is useful is if it shows someone committing a crime. So, yes one video might be enough to be helpful but it would have to clearly show the person's face or show something like a license plate of a vehicle backed up to someone's house.