Reports Suggest Ring Allowed Employees Unfettered Access to Customer Camera Feeds

[Morgenland]

Odd... I own a Ring doorbell for well over 5 years and every single time data was sent out from the camera, activity was detected in front of it - exactly as it was configured to. I do run my very own closed home network, with same enterprise grade equipment and software you will find on many Fortune 500 companies, so I monitor every bit coming in or going out. The camera was never trigged by itself, so this misinterpretation of information is rubbish.

On the cloud side, however, is where things get uh, cloudy. There is no way to guarantee who access my camera videos. Last I asked for Ring support help, they too sent a request for access to my images, which I’m perfectly fine with: what is the point for you to put in a surveillance system if it is private? If you need to share footage with law enforcement, you wouldn’t because it is only for you to see?

One might counter argue saying “Ring is not a law enforcement” or “they have no business looking at my videos” and I agree. That’s why you are the silly one having public cameras recording private areas. A public service should only get public data: anyone can walk by and look outside my four walls and roof. That’s the extent of public security cameras. Get them on the outdoors, looking at driveways, porches, external doors, sheds, you name it. Make them no much different to the footage satellites are already capturing and you cannot opt out from them either.

It is not the technology that is bad, is the misconception and ignorance that makes it look bad.

What is your definition of 'enterprise grade equipment'? It can hardly be the cloud stuff you're talking about anymore, what do you think?

 

[merik]

You will find that the reason the Ring employees are using customers video data to identify 'targets' is so as the technology used in the devices improves, the camera will be able to independently scan a customers property and pick out ad related targets. The example's shown in the article are showing Ring employees training the software on what to look for by putting boxes around them. Once the designers are happy that the system works, customers will be asked to update their Ring devices and what they will find is that unbeknown to the them, the camera is working behind the scenes looking for stuff they can target adverts to the customer on their mobiles or computer.

So for example, if the camera is in the living room, it will scan items that amazon sell and will send email ad's to the customer.

Companies such a Ring will always use the excuse that it is doing what it is doing because of improving safety for it's customers. Which is total BS because time and time again, companies keep getting caught out selling customer data to 3rd party advertising companies.

I mean the advertising is a bit of a stretch. The main goal of Ring’s AI is to detect what is actually happening e.g. the UPS man delivered a package, a known crime suspect was at your door, someone stole your package, etc.

 

[Morgenland]

I mean the advertising is a bit of a stretch. The main goal of Ring’s AI is to detect what is actually happening e.g. the UPS man delivered a package, a known crime suspect was at your door, someone stole your package, etc.

a known crime suspect was at your door
You assume they want to link the camera data with police data?

someone stole your package
take this:

 

[Doomtomb]

I own 6 ring cameras around the house lmao... it bothers me but it doesn’t.

I erase video every morning not sure if they still have access to those erased videos or can’t they just remotely key into the live cameras ?

Assume the worst.

 

[merik]

a known crime suspect was at your door
You assume they want to link the camera data with police data?

To an extent it’s already possible and available to police.

But yes, I would say there is huge goals with the AI.

 

[iapplelove]

Assume the worst.

This is pretty much my approach to the internet

 

[pdaholic]

To avoid a dispute about your attractiveness between the data processing companies/agencies?
Better keep me out of this ;-)

View attachment 815271

You, friend, have captured the essence of my breasts perfectly!

Just needs more chest hair.

 

[marco114]

I use a PC with Blue Iris, then I sync the video encrypted to my own servers I control. Use you own solution. You'll be much happier.

 

[Kanyay]

Yeah, I also use them on both my compound and large estate.

That's good homie. assuming you mean the arlos. they got them arlo ultra and i trust it way more than amazon. sneaky guys always know what i wanna buy before i even buy it smh smh
[doublepost=1547214830][/doublepost]

Lol your “main mansion”. Sure. Thanks for sharing.

u rlly dont recognize me from my profile pic and username? u dont know who kim k is? what rock u living under lmao. i aint want to use amazon products specifically because of the privacy concerns. this report just proves it.
[doublepost=1547214886][/doublepost]

Given the timing of it all, seems like it was all happening well before Amazon acquired the company.

amazon allowed it to continue happening. thats not ok.

 

[zombierunner]

It’s noth8ng new for Amazon.

 

[Morgenland]

To an extent it’s already possible and available to police.

But yes, I would say there is huge goals with the AI.

Sorry to say: with these scenarios you get applause in China, not in Europe.
[doublepost=1547216458][/doublepost]

That's good homie. assuming you mean the arlos. they got them arlo ultra and i trust it way more than amazon. sneaky guys always know what i wanna buy before i even buy it smh smh
[doublepost=1547214830][/doublepost]
u rlly dont recognize me from my profile pic and username? u dont know who kim k is? what rock u living under lmao. i aint want to use amazon products specifically because of the privacy concerns. this report just proves it.
[doublepost=1547214886][/doublepost]
amazon allowed it to continue happening. thats not ok.

Love It

 

[w5jck]

"Terms of Agreements" are rarely read in full by customers, and most of us would not know how to properly interpret everything that is within them if we did read them.

I understand the need by companies like Ring to get "real world" and very realistic testing data to use, but Ring could do better testing by setting up test houses and being totally up front with any customers who are asked to submit their Ring data. I believe they could actually set up Ring owned houses for this purpose and not need to use customer data, but they are too cheap and lazy to do the right thing.

Any security camera that stores its data via cloud only is a no go for me and should be a no go for anyone else. I only use security cameras that save to MY personal memory storage devices and cards and operate behind my personal firewall. Even this could be hacked into, but someone would have to specifically target me, and that is not likely to happen since I'm not a person who would be of interest to hackers. Cloud storage on the other hand is ideal for hackers and corporate abusers because they can get a huge number of customers's data with one swoop.

I like my Amazon toys for the most part, but I definitely stay clear of anything they peddle that has a camera and cloud storage. Ring is not the only toy they own and sell that matches this criteria as they also have Alexa Show devices and some other devices that match the criteria.

 

[itguy06]

All of this was from before Amazon got involved.

Doesn't mean anything. Amazon is quite creepy with the data it collects. They were one of the first to e-mail you after you browsed something on their website asking you to buy it again.

 

[C DM]

Doesn't mean anything. Amazon is quite creepy with the data it collects. They were one of the first to e-mail you after you browsed something on their website asking you to buy it again.

Getting details right still matters even if there are biases in play.

 

[ateslik]

Between this and the lack of transparency on where in the hell HomeKit support is after all these years, I’m really wondering if I should have gone with something else.

This times a billion.

 

[flakk-jakket]

I like my doorbells analog style

 

[decafjava]

This gets right to the heart of how the competition between the “digital assistants” will play out. Siri, with Apple’s constraints on privacy, will have less useful examples and less specific context for learning. The others will gain useful experience faster because there appear to be few real limits to what they are prepared to allow. That’s the dispassionate and objective view of machine learning.

In the real world this sort of intrusion, into personal privacy, is absolutely intolerable. If companies don’t have the good sense and respectfulness to take more care than this, then regulation and penalty must surely follow.

One wonders if Apple has some sort of secret investigative team that exposes this stuff, and other misbehaviour such as that by Qualcomm. If they don’t, then they ought to. This sort of news is pure gold for Apple, and it’s user-oriented approach.

Most won't care though. Siri still has a crappy reputation compared to others and Apple has slipped in other areas so people really don't care about privacy.

 

[Mac 128]

I make it a point to only put cameras where they are never looking at anything personal, pointing out only. Let them look at my driveway all day long if they have nothing better to do.

Yeah, but then they can see when your escorts arrive and leave. Just make sure you leave the money on the nightstand, and don’t pay them in the driveway.

 

[Mark Booth]

Cancelled my Ring cloud account. I'm removing the Ring doorbell today and, instead of the hassle of fighting Ring for a refund, I'm going to return the Ring to Costco for a refund. I'll cite my privacy concerns per the Intercept article.

That's is actually a BETTER plan than fighting Ring in small claims court. If Costco gets enough returns and enough unhappy customers than they'll probably stop carrying Ring's products.

Mark

 

[BGPL]

The ring employees see the same thing my UPS guy sees when he drops off a package. I'm more concerned with how my echo dots are keeping my secrets.

 

[HQuest]

What is your definition of 'enterprise grade equipment'? It can hardly be the cloud stuff you're talking about anymore, what do you think?

I do not see many Cisco ASA-5545-X, Cisco 9400 series switches, Cisco Stealthwatch or Cisco AMP for Networks deployments in homes, and yet that is just the tip of my personal iceberg.

Besides, cloud is just someone’s else computers
[doublepost=1547224711][/doublepost]

Cancelled my Ring cloud account. I'm removing the Ring doorbell today and, instead of the hassle of fighting Ring for a refund, I'm going to return the Ring to Costco for a refund. I'll cite my privacy concerns per the Intercept article.

That's is actually a BETTER plan than fighting Ring in small claims court. If Costco gets enough returns and enough unhappy customers than they'll probably stop carrying Ring's products.

Mark

And how many Amazon Echo, Google’s Alexa based devices and the other Google products (Chrome, GMail, YouTube) did you turned off and stopped using today? Those harvest way more data than the Ring does, and yet, people are proud using them.

 

[Macintoshrumors]

I own 6 ring cameras around the house lmao... it bothers me but it doesn’t.

I erase video every morning not sure if they still have access to those erased videos or can’t they just remotely key into the live cameras ?

I remember being on 4chan and someone’s would post a pastenbin of hundreds of links that connected to security cameras around the world in real time. It was a a easy as copying and pasting the links to a browser and BOOOM, you can watch people watching TV, hanging out outside or sleeping. Links are still being posted today.

 

[hagjohn]

Except that Ring employees have access to the cameras which people put inside as well as out. If you only have Ring outside, yeah not much to be worried about, if you have them dotted around the house too, perhaps a different expectation of privacy.

Is there any expectation of privacy if you have internet connected cameras hooked up in your house?

 

[Mark Booth]

And how many Amazon Echo, Google’s Alexa based devices and the other Google products (Chrome, GMail, YouTube) did you turned off and stopped using today? Those harvest way more data than the Ring does, and yet, people are proud using them.

I don't own a single Amazon Echo or Google Home device (Alexa is Echo, not Google). I don't use Gmail, don't use Chrome, and only watch YouTube without being logged into any sort of account.

I do use Google search, however. But when I use it I *know* I'm using it and it's not recording a conversation at my front door.

Mark
[doublepost=1547225706][/doublepost]

Look into the Netatmo doorbell, HomeKit and only saves to an SD card. No cloud and no BS subscription. No I don’t work for them, I just want the product already!

I knew why I refused to buy a ring. Good thing I didn’t

Thanks for the heads up on Netatmo. I reached out to the company via Facebook. Here's their response:

“Hi Mark,
Thank you for your message. For all Netatmo Cameras, Smart Indoor Camera, Smart Outdoor Camera and Smart Video Doorbell all videos are stored locally only on your SD card. Only one photo of each event is kept on our servers as long as the associated video is on the micro-SD card. This makes it possible to always have information available in your application when your camera is disconnected and Netatmo employees cannot watch the video of the camera.
Have a nice day”

It looks like a Netatmo video doorbell will be my next home surveillance purchase. I particularly like the HomeKit compatibility. I can have it switch on the porch light when it detects motion. Cool.

Mark
[doublepost=1547226969][/doublepost]

The ring employees see the same thing my UPS guy sees when he drops off a package. I'm more concerned with how my echo dots are keeping my secrets.

Over the years, I've had hundreds of conversations at my front door including: friends, spouse, neighbors, solicitors, police officers, etc. Usually those conversations are very brief. But sometimes it's my neighbor asking me to watch their house while they are away for a few days. Sometimes it's been a conversation with a police officer over unruly neighbors. Etc, etc.

The length of those conversations isn't the point. The point is that those conversations are NONE of Ring's business. Period.

Mark

 

[Marekul]

Technically, you're close, as far as I can tell.

Companies that are too small and unknown to suffer from obvious security sloppiness can survive such things.
Even front face companies where data whoring is a central part of the business model survive such things within their business models (Skype/Windows/Microsoft; Facebook; GooglePay etc). With these companies, you know where you stand.

However, if a company is well known and serves markets that depend on trust, dirty programming could damage that company so much that internal strategic risk management prioritizes data security.

This is currently happening at Apple.
Obviously, they want to enter new markets that have long been lost for privacy traitors 'companies'.
Apple's best-known products in preparation are currently Autonomous Driving, Health, Banking.
If Apple doesn't make mistakes like Blackberry did back (who stood there from one day to the next as a liar) then it can generate immense capital and outpace all the disgusting data espionage companies for advertising and governments.

But apple already made that mistake when they totally sold out to Chinese government...