Key Takeaways
- The FBI was able to produce footage from Nancy Guthrie’s Nest doorbell, even though authorities previously said it was disconnected.
- FBI Director Kash Patel says the video was recovered “from residual data located in backend systems,” but didn’t share additional details.
- It is possible that Guthrie’s doorbell had saved videos or video data points from its event history, which the FBI could have used to piece together the full clips.
Why would the FBI release staged doorbell camera footage during an active hostage investigation? That doesn’t seem very reasonable under the circumstances.
I am interested to hear more about the origins of the release footage though, along with what was stored where, who had access, and what reconstruction if any needed to take place.
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This reinforces something about Google that we already knew. They don’t need to charge for services when compromising our privacy is the real objective. I bet Gemini could give use a frame by frame recreation of events since it was already included it in the training set. This is sarcasm btw. I don’t currently believe the footage is AI generated.
I’ll edit this in for context since my previous comments are disappearing. I was under the impression that the doorbell camera was disconnected.
As per the article:
the FBI has seemingly produced this video out of thin air.
I find this suspicous. That is all. Pure conjecture.
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Flock cameras, which supposedly don’t store footage, have been found to contain images from the factory. I have included it as an example of how manufacturer claims cannot be taken at face value.
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This case did not involve a flock camera, as far as the public has been made aware.
For context I’ve attached a CNN article which was previously posted in this thread, and details some of the situation surrounding the footage origin.
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Thanks for that, the article really answers the question it seems, here for all:
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos initially said there was “no video available” because Guthrie “had no subscription” to Google’s video recording service, which keeps videos from Nest cameras accessible in Google’s cloud.
But Nest still saves around three hours of “event-based” video history for free before being deleted. That data lives in Google’s cloud and servers.
then it goes on to explain that even “deleted” files can be recovered, no shit.
Another interesting part:
Adam Malone, the top cyber crisis expert at cybersecurity advisory firm Kroll and a former cyber-focused FBI special agent, told CNN that video recorded by cloud-based systems goes through “layers and layers” of components to make the application work.
For example, “there might be one that just processes the data into a new compressed format,” Malone said. “There might be one that renders it a certain visual format.”
The footage and its underlying data could go through hundreds of thousands of servers and systems all over the world — increasing the chance of residual data being left behind.
“All those layers have code, and as data moves around to be processed and made available to the customer, it will move through different layers of sub applications, sub servers, sub storage components,” Malone said, speaking generally about application architecture and data handling.
What a nightmare.
I really hope that usage of these cameras decreases now thanks to the brilliant ring ad.
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Which ring ad?
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Exactly that one. Rewatching it I really have to laugh out loud at “join the search party”, ha ha
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There was actual a response ad from Wyze which made me chuckle. Appears they are a more privacy-friendly alternative (altho I haven’t investigated to what degree)
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To add to this topic, it is basically confirmed that the Ring “Search Party” was intended to go beyond dogs:
404 Media obtained an email that Siminoff sent to all Ring employees in early October, soon after the feature’s launch, which said the feature was introduced “first for finding dogs,” but that it or features like it would be expanded to “zero out crime in neighborhoods.”
From: Leaked Email Suggests Ring Plans to Expand ‘Search Party’ Surveillance Beyond Dogs