Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance

General News
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Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at the helm of the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is the surveillance-first-privacy-last approach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech devices. Not only is the company reintroducing new versions of old features which would allow police to request footage directly from Ring users, it is also introducing a new feature that would allow police to request live-stream access to people’s home security devices.
Siminoff has announced in a memo seen by Business Insider that the company will now be reimagined from the ground up to be “AI first”—whatever that means for a home security camera that lets you see who is ringing your doorbell. We fear that this may signal the introduction of video analytics or face recognition to an already problematic surveillance device.
It was also reported that employees at Ring will have to show proof that they use AI in order to get promoted.
Not to be undone with new bad features, they are also planning on rolling back some of the necessary reforms Ring has made: namely partnering with Axon to build a new tool that would allow police to request Ring footage directly from users, and also allow users to consent to letting police livestream directly from their device.

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@anonfox that’s some fked up shit out there

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F*** Amazon.

But also, to be solution oriented, what’s a better alternative for users to use? Home security is currently very weak from a recommendation standpoint as of today.

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BlueIris.
Your own PC running standalone BlueIris with a dual network. Cameras are on the 2nd network card. OpenVPN to connect when you want to view your cameras while you are away. Alerts are sent to through your own domain.

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I’ll guesstimate 0.01% of Ring users would be willing to do that.

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I’m sure you are correct. Convenience at the cost of Privacy. That is not the way it should be.

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Ring currently has optional E2EE, I think an alternative may not be as necessary if E2EE will still be maintained. But here are some alternatives I found:

Apple HomeKit apparently uses E2EE

Isn’t that only on Windows?