Reports Suggest Ring Allowed Employees Unfettered Access to Customer Camera Feeds

[Mark Booth]

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

We have 13 4K cameras around our property. All of them are accessible via the internet. Yet, the company that makes the system has ZERO access to them. I configured the system myself and did NOT use ANY of the default port numbers or passwords. The video is stored locally. Only a still image gets sent out when motion gets detected on certain cameras and that still image goes to my personal email address, not to some company cloud storage.

Given the care I've taken with my home surveillance system, I can't believe it has taken me this long to realize what a bad idea Ring's business model has been.

Mark

 

[mi7chy]

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.

Using SD card is the worst idea since they usually have very limited write endurance and important footage may not be available when you need it most. We just had a rape occurred in the community and the suspect was quickly apprehended due to community surveillance footage. Avoid the knee jerk reaction and think out the pros and cons.

For the majority cloud storage makes more sense from ease of setup and reliability than homebrew storage. And, without cloud storage you won't have the option of proactive image recognition and announcement unless you're like 1% of the population with the technical know-how and capital to locally host redundant NAS/SAN and AI.

Without the knee jerk, Nest/Ring cloud is fine for public facing. For indoor most people are already sharing videos via social network.

 

[LessO2]

What a joke. Hopefully Nest doesn't get shown to be doing stuff like this. I love my Nest Hello and Nest Cams.

Products developed by Google DOESN'T spy on people? LOL

That kind of data is how The Googs makes money.

 

[Mark Booth]

Using SD card is the worst idea since they usually have very limited write endurance and important footage may not be available when you need it most. We just had a rape occurred in the community and the suspect was quickly apprehended due to community surveillance footage. Avoid the knee jerk reaction and think out the pros and cons.

For the majority cloud storage makes more sense from ease of setup and reliability than homebrew storage. And, without cloud storage you won't have the option of proactive image recognition and announcement unless you're like 1% of the population with the technical know-how and capital to locally host redundant NAS/SAN and AI.

Without the knee jerk, Nest/Ring cloud is fine for public facing. For indoor most people are already sharing videos via social network.

I'm not "most people". And there's nothing knee jerk about recognizing a REALLY bad corporate policy and taking steps to divest yourself of products made by that company.

Mark

 

[dontwalkhand]

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]
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 went with Sonicwall NSA & SonicPoint ACEs. Thinking about going Cisco

 

[TheWatchfulOne]

The other day I was outside my front door talking to a friend about saving money on car insurance. This was all done in front of my Ring.

Then 15 minutes later I sit down on the couch...pull up Macrumors... and there sits an ad from Geico.

Whoa! You are in a position to tell your friends:

"The bad news is I was spied on; my privacy was invaded; and strangers know everything about me!
The good news is I saved a ton of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico."

 

[Raineer]

This is why I run my own private cloud. Synology running Surveillance Station and the only way to access is to VPN in and connect.

Anything that sends your videos to a cloud means people can view everything going on, who knows how many employees do this for kicks etc.

Yep agreed, I have a DS1815+ and use it the exact same way. It's a great product.

My Ring is there for "family-friendly" usage of the specific doorbell features. While I run DS Station like a security room at a Wal-mart, it's not friendly enough for the rest of the friendly. The apps are very good imo, though.

 

[Rocketman]

I wish they would look at my unfettered feeds and tell me WTF is happening.

 

[Will do good]

Please explain more in detail, or if you know of a link.
I wouldn't mind setting this up myself without Amazon or any cloud.

 

[junction10]

Oh my god... This is worrying... The other week, I spent three hours licking my neighbours doorbell.. Do you think anyone saw it?

 

[Beck Show]

What a joke. Hopefully Nest doesn't get shown to be doing stuff like this. I love my Nest Hello and Nest Cams.

Google owns Nest. Thinking that they don’t do stuff like this is wishful thinking for sure.
[doublepost=1547245933][/doublepost]This nonsense being owned by Amazon...absolutely no one should be surprised. Google, Amazon, and Facebook are all competing to see who can invade their users’ privacy to the largest degree.

 

[HQuest]

I went with Sonicwall NSA & SonicPoint ACEs. Thinking about going Cisco

I’m a Cisco guy, and some of these units are definitively not for the faint of the heart: You are either someone with a good sponsor or some deep pockets... I was more than lucky to find a sponsor

 

[Mark Booth]

Clearly some of you haven't read the articles linked in this thread. And many of you seem to lack a basic understanding of how a Ring doorbell functions. It doesn't start recording until it detects human movement. Birds, dogs and other animals do not activate the recording.

So, when these Ukrainian Ring employees are watching and listening to various customer's Ring recordings, the odds are very high that humans were in front of the camera and that a conversation of some sort was taking place.

Further, those Ring employees have access to every customer's name. They are able to link a customer name to their account, making it possible to seek out SPECIFIC people and watch the recorded activity at their front door. Maybe no big deal to you or me but what about TV or movie stars? Sports figures? Etc.

This is most definitely a big deal. Shame on Ring for allowing it to happen.

But, in a way, I'm thankful that it did. I've been pretty disappointed with Ring's service that last year or so and I've frequently contemplated removing it from my home. This privacy breech was the proverbial straw.

I returned the Ring doorbell to Costco today. I expected a little pushback because the typical returns time limit on consumer electronics items is 90 days (I purchased the Ring doorbell in June of 2016). But, to my surprise, the Costco associate told me that the Ring doorbell isn't included in the consumer electronics time limit. She didn't even have to call a supervisor.

$195 and change back on my credit card. Goodbye, Ring, I'll never be back!

Mark

 

[dontwalkhand]

I’m a Cisco guy, and some of these units are definitively not for the faint of the heart: You are either someone with a good sponsor or some deep pockets... I was more than lucky to find a sponsor

I definitely know that the cost of entry into Cisco is quite high, that and learning how to use the thing to begin with is probably very very hard, I don't have a CCNA or anything, so I may stick with SonicWALL, or go the Ubiquiti route. Not sure what I want to do yet. However, I was offered a Cisco ISA for a good price, but then again, it brings me back to learning how to configure and use the thing.

SonicWALLS are much easier to configure, though they aren't as advanced as Cisco, they definitely are still a hell of a whole lot better than some consumer router or something more limited like Google Wifi. I also am old fashioned and believe that the AP should always remain separate from the router for signal reasons, and it allows me to deploy them all over the house, instead of just coming out of one location.
[doublepost=1547274446][/doublepost]

Clearly some of you haven't read the articles linked in this thread. And many of you seem to lack a basic understanding of how a Ring doorbell functions. It doesn't start recording until it detects human movement. Birds, dogs and other animals do not activate the recording.

So, when these Ukrainian Ring employees are watching and listening to various customer's Ring recordings, the odds are very high that humans were in front of the camera and that a conversation of some sort was taking place.

Further, those Ring employees have access to every customer's name. They are able to link a customer name to their account, making it possible to seek out SPECIFIC people and watch the recorded activity at their front door. Maybe no big deal to you or me but what about TV or movie stars? Sports figures? Etc.

This is most definitely a big deal. Shame on Ring for allowing it to happen.

But, in a way, I'm thankful that it did. I've been pretty disappointed with Ring's service that last year or so and I've frequently contemplated removing it from my home. This privacy breech was the proverbial straw.

I returned the Ring doorbell to Costco today. I expected a little pushback because the typical returns time limit on consumer electronics items is 90 days (I purchased the Ring doorbell in June of 2016). But, to my surprise, the Costco associate told me that the Ring doorbell isn't included in the consumer electronics time limit. She didn't even have to call a supervisor.

$195 and change back on my credit card. Goodbye, Ring, I'll never be back!

Mark

Glad I never bought the Ring, I definitely will also be telling friends to also stay far away from the product now that this has come to light. Also, it was buggy anyway, because people I do know that have the Ring, I've noticed when I hit their doorbell, it does absolutely nothing, no ring, nothing...and its hardwired, so no excuse. Sometimes, it would chime once, but still never ring the person's phone, or indoor chimer. Though the next day, it seems like it worked fine. Thats not the kind of reliability I want out of something like a Doorbell.

That being said, I can't wait for the Netatmo product, the Homekit integration will be awesome, and I would get the same features as the ring except for three things, that make it stand out compared to the Ring....

-No privacy issues
-It is integrated directly with our Apple ecosystem, with full HomeKit support (something that was promised by Ring years ago, and still has YET to come to fruition, probably never will)
-It will actually work. Gee what a concept, a product you buy that will actually work.

 

[Mars56]

don't keep cams and **** online, jeez!

 

[C DM]

Clearly some of you haven't read the articles linked in this thread. And many of you seem to lack a basic understanding of how a Ring doorbell functions. It doesn't start recording until it detects human movement. Birds, dogs and other animals do not activate the recording.

So, when these Ukrainian Ring employees are watching and listening to various customer's Ring recordings, the odds are very high that humans were in front of the camera and that a conversation of some sort was taking place.

Further, those Ring employees have access to every customer's name. They are able to link a customer name to their account, making it possible to seek out SPECIFIC people and watch the recorded activity at their front door. Maybe no big deal to you or me but what about TV or movie stars? Sports figures? Etc.

This is most definitely a big deal. Shame on Ring for allowing it to happen.

But, in a way, I'm thankful that it did. I've been pretty disappointed with Ring's service that last year or so and I've frequently contemplated removing it from my home. This privacy breech was the proverbial straw.

I returned the Ring doorbell to Costco today. I expected a little pushback because the typical returns time limit on consumer electronics items is 90 days (I purchased the Ring doorbell in June of 2016). But, to my surprise, the Costco associate told me that the Ring doorbell isn't included in the consumer electronics time limit. She didn't even have to call a supervisor.

$195 and change back on my credit card. Goodbye, Ring, I'll never be back!

Mark

Only a certain small subset of electronics falls under the 90-day return window (and they usually make sure you know if that applies to something you are purchasing).