[HN Gopher] Google's Nest will provide data to police without a ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Google's Nest will provide data to police without a warrant
        
       Author : mikece
       Score  : 450 points
       Date   : 2022-07-27 13:59 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (petapixel.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com)
        
       | igetspam wrote:
       | For this reason, I just cancelled my nest doorbell order. I will
       | gladly share access with the police if the situation warrants it
       | but I don't accept that Google (or any company) should be able to
       | make that decision without my consent.
        
         | ransom1538 wrote:
         | I only use these types of cameras outside where neighbors are
         | recording anyway. In home, I use internal networks.
        
         | unixbane wrote:
         | I rented a house 2 years ago and it had some cloud trash with
         | camera and mic in it. I said I will move out unless they remove
         | it. They simply removed it as it was there only to appease
         | prospective tenants.
        
         | FollowingTheDao wrote:
         | But will you stop using all of Google's products?
         | 
         | "Google will allow law enforcement to access data from its Nest
         | products -- or theoretically any other data you store with
         | Google -- without a warrant."
        
           | fooey wrote:
           | My understanding is under US law, any data you allow a 3rd
           | party to "see" (aka "host") is considered public and they
           | don't need a warrant
           | 
           | Police don't need a warrant to get into your gmail or icloud
           | or whatever else you host with 3rd parties
        
             | xdennis wrote:
             | The data isn't public. It belongs to Google. They can ask
             | for a warrant or just give away "your" data willy nilly.
        
             | Grazester wrote:
             | and from my understanding this is incorrect.
        
               | sennight wrote:
               | and from my understanding of the ECPA, opened email on a
               | third party server is legally considered abandoned
               | property and enjoys all the protection that a smashed
               | washing machine next to the highway receives. After 180
               | days all bets are off, regardless of the message being
               | previously read or not.
        
           | digitalsushi wrote:
           | Wait a second, do I need to panic that the police can thumb
           | through my gmail, or not?
        
             | paulcole wrote:
             | Need to panic? No. Can choose to panic? Of course.
             | 
             | We choose to ignore risks all the time. We also choose to
             | panic about stuff all the time. You're in control of what
             | goes into what pile.
        
             | fezfight wrote:
             | Yes. Do you remember snowden and prism? Not just the
             | police.
        
         | ren_engineer wrote:
         | 1984 was overly optimistic about people, government didn't even
         | need to enforce putting spying devices in homes. Instead a huge
         | chunk opted in voluntarily with doorbell cameras, Alexa, and
         | other smart devices
        
           | thescriptkiddie wrote:
           | Comparisons to 1984 are hack, but I seem to remember that in
           | the book the telescreens were described as something that
           | people willingly bought.
        
           | akira2501 wrote:
           | There's absolutely nothing wrong with the technology, and it
           | obviously makes peoples lives better to have it. I think the
           | issue is that there are only a handful of vendors that
           | happily operate like the monopolies they are and provide you
           | with zero differentiation or choice within the market.
           | 
           | The government isn't particularly interested in ending this
           | problem either, I suspect this is due to a combination of
           | industry capture and intelligence agency interest in these
           | products.
        
             | marcosdumay wrote:
             | > There's absolutely nothing wrong with the technology
             | 
             | Oh, but there is. It's subservient to the manufacturer, not
             | to you.
             | 
             | I'm still annoyed that no country decided to classify
             | "selling" things where the manufacturer keeps complete
             | control and denies you access as fraud. But just because no
             | legal system decided it's a crime, it doesn't mean it's
             | right.
        
             | phpisthebest wrote:
             | You say there is nothing wrong, but then go on to list
             | things that are in fact wrong.
             | 
             | You think the problems are a mistake or otherwise something
             | to be "fixed" the products are working exactly as both the
             | government and the manufacturers want them to, and it has
             | nothing to do with "intel agencies"
             | 
             | Having your entire life "cloud connected" and them
             | complaining about privacy, is like opening a window then
             | complaining that the house is drafty.
             | 
             | I love home automation, not a single component of my home
             | automation is cloud connected, if more people would accept,
             | learn and support non-cloud systems, services and protocols
             | everyone would be better off
        
               | Dylan16807 wrote:
               | > You say there is nothing wrong, but then go on to list
               | things that are in fact wrong.
               | 
               | They say there is nothing wrong with the technology, but
               | then go on to list things that are in fact wrong with the
               | not-technology.
        
               | phpisthebest wrote:
               | No they ignore the problems with technology ( unencrypted
               | cloud connection / data storage, or lack of zero
               | knowledge systems ) and move the problem to political or
               | other realms.
               | 
               | The problem with the technology is it allows the company,
               | political power, or police to access the data with out
               | user permission, that is a technological problem, belief
               | that just passing the correct laws to resolve this
               | technology problem defy's recorded history and logic
        
           | PeterStuer wrote:
           | 1984 and Brave New World weren't exclusive. We can have both
           | at the same time.
        
             | dehrmann wrote:
             | I like how much of Brave New World is being created in
             | SoMa.
        
           | zappo2938 wrote:
           | In the West, Orwell was wrong and Huxley was correct.
        
           | shadowgovt wrote:
           | I think Larry Brin's "The Transparent Society" is the best
           | read on the topic. Not predictive of all outcomes, but many
           | aspects of modern surveillance he did see coming.
        
             | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
             | His novel 'Earth' also predicted glassholes.
        
             | mftb wrote:
             | This is confused. The Transparent Society is by David
             | Brin[0]. Two of the founders of Google are Larry Page and
             | Sergey Brin. The confusion is understandable given the name
             | collision.
             | 
             | [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
        
               | shadowgovt wrote:
               | Thank you; good catch on the name error.
        
           | themaninthedark wrote:
           | Fahrenheit 451 has a part where they get the entire city to
           | go to their doors to try and spot a fugitive, this action is
           | coordinated by the radios that everyone wears.
           | 
           | With these cameras and recognition algorithms, you don't even
           | need people to go to the doors. Just pull the feeds.
        
           | isaacremuant wrote:
           | This is not limited to Alexa or seemingly unnecessary tech
           | gadgets.
           | 
           | This includes ALL your data. Gmail, Google, Android.
           | 
           | So unless you're opting for iOs (provided they're not doing
           | the same as Google here) and not using Gmail or Google you're
           | still falling under "Surveilled by the gov via tech company
           | who serves their interests and not yours, even if you pay
           | money for their services".
        
             | yaomtc wrote:
             | OR you can opt for a version of Android without the
             | proprietary bits like GrapheneOS.
        
               | redblacktree wrote:
               | How accessible is that to your grandmother? Can you walk
               | her through the process? (Are you willing to, given that
               | now you'll be called if anything goes wrong?)
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | bushbaba wrote:
             | This is why Apple is going to continue to crush it. They
             | can build a subpar equivalent to google services and a
             | large portion of the tech world will adopt it for its
             | privacy benefits. The 'tech world' is a large influencer to
             | the general public, leading to further penetration.
             | 
             | It's a great strategy as Google makes 80%+ of it's revenue
             | from Ads, and their ad model does not work well with a
             | privacy first mindset.
             | 
             | Apple designs with privacy in mind. Google designs with
             | invasiveness.
        
               | monklu wrote:
               | Apple is the only one of the "big tech" to actually
               | operate a datacenter in China, whose contents are
               | entirely subjected to the whims of the regime.
               | 
               | I'm afraid your conviction in Apple is the product of a
               | well-crafted fantasy by their marketing department,
               | instead of based on some deep rooted philosophical belief
               | regarding the rights and privacy of their users.
        
               | Tijdreiziger wrote:
               | > Abstract -- We investigate what data iOS on an iPhone
               | shares with Apple and what data Google Android on a Pixel
               | phone shares with Google. We find that even when
               | minimally configured and the handset is idle both iOS and
               | Google Android share data with Apple/Google on average
               | every 4.5 mins. The phone IMEI, hardware serial number,
               | SIM serial number and IMSI, handset phone number etc are
               | shared with Apple and Google. Both iOS and Google Android
               | transmit telemetry, despite the user explicitly opting
               | out of this. When a SIM is inserted both iOS and Google
               | Android send details to Apple/Google. iOS sends the MAC
               | addresses of nearby devices, e.g. other handsets and the
               | home gateway, to Apple together with their GPS location.
               | Users have no opt out from this and currently there are
               | few, if any, realistic options for preventing this data
               | sharing.
               | 
               | Leith, D. J. (2021). Mobile Handset Privacy: Measuring
               | The Data iOS and Android Send to Apple And Google. URL:
               | https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf
        
               | forestwisp wrote:
               | > Apple designs with privacy in mind.
               | 
               | I find that hard to believe when so many of their
               | devices' functionality depends on you sending data over
               | to them. Unless you go out of your way to make sure
               | you're blocking all your devices from phoning home or
               | sending any data over to Apple, then any supposed privacy
               | benefit becomes a lie.
               | 
               | Either you're the only owner of your data or your data is
               | not, by definition, private to you.
        
               | wyre wrote:
               | I think this dogmatic take is pretty useless. For the
               | vast majority of people icloud is a QoL increase that is
               | worth not "owning" our data. All Apple does with our data
               | is keep it safe (CSAM not included), but I would love to
               | be proven wrong.
        
               | uoaei wrote:
               | I don't think using the correct terms to avoid ambiguity
               | is "dogma". It would be "pedantic" except the concern
               | regards pretty much the essence of the issue, so that
               | doesn't apply either.
        
               | wyre wrote:
               | I think your being pedantic. Dogma is fine usage. They
               | argued that Apple isn't a privacy-focused company because
               | they store our data on their servers, while the bar for
               | companies to protect our data is so low it's a tripping
               | hazard.
        
               | smoldesu wrote:
               | I think the larger problem is that Apple treats privacy
               | as a double standard. They assist China's government in
               | mass-surveillance of their citizens, while simultaneously
               | airing "Privacy is a human right" ads in the United
               | States. Once you factor in the horrific irony of Uighur
               | slave labor building iPhones, I think it's pretty easy to
               | understand how people can call their efforts 'security
               | theater'.
        
               | lapetitejort wrote:
               | It should be noted that Apple also has an ad wing that
               | brought in $4 billion in 2021 [0].
               | 
               | 0: https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-revenue-
               | ads-516478777...
        
               | bushbaba wrote:
               | The ad revenue is mostly on App Store searches, where the
               | intent is provided during the request.
               | 
               | That Ads devision can operate in a privacy first mindset
               | while still seeing huge growth YoY. Where-as if Google
               | operated in a don't be evil/privacy first mindset, they'd
               | loose substantial revenue and likely no longer be
               | profitable.
        
           | Aeolun wrote:
           | I mean, you carry a listening device with you almost 100% of
           | the time. Why would you even worry about the Alexa in your
           | home?
        
             | goodpoint wrote:
             | That's a fallacy. The average "listening device" it's not
             | constantly recording and uploading audio. We would notice
             | if it did.
        
             | DougWebb wrote:
             | For me, the difference is that the phone (with voice assist
             | turned OFF) is not supposed to be listening all the time,
             | while a device like Alexa _is_ supposed to be listening. I
             | don 't want devices listening so I turn that feature off
             | when I can and avoid the device when I can't.
             | 
             | Is the phone listening anyway? Maybe, but that violates a
             | privacy expectation, and there may be recourse if someone
             | discovers it's doing that.
        
               | bryananderson wrote:
               | I work on Alexa and for whatever it's worth, I can
               | confirm that Amazon is telling the truth about how Alexa
               | listens and about what is done with your data.
               | 
               | This is all publicly available info, and perhaps there's
               | no reason why you should trust me any more than you trust
               | Amazon as a company, but as one privacy-conscious
               | engineer to another, I promise that your ambient
               | conversations are not being stored or sent to Amazon and
               | that any data you delete in the app (either by specifying
               | an auto-delete period or manually deleting it) is
               | actually, really, truly deleted.
               | 
               | A process running locally on your Alexa device listens
               | for the "wake word".[0] This audio is only processed
               | locally within a constantly-overwritten memory buffer, it
               | is neither stored nor transmitted. Only once the wake
               | word is detected does Alexa begin to transmit an
               | utterance to the cloud for processing. I've worked with
               | the device stack and it really isn't transmitting your
               | ambient conversations.
               | 
               | Within the Alexa app[1], you can see and hear all of your
               | stored data and can delete any of it. You can also
               | control the duration after which it is auto-deleted. From
               | working with ASR datasets, I can confirm that deleted
               | audio (and the associated text transcript) is really
               | deleted, not just hidden from your view.
               | 
               | I never owned an Alexa or other smart home device before
               | I worked on it, and I'm not sure I'd buy another
               | company's device where I lack the same ability to "trust
               | but verify", so I'm not sure how much weight my word
               | should carry. But I can give my word that Alexa is not
               | transmitting your ambient conversations or just setting
               | "deleted=true" in a database when you tell it to delete
               | your data.
               | 
               | [0] see page 4 of https://d1.awsstatic.com/product-
               | marketing/A4B/White%20Paper...
               | 
               | [1] https://www.amazon.com/b/?node=23608614011
        
             | ARandomerDude wrote:
             | I definitely understand your point, but I think the greater
             | issue is why should this have to serve as a rationalization
             | in the first place? Why can't we expect our phones to serve
             | us rather than the other way around?
        
           | arberx wrote:
           | It's hilarious. Freedom/privacy-loving Americans voluntarily
           | give it up for minor gains in comfort.
        
             | lijogdfljk wrote:
             | Eh, it's exactly what you expect from America though. Ie
             | the embodiment of short term thinking. Economy,
             | environment, politics, etc - not that America is entirely
             | unique here, just that the population seems to embrace this
             | as a foundation in my experience.
             | 
             | Privacy to tech like this is very hypothetical till it
             | happens, and it'll rarely happen. If it's not in our faces
             | we won't vote against it.
        
               | ziddoap wrote:
               | > _Eh, it 's exactly what you expect from America though.
               | Ie the embodiment of short term thinking._
               | 
               | I think this is the entirely wrong framing. My other
               | comment covers some of it, but specifically in regards to
               | your comment: it's a lack of education, not the
               | embodiment of short-term thinking.
               | 
               | And really, we can't expect every person that uses Google
               | (or whatever other large tech company) to thoroughly
               | understand all of the bits and pieces of technology that
               | could be used to fuck them. Or how things that we've been
               | told are anonymous/private become non-anonymous/non-
               | private when combined with other sparse data. These are
               | complex topics that even many technologists don't
               | understand (or are outside of their field of expertise).
               | 
               | These companies hire top lawyers to write complex ToS,
               | use as many dark-patterns as legally possible, do illegal
               | things until they get caught doing so, evolve their terms
               | frequently, etc. Yet somehow they've convinced everyone
               | to blame the layperson. It's remarkable, really.
               | 
               | What would be really swell is if we could, you know, not
               | have companies spend millions of dollars on how-to-fuck-
               | your-user initiatives.
        
               | titzer wrote:
               | > it's a lack of education
               | 
               | This is absolutely by design and part of a larger pattern
               | of propaganda that keeps Americans scared of the
               | government and in love with the idea of becoming
               | billionaire CEOs themselves because it's "moral". That
               | holy "free market" has rewarded those rich people for
               | being some damn smart and efficient--they deserve it, not
               | the damn communist free loader leftists who hate America.
        
               | bumby wrote:
               | "Capitalism, God's way of determining who is smart and
               | who is poor."
               | 
               | -Ron Swanson
               | 
               | /s, obviously
        
               | lijogdfljk wrote:
               | But we can't live in a world where the responsibility
               | _isn 't_ on the individual, can we?
               | 
               | Ie if we expect corporations to not fuck you over, who is
               | there to enforce that? Who has the power to keep them in
               | check? Okay, maybe Government should hold that role - but
               | who then keeps the government in check? Who ensures that
               | the spying or privacy from the Government is kept in
               | check? etc
               | 
               | Ultimately the buck always stops at the individual. And
               | we have to be hyper aware of long term implications,
               | because money, greed and power has deep, deep pockets (as
               | you also mentioned) and the fight will be never ending.
               | 
               | We, as a community, have de-propritized education, health
               | care, public safety, privacy, etc. Sure, powerful forces
               | have been pushing for that exact thing, but we can't
               | expect them to "just be nice" or w/e.
               | 
               | I'm very pro "Big Government". However my ideas behind
               | big government will not work without individual
               | responsibility. Until then citizens are purposefully and
               | willfully giving their power away with every tiny step.
               | The blame is on us, and our current state is inevitable.
               | My 2c.
        
               | ziddoap wrote:
               | My last sentence was more wishful thinking than a
               | proposed solution. I am obviously aware the world isn't
               | as utopic as the sentence would require.
               | 
               | The main point I wanted to get across is that it's
               | baffling that companies aren't blamed in these
               | conversations. It's always the user who is blamed ("well
               | you read the ToS didn't you!"). And that's dumb, because
               | the vast majority of users aren't lawyers and don't have
               | CS degrees -- both of which are becoming increasingly
               | required to provide _informed_ consent to a ToS. (edit:
               | in every other contract I sign, a lack of _informed_
               | consent is grounds to void the contract, exception being
               | tech-company ToS contracts)
               | 
               | If you _still_ want to blame my 85-year old parent for
               | not understanding what Google is doing with his data, go
               | for it, I guess. Just seems stupid to do so, because he
               | barely can open up a web browser but is somehow expected
               | to understand the complexities of data aggregation and
               | what impact it will have on him. And as time marches on,
               | it 's equally ridiculous to suggest that he just never
               | use a computer to avoid the issue.
               | 
               | > _And we have to be hyper aware of long term
               | implications,_
               | 
               | Without post-secondary education in niche fields, this is
               | becoming impossible. Especially across multiple services
               | with changing terms, in countries with changing laws, in
               | a world where technology evolution outpaces curriculum
               | changes.
        
               | lijogdfljk wrote:
               | > Without post-secondary education in niche fields, this
               | is becoming impossible. Especially across multiple
               | services with changing terms, in countries with changing
               | laws, in a world where technology evolution outpaces
               | curriculum changes.
               | 
               | I agree, but again i go back to, "but how else can it
               | work"?
               | 
               | Of course i don't expect everyone to be knowledgeable on
               | all low level systems. However, to the point of your 85
               | year old grandma, she is a tiny demographic in a much
               | larger, much more reasonably informed demographic who
               | also completely ignore the implications.
               | 
               | Name a demographic that isn't wildly ignorant of things
               | that are reasonable to know?
               | 
               | But again, i repeatedly fallback to "But who else can do
               | this?". This is why i'm pro Government, but not until
               | people start pushing for responsibility on this front. It
               | may not be reasonable for your grandma to be responsible
               | for Google Data stuff, but she _(and the rest of us)_
               | have sat around for dozens of years watching authority
               | figures have little to no accountability or oversight.
               | 
               | The issue isn't about Google. The issue is about us, and
               | our inability to build a government and authority system
               | that is in-line with our views. We hand our power over
               | with no thought or oversight and then we're shocked when
               | it all comes back against us. This has nothing to do with
               | Google or CS, imo.
        
               | Dylan16807 wrote:
               | With big companies, it's often the case that we're _all_
               | the 85 year old grandma.
        
               | lijogdfljk wrote:
               | Agreed, and we do nothing to fight that. We're all
               | complacent with it. Hell, not only did we not fight it,
               | ie we didn't push for government control and oversight,
               | but we signed up. We let them in and laid out welcome
               | platters.
               | 
               | This isn't about being informed on obscure topics. As i
               | said this has nothing to do with Google. It's about our
               | willingness to fight for a government that can handle
               | this, and fight to control said government.
        
               | bumby wrote:
               | _I agree, but again i go back to, "but how else can it
               | work"?... Name a demographic that isn't wildly ignorant
               | of things that are reasonable to know?_
               | 
               | Who defines "reasonable"?
               | 
               | When you get delayed on a flight due to a maintenance
               | issue, are you equipped to determine if that delay was
               | reasonable? Most likely not, although many mechanically
               | inclined people may be in a position to make that call.
               | Those same people may not be in a position to arbiter the
               | reasonableness of Google's ToS (side-stepping the whole
               | obfuscation of details that was previously covered).
               | 
               | When society gets reasonably complex, we out-source those
               | decisions. In the example of the aircraft, we have a
               | regulatory body who makes the rules about what is
               | reasonable. It wasn't always like that, of course, but
               | the need grew out of the growing complexity and risk
               | profile. So to your question and an earlier point, there
               | may be room for regulatory bodies as an alternative for
               | "how else can it work?".
        
               | ziddoap wrote:
               | > _much more reasonably informed demographic_
               | 
               | My argument is that the "reasonably informed demographic"
               | is _incredibly_ small. I can only say the same thing so
               | many times, though, so I 'm not sure how to explain it in
               | a different way.
               | 
               | To restate my example, even very smart CS graduates may
               | not realize that _anonymized data_ joined with other
               | _anonymized data_ can result in _de-anonymized data_ ,
               | because the linking and de-anonymization of sparse
               | datasets is a niche subfield that has only recently begun
               | being explored.
               | 
               | Many people may _think_ they are reasonably informed
               | (they look into the ToS, see that data is anonymized, and
               | decide that they are okay with that) without knowing that
               | the data may later by de-anonymized through advanced
               | statistical analysis they 've never been exposed to in
               | all their schooling. So while they _thought_ they were
               | informed, they weren 't. This repeats across several
               | domains.
               | 
               | > _But again, i repeatedly fallback to "But who else can
               | do this?". _
               | 
               | Why is that when a problem is identified, people demand a
               | solution be provided at the same time? I don't have a
               | solution, sorry. But that shouldn't preclude me from
               | identifying a problem.
               | 
               | I honestly did not expect saying basically "Let's put
               | some of the blame on Google, because they're the ones
               | with the dark patterns and lawyers and experts, rather
               | than solely blaming the layperson" would be met with much
               | pushback.
        
               | lijogdfljk wrote:
               | > My argument is that the "reasonably informed
               | demographic" is incredibly small. I can only say the same
               | thing so many times, though, so I'm not sure how to
               | explain it in a different way.
               | 
               | I think we're in agreement here. To be clear, i'm mostly
               | talking about intent, an attempt to stay informed and a
               | willingness to act - to push for centralized leadership
               | who _is_ informed.
               | 
               | Ie as i said before, your grandma is not expected to know
               | this. She is expected to fight for a government that will
               | be, and that will also be able to be held accountable.
               | 
               | We have neither the oversight on government current, nor
               | the willingness to act. Your grandma built the same world
               | we are building today. One of inaction and obfuscation.
               | 
               | If society cannot be informed and active on what is
               | essential to build that world (whatever that may be),
               | then we are doomed. Currently, the population at large is
               | not. At least, not from what i can see in action.
        
             | ziddoap wrote:
             | Google's ToS is 16 pages with what appears to be about 50+
             | hyperlinks, including several hyperlinks to "additional
             | service-specific terms" which itself has ~50 links to
             | _other_ terms which are all multiple pages.
             | 
             | Perhaps instead of pinning all of the blame on users, we
             | could have the companies producing labyrinthian ToS
             | contracts written by top-grade lawyers and full of legalese
             | (that no layperson should be expected to understand)
             | shoulder at least _some_ of the blame?
             | 
             | This doesn't even touch on the fact that many topics (as
             | related to data aggregation and privacy) are highly
             | technical and require at least a few years of post-
             | secondary to even begin wrapping your head around (e.g. de-
             | anonymization via large sparse datasets is not something I
             | can reasonably teach my 85-year old parent, nor to my
             | child, both of which use Google services in some capacity).
             | 
             | But, yes... Let's blame it on Average Joe, who just wants
             | to watch their dog for a few minutes while at work and saw
             | an ad on TV about a convenient way to do so. Shame on them
             | for not being both a lawyer and a CS graduate.
        
               | mstipetic wrote:
               | I don't understand why aren't there any standard terms of
               | service which are generally applicable and companies can
               | make minor adjustments to them if they can justify it
        
               | NaturalPhallacy wrote:
               | Because their in house lawyers tell them they need a
               | custom made one.
               | 
               | "It is difficult to get a man to understand something,
               | when his salary depends on his not understanding it." --
               | Upton Sinclair
        
               | hermitdev wrote:
               | More like "If you're not part of the solution, there's
               | money to be made in prolonging the problem." (I don't
               | know who said it, but I'm paraphrasing from something
               | I've seen on a demotivational poster re: consulting)
        
               | mywittyname wrote:
               | A solution to this is for courts to limit what is
               | applicable in a ToS to a certain number of words, and
               | have overly broad statements always favor the entity who
               | has to agree.
               | 
               | This, in effect, nullifies all but the most important
               | components of a Tos.
        
               | uoaei wrote:
               | Due diligence is expected among a mature population. But
               | you're right it's not entirely on individuals. There
               | should be ways to disseminate information about the
               | threats these products pose to personal liberty,
               | especially in a nation that uses the word "liberty" so
               | freely in its foundational documents.
        
               | ziddoap wrote:
               | > _Due diligence is expected among a mature population._
               | 
               | I wholly agree.
               | 
               | But we're quickly approaching (and in some cases, past)
               | the point where proper due diligence requires a 4-year
               | post-secondary education in a related CS field, if not
               | more.
               | 
               | We're talking about products that take multiple domain
               | experts several years of collaboration to create. How is
               | it reasonable to expect my mechanic, accountant, etc. to
               | do their due diligence on how that product processes
               | their data, especially when it's processed in a black-box
               | created by several other domain experts, and their only
               | source of information is purposefully opaque terms
               | written by lawyers?
        
               | uoaei wrote:
               | > proper due diligence requires a 4-year post-secondary
               | education
               | 
               | I don't think that's the case here or indeed very
               | commonly. You don't necessarily have to understand
               | implementation details if some core tenet of popular
               | ethics is being violated. One key feature of the domain
               | -- namely that _you don 't own "your data" and so you
               | don't get to decide what happens with it_ -- is pretty
               | clearly in violation of principles that the vast majority
               | of Westerners would at least profess to hold. Beyond the
               | motivating principle that third parties should be
               | required to receive explicit whitelist access to use
               | privately-owned data, "implementation details" refers
               | mostly to policy and enforcement, not really
               | technologies.
        
             | smhenderson wrote:
             | _It 's hilarious._
             | 
             | That's an odd take, I honestly don't find anything about
             | this article, or the broader topic of privacy and overreach
             | by companies and law enforcement, amusing in any way.
        
         | solardev wrote:
         | > if the situation warrants it
         | 
         | ...I see what you did there
        
         | shadowgovt wrote:
         | The funny thing is I'm of the opposite mind.
         | 
         | "Convenience _and_ if I go missing mysteriously Google will
         | hand info over to the people trying to find me? Win-win. "
        
           | xdennis wrote:
           | Would it be so difficult for Google to add a configuration
           | step where people can explicitly consent to this?
        
             | shadowgovt wrote:
             | The short answer is "yes," but I would be in favor of it
             | being added. Of course, it's not going to secure your data
             | if somebody that isn't you is the one under threat of
             | imminent harm or death and Google believes the data you are
             | holding could save their life.
        
           | slingnow wrote:
           | You're right! That hypothetical and highly unlikely scenario
           | is completely worth all of the ways in which the tech could
           | be and is being abused.
        
             | shadowgovt wrote:
             | If it's so hypothetical and highly unlikely, then we've
             | nothing to concern ourselves with over the fact that Google
             | will comply with attempts to rescue these hypothetical and
             | highly unlikely endangered people. After all, if it
             | basically never happens, Google will basically never grant
             | the extrajudicial request.
        
           | progman32 wrote:
           | That's fine, as long as we're clear that is said in a
           | position of privilege.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | cronix wrote:
         | Now if only you could get your neighbors to quit too. The ones
         | that have it are all still recording you. You really only need
         | one or two per block to monitor everyone on the street. ML
         | should easily be able to work out "Silver Corolla with license
         | plate ABC123 left 1200 Sunnyside St at 4:32pm and headed East."
         | Then another one 3 blocks away can report the same car turning
         | North on 127th, and then another can report...
        
           | stilldavid wrote:
           | Or live in a metro area with WAMI already in place...
        
           | hammock wrote:
           | Don't live so close to your neighbors? Easier said than done,
           | but on the long scale...
        
           | eitally wrote:
           | To be fair, though, there's a flip side. My neighbors seem to
           | get more utility from my driveway feed than I do. Every
           | couple of months, I get a text from a neighbor asking if I
           | got footage of some such thing. Everybody knows who has
           | cameras, and those people are invaluable whenever something
           | nefarious happens (mail theft, break in, kids running amok,
           | etc).
        
           | lotsofpulp wrote:
           | This is much easier (and already accomplished) by the
           | government installing license plate readers.
        
             | TuringNYC wrote:
             | It is even easier by the government using EZPass and
             | electronic toll readers. No optics or OCR required.
        
               | bushbaba wrote:
               | I'm kind of amazed the government doesn't embed a RAIN
               | RFID sticker in renewal tags. They can be read ~30ft away
               | and cost just a few cents per.
        
               | kloch wrote:
               | Oh that's definitely on their mind:
               | 
               | https://stevenmcollins.com/auto-license-plaste-to-have-
               | rfidt...
               | 
               | https://www.nbc12.com/story/20500107/virginia-lawmakers-
               | want...
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | license plates have a bit more adoption, though.
        
               | jollyllama wrote:
               | Which is why I will never have one.
        
             | Karunamon wrote:
             | Who needs the hassle and appropriations process when you
             | can just send a friendly email to the country's biggest
             | data broker and they'll give you whatever you want?
        
           | JoshGlazebrook wrote:
           | That would assume that nest and ring cameras are even capable
           | of making out license plates. They're all crappy sensors with
           | horrible night vision.
        
             | MichaelCollins wrote:
             | So you're saying it will only be a few more years then?
             | Look at where cellphone cameras were 20 years ago, and
             | where they are today. The present inadequacy of hardware
             | doesn't give me any comfort.
        
             | sparkbII wrote:
        
         | Voeid wrote:
         | Note that this is already in-line with their policy, you've
         | already agreed to hand over your data and allowed them to share
         | it, so I don't understand why this single article suddenly
         | changed your mind.
        
           | jjulius wrote:
           | >... so I don't understand why this single article suddenly
           | changed your mind.
           | 
           | Prior ignorance of said policy (which is standard for most
           | users), for one.
        
           | lynndotpy wrote:
           | Is this tucked away in the Terms/Privacy policy? If so, it
           | might be because they did not read the policy.
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | TameAntelope wrote:
         | This just seems extreme to me, considering how you've likely
         | never been in this scenario and will in all likelihood not ever
         | be in a scenario where you wouldn't give the police this
         | information but Google would (e.g. your own home being robbed
         | or a masked stranger ringing your doorbell).
         | 
         | Sometimes I think people covet privacy for its own sake, and
         | don't think about the practicalities. The whole point of living
         | in a collective society is that we give up some freedoms for
         | the sake of overall increased prosperity, that's always been
         | the tradeoff, and this is just one of those tradeoffs.
        
           | jmkb wrote:
           | In the vein of principals, yes, privacy for its own sake is
           | valuable to me.
           | 
           | In the vein of practicalities, both Google and the justice
           | system (USA for me) are monstrously large bureaucracies known
           | to make difficult-to-redress errors. Google's capricious
           | account banning, police raiding incorrect addresses, eg. The
           | decision to share with them more information than the law
           | requires is one I'd prefer to make myself.
        
             | TameAntelope wrote:
             | And I think this view is irrational. Privacy for its own
             | sake is effectively hoarding, and as you clearly show,
             | hoarding can be caused by fear, which you have for Google
             | and the justice system.
             | 
             | A numerate person would know how rare these things you're
             | afraid of are, and not let those fears drive how they live.
             | I (hopefully) follow that path, and I recommend you check
             | it out!
             | 
             | I read what you wrote in the same way I suspect you would
             | read someone who is afraid of space because meteors have
             | killed people (as a rough example).
             | 
             | It just doesn't seem like the rates at which the things
             | you're worried about are happening in a volume that would
             | actually matter to a society.
        
             | trasz wrote:
             | >bureaucracies known to make difficult-to-redress errors
             | 
             | Or just plain out refusing to fix errors where they would
             | be relatively easy to fix; compare Scalia's "it's fine to
             | fry a provably innocent person as long as the procedures
             | are followed" argument.
        
           | fleetwoodsnack wrote:
           | Louis Brandeis on the right to privacy:
           | 
           | https://louisville.edu/law/library/special-
           | collections/the-l...
        
             | TameAntelope wrote:
             | Yeah, like I said, you give up some of your rights in order
             | for a prosperous society to exist.
             | 
             | I'm not denying the right exists, I'm saying we give up our
             | other rights all the time for the benefit of society, why
             | is privacy any different?
             | 
             | Further, it's a spectrum. You're not putting a camera up
             | for police to peruse at their leisure, it's only in
             | specific situations.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | azlev wrote:
               | You are not giving up privacy to a prosperous society,
               | you are just giving up privacy.
               | 
               | I couldn't find evidence that mass surveillance is good a
               | society.
        
               | nullfield wrote:
               | What was the discussion I remember seeing long ago, about
               | two kinds of surveillance-in-society?:
               | 
               | Kinda-good, 1, so and so can just go check the camera
               | that points at the central plaza fountain that anyone can
               | access, and sees that his spouse has arrived and is
               | waiting for him as agreed.
               | 
               | or Bad, 2, cameras all over that everyone has no idea who
               | controls, watches, and/or is recording
        
               | judge2020 wrote:
               | 'prosperous society' ~= convenience, less human hours
               | wasted on boring stuff. The convenience of a video
               | doorbell and connected home sure seem worth it to me.
        
               | Karunamon wrote:
               | And how are either of those things substantially impacted
               | if Google's policy was "we do not hand over user data
               | without a warrant"?
        
               | judge2020 wrote:
               | I'm not saying they are, just that consumers are giving
               | up privacy for some sort of return. It's not required, as
               | there are E2E HomeKit alternatives, but it's inaccurate
               | that 'all you do is give up privacy'.
        
               | fleetwoodsnack wrote:
               | Agree to disagree. Systems that frustrate the
               | accumulation and concentration of power seem to be
               | integral to a functional society, nevermind a prosperous
               | one, historically speaking.
               | 
               | "Convenience, less human hours wasted on boring stuff" is
               | fine as an individual consumer mindset, but does not form
               | sufficient criteria for evaluating complex social
               | systems.
        
               | azlev wrote:
               | You can have all of this without giving up data.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
               | That attitude is the start of a slippery slope. If the
               | end always justifies the means then none of your freedoms
               | will be protected if someone else decides it's more
               | convenient for you to not have them. This is the major
               | problem with the big government authoritarianism that has
               | infected the republican party.
        
               | TameAntelope wrote:
               | Slippery slope arguments are a fallacy. If something bad
               | happens, or is proposed, we can address it when the bad
               | thing happens or is proposed. Nothing actually bad is
               | happening or is proposed here.
        
               | NoGravitas wrote:
               | As noted above, the trade-off our society has chosen to
               | make is search warrants. Otherwise, it might as well be
               | "for the police to peruse at their leisure". Is Google
               | going to rigorously vet every "emergency" request for
               | data the police make?
        
           | jakelazaroff wrote:
           | We already have that tradeoff. It's called a warrant. If the
           | police get one, you are forced to give them access to your
           | otherwise-private affects.
           | 
           | This is a step beyond that. Warrants are granted at the
           | discretion of a judge, the bar is high, the scope is narrow
           | and you (theoretically) have recourse if it's abused. Here,
           | the discretion is Google's, the bar is nonexistent, the scope
           | is unlimited and you have zero recourse if you think you've
           | been wronged.
           | 
           | This wouldn't be an issue if people trusted Google or the
           | police. But they don't, and it's pretty easy to imagine ways
           | in which this could be abused to harm people.
           | 
           | Let's say you live in Texas and get abortion pills in the
           | mail. If the police have a warrant to search your house for
           | something unrelated, they (theoretically) can't see the pills
           | and decide to charge you with an unlawful abortion (unless
           | they were "in plain view", etc). But if Google gives police
           | access to footage of your house extrajudicially, _police can
           | use anything they see as evidence against you_. And make no
           | mistake -- things like that _will_ happen as a result of this
           | policy.
        
             | TameAntelope wrote:
             | I think you're taking this way further than anyone actually
             | involved would. _IF_ what you 're saying ever did even come
             | close to occurring, we both know Google would shut it down
             | quickly. Not just because it's horrible, but because it's
             | also bad for business, and they've shown a propensity to
             | protect data when it would be used as you hypothesize here.
             | 
             | Google is smart enough to know that "snitching" on its
             | users is bad for business.
             | 
             | Think "track a burglar as he moves through a neighborhood"
             | not "snoop (illegally) on the contents of people's mail".
        
               | jakelazaroff wrote:
               | _> Think  "track a burglar as he moves through a
               | neighborhood" not "snoop (illegally) on the contents of
               | people's mail"._
               | 
               | It's not illegal, though. Google is (presumably) fully
               | legally in the clear to just hand over footage to police.
               | That means that, if Google decides to hand over your
               | footage to the police, anything on tape can be used as
               | evidence against you. And Nest offers indoor security
               | cameras, so your entire house could be fair game.
               | 
               |  _> Google is smart enough to know that  "snitching" on
               | its users is bad for business._
               | 
               | Is it bad for business? That's not clear. Your whole
               | argument is that this is fine so long as you think the
               | likelihood of abuse is low. My guess is that it actually
               | won't hurt Google's business at all, even as we start to
               | discover police misusing this.
               | 
               | "It only happens to a handful of people! And anyway, they
               | were [doing drugs/stealing/etc], so they deserved it.
               | It'll never happen to _me_!"
        
               | TameAntelope wrote:
               | It's illegal to go through someone else's mail, and that
               | was the hypothetical you proposed.
               | 
               | My argument is not that it's fine as long as the
               | likelihood for abuse is low, my argument is that it's
               | fine as long as there hasn't been any actual abuse. When
               | something _does_ happen, we can respond to it.
               | 
               | Until then, it's not reasonable to go through a bunch of
               | worst-case scenarios.
        
               | jjkaczor wrote:
               | "I think you're taking this way further than anyone
               | actually involved would"
               | 
               | Just because you currently seem to have a "failure of
               | imagination" does not mean that law enforcement,
               | corrupt/facist/dystopian government officials or even
               | unscrupulous employees within the tech sector itself will
               | not absure their observational powers now or in the
               | future.
               | 
               | Or maybe you just haven't been paying attention to the
               | news for the last "n" decades.
        
               | TameAntelope wrote:
               | I have a failure of actual data of problems occuring.
               | 
               | We all deal with "sky is falling" person on our
               | development teams, and it's pointless doomsaying then as
               | it's pointless doomsaying now.
               | 
               | When the bad things happens, we can react. Until then,
               | let's try to stay reasonable.
        
         | LorenPechtel wrote:
         | To me, a Nest or Ring is pointed at a basically public space.
         | So what if the cops can look at the feed?
        
           | fknorangesite wrote:
           | Because I don't want to live in a surveillance dystopia where
           | the state - or Google or Amazon - has a camera on the outside
           | of every house.
        
           | Dylan16807 wrote:
           | It's bad for public spaces to be pervasively tracked.
        
             | MichaelZuo wrote:
             | Is there an internally consistent reason for why that's
             | bad?
             | 
             | Because every argument I've seen along those lines fall
             | apart after drilling down a few layers.
        
               | oigursh wrote:
               | There's a video of a panel with Moxie Marlinspike who
               | says something along the lines that there is value in
               | being able to break the law. It's how society evolves.
               | Complete surveillance means no broken laws, means a
               | relatively static society.
        
       | JumpCrisscross wrote:
       | I am looking into SimpliSafe [1]. Anyone know if they store these
       | data?
       | 
       | [1] https://simplisafe.com/
        
         | flyingfences wrote:
         | I see them shilled in youtube sponsor deals often enough that I
         | have to assume they're no good.
        
         | kornhole wrote:
         | I haven't looked into it, but someone else recommended
         | https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate which integrates
         | with Home Assistant.
        
       | cabirum wrote:
       | Any open-source projects to reliably stream and archive a video
       | from a raspi?
        
         | dole wrote:
         | MotionEye?
        
         | hntcz wrote:
         | I did this for a university project. It streams to S3 (of Azure
         | or Digital Ocean) encrypted, the client downloads it from
         | there.
         | 
         | It's very rough around the edges but if you are up to
         | contribute it's a good base.
         | 
         | https://github.com/tcz/choicecam-server
         | https://github.com/tcz/choicecam-client
         | 
         | The client is a React Native project, should run on Android or
         | iOS.
        
         | simmons wrote:
         | For streaming, I have a few pi's (and cameras) running
         | v4l2rtspserver, and it seems to work pretty well. It appears to
         | be using the Broadcom hardware support for H.264 encoding, so
         | it's pretty light on the CPU. I'm currently using Shinobi on a
         | different host to receive and archive the RTSP streams.
         | (Although I'm interested in checking out Frigate, which was
         | mentioned elsewhere in this discussion.)
        
       | nerdjon wrote:
       | Another article pointed out that most other cloud based offerings
       | will still provide it if there is a warrant.
       | 
       | But it seems like Apple is the only cloud based offering that
       | cannot actually respond to these requests even if they get one?
       | 
       | I just checked my HomeKit Secure Video camera and it seems like
       | it isn't just the default setting, but the only setting. I see no
       | way to tell it to not encrypt the data when storing it in iCloud
       | (not sure why they would give that option at all TBH)
        
       | lalopalota wrote:
       | Hackers gaining power of subpoena via fake "emergency data
       | requests"
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30842757
        
         | unixbane wrote:
         | It's funny how things like this surprise people, as if the
         | legal system is a trustworthy blob on their architecture graph.
         | One fundamental thing about it is that it's made up of
         | different people and a huge amount of people, all with
         | differing levels of competence (so not only is it
         | untrustworthy, but it can't even consistently do whatever its
         | goals are) as opposed to having any coherent goal or ideology.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | johncessna wrote:
       | > "If we reasonably believe that we can prevent someone from
       | dying or from suffering serious physical harm, we may provide
       | information to a government agency -- for example, in the case of
       | bomb threats, school shootings, kidnappings, suicide prevention,
       | and missing person cases," reads Google's TOS page on government
       | requests for user information. "We still consider these requests
       | in light of applicable laws and our policies."
       | 
       | This is in line with the reasons cops can do things that
       | otherwise normally require a warrant. This is generally 'a good
       | thing.' The issue, for me, is in the abuse and interpretation of
       | these exemptions.
        
         | sterlind wrote:
         | Right, exactly. Google could have this and make it perfectly
         | accountable. Just surface a user notification that X entity
         | accessed your camera's data for Y time range, ideally with a
         | reference to a case number. People will push back if the police
         | abuse their power. They won't become as complacent, because
         | they'll know when the cops are spying.
         | 
         | But would they actually do it?
        
       | freedomben wrote:
       | > _"A provider like Google may disclose information to law
       | enforcement without a subpoena or a warrant 'if the provider, in
       | good faith, believes that an emergency involving danger of death
       | or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure
       | without delay of communications relating to the emergency, '" a
       | Nest spokesperson tells CNET._
       | 
       | I sympathize with this dilemma. It's a real-life version of the
       | Trolley Problem[1].
       | 
       | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
        
         | dafty4 wrote:
         | But "to any person", e.g., a CIA asset in the field might be
         | exposed by a gmail user, thus threatening her/his life, thus
         | pre-emptively disclose the gmailer's info to law enforcement?
         | 
         | Or imagine an idle threat is made off-hand in a private gmail,
         | so pre-emptively disclose that threat to law enforcement?
         | 
         | In the sci-fi Minority Report scenario, Google could use AI
         | language models on all gmail to make a judgment call on
         | "emergent danger of serious physical injury". If I plan to go
         | bunjee jumping with an unreliable provider, Google scans my
         | gmail and tells law enforcement?!?
        
           | freedomben wrote:
           | Yes good examples of how it can be abused. I'm certain the
           | interpretation could be very liberal depending on the person
           | making the decision.
           | 
           | I know a person who was banned from twitter and was nearly
           | fired because he dead-named somebody. The explanation was
           | that it was literal violence against the person he dead-
           | named, because so many trans people self harm if they don't
           | feel that their identity is affirmed. The person who was
           | banned says it was a force of habit because the person had
           | only very recently went public with their new identity, but
           | it did not stop the ban hammer. He _almost_ lost his job as
           | well because the tweet was posted in a public slack channel.
           | HR left it up the person who was dead-named to make the
           | decision, and they decided not to fire him.
           | 
           | I could absolutely see a scenario like the above happening in
           | gmail or some other Google product, and the decision-maker
           | deciding that it was a threat to a person's life and should
           | be disclosed. To some people that makes perfect sense. To
           | others it does not. The point is simply that when we let
           | humans make subjective decisions like that, we get all the
           | downsides of human judgment.
        
       | 1137 wrote:
       | If anyone wants to get rid of their devices because of this I'll
       | take them :D
        
       | pmayrgundter wrote:
       | Reminds me of the First Law of Robotics[1]
       | 
       | "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow
       | a human being to come to harm."
       | 
       | "A provider like Google may disclose information to law
       | enforcement without a subpoena or a warrant 'if the provider, in
       | good faith, believes that an emergency involving danger of death
       | or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure
       | without delay of communications relating to the emergency,'"
       | 
       | s/provider like Google/robot/
       | 
       | s/may disclose.*if the provider/may act to protect any person if
       | the robot/
       | 
       | s/requires disclosure without delay of communications/requires
       | action/
       | 
       | "A robot may act to protect any person if the robot believes that
       | an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury
       | to any person requires action without delay of communications
       | relating to the emergency,'"
       | 
       | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
        
       | nottorp wrote:
       | I'm sure Google's Machine Learning!(tm) will always make the
       | right decision!
        
       | endisneigh wrote:
       | Use a camera that exposes an RTSP feed like Amcrest and buy Blue
       | Iris. Backup whole disk with Backblaze.
       | 
       | You're done, and you're welcome.
       | 
       | If you're really lazy at least use something like Apple HomeKit
       | with supported cameras.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | entropie wrote:
         | Any RTSP camera, frigate and homeassistant makes it pretty easy
         | for tech related folks to have a state of the art surveillance
         | system with every feature you could imagine.
        
       | sam0x17 wrote:
       | Glad I'm using Euphy and not Nest
        
         | eschulz wrote:
         | I'm not sure they're much better. From the SHARING PERSONAL
         | INFORMATION WITH THIRD PARTIES section of their privacy page:
         | 
         | We may share your personal information in the instances
         | described below
         | 
         | Third parties as required to (i) satisfy any applicable law,
         | regulation, subpoena/court order, legal process or other
         | government request, (ii) enforce our Terms of Use Agreement,
         | including the investigation of potential violations thereof,
         | (iii) investigate and defend ourselves against any third party
         | claims or allegations, (iv) protect against harm to the rights,
         | property or safety of Eufy, its users or the public as required
         | or permitted by law and (v) detect, prevent or otherwise
         | address criminal (including fraud or stalking), security or
         | technical issues.
         | 
         | If we should ever file for bankruptcy or engage in a business
         | transition such as a merger with another company, or if we
         | purchase, sell, or reorganize all or part of our business or
         | assets, we may disclose your information, including personally
         | identifiable information, to prospective or actual purchasers
         | in connection with one of these transactions.
         | 
         | We may also share information with others in an aggregated and
         | anonymous form that does not reasonably identify you directly
         | as an individual.
        
           | trasz wrote:
           | At least it's not owned by American company, so doesn't
           | technically _have_ to give the government institutions
           | whatever they ask for. It's Chinese though, and that's not
           | much better.
        
       | ArrayBoundCheck wrote:
       | I don't 'hate' this but how the heck would google detect
       | something like this? Why do I feel like they're analyzing every
       | word we say in our homes and building some kind of profile (for
       | ad reasons). On second thought I do hate this
        
       | saos wrote:
       | Wow. So Ring and Nest at it. What are some safe alternatives
       | please?
        
         | nickthegreek wrote:
         | Logitech
        
           | Grazester wrote:
           | Logitech does not have a competing system. They offer Cameras
           | which tie in with Apple Homekit so the alternative here is
           | Apple HomeKit.
        
         | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
         | Home Assistant
        
       | tantalor wrote:
       | > prevent someone from dying or from suffering serious physical
       | harm
       | 
       | These are exigent circumstances, which allow police to enter your
       | home without a warrant. Extending that access to include video
       | cameras seems reasonable.
       | 
       | This is a "In Case of Emergency Break Glass" type of situation.
        
         | anfogoat wrote:
         | > _This is a "In Case of Emergency Break Glass" type of
         | situation_
         | 
         | The only difference being that when you pull the alarm for lols
         | there are consequences -- for you. Members of law enforcement
         | on the other hand do that on the regular and face zero
         | consequences.
         | 
         | That said, Google doing this might ease the pressure to enable
         | this across the board through legislation. So maybe a positive
         | in the end; I wouldn't really expect any privacy with Nest
         | anyways.
        
         | vorpalhex wrote:
         | If police attempt to enter your home under exigent
         | circumstances, you know.
         | 
         | You can get a lawyer, go to court, and demand an accounting.
         | 
         | You don't have that control here. Your footage can just walk
         | off, no clue. No accounting, no reporting, no post-hoc
         | punishment for mis-use.
        
           | formerkrogemp wrote:
           | > go to court, and demand an accounting.
           | 
           | > You don't have that control here. Your footage can just
           | walk off, no clue. No accounting, no reporting, no post-hoc
           | punishment for mis-use.
           | 
           | The supreme court recently ruled that a woman beaten by
           | police didn't have standing to sue. Good luck with breaking
           | qualified immunity in a court of law in the coming years.
        
             | vorpalhex wrote:
             | I literally can't find the case you are referencing. The
             | only one coming back is a ruling on Marion's single-
             | container 4th amendment statue which sounds unrelated.
        
         | giraffe_lady wrote:
         | It's literally a checkbox a cop clicks when they request data
         | with no vetting that it actually is an emergency or
         | consequences if it is not.
        
           | vorpalhex wrote:
           | Oh, have you seen the forms the cops fill out to do the data
           | request? Or are you theorizing?
        
             | giraffe_lady wrote:
             | A close family member works in law enforcement, I have seen
             | the form. Though for facebook not google. They could have
             | changed it or google's could be different but I have no
             | particular reason to think it's _materially_ different. It
             | 's up to the cop to decide what constitutes an emergency
             | and there is no verification or consequences beyond that.
             | It's literally a checkbox.
        
             | _jal wrote:
             | It isn't quite a check-box, but here's Ring's exigent
             | circumstances form:
             | 
             | https://support.ring.com/hc/en-
             | us/article_attachments/360053...
        
               | vorpalhex wrote:
               | Thank you, this is actually what I was hoping for.
        
               | no_time wrote:
               | title: fdsafdsafdsa fdsafdsa jklfdsa fuioxc cnmkplv
               | auiopcm vmckxl; si9f op fdsafdsafdsa fdsafdsa jklfdsa
               | fuioxc cnmkplv auiopcm vmckx
               | 
               | looks like someone just mashed the keyboard after a long
               | day of work.
        
               | vorpalhex wrote:
               | Your pdf client may be buggy or not like this file. I'm
               | not seeing that same artifact.
        
             | patmcc wrote:
             | It's literally right here: https://ler.amazon.com/us
             | 
             | You can see it. No theorizing. Click the big red "Submit
             | Emergency Request" button.
        
             | AlexandrB wrote:
             | It's up to the police to show they have probable cause
             | _before_ they collect data. That 's what warrants and
             | judges are for. Anything collected without a warrant should
             | be de-facto considered suspect. Why would you give agents
             | of the government the benefit of the doubt here?
        
               | vorpalhex wrote:
               | Exigent circumstances is a real thing and goes back a
               | long time. If a cop sees someone being murdered through a
               | window, we obviously don't want them booking a call with
               | the DA and local judge before helping.
               | 
               | That being said, that power is obviously easily misused
               | without checks and limits.
        
               | NoGravitas wrote:
               | If a cop sees someone being murdered through a window,
               | they don't need the Nest camera footage of it.
        
         | MichaelCollins wrote:
         | Heh, exigent circumstances? If somebody is hurt or calling for
         | help, by all means knock down a door or bust a window. But
         | exigent circumstances for _rifling through my documents?_ Get a
         | fucking warrant!
        
         | alistairSH wrote:
         | My problem with this is defining exigent circumstances as it
         | relates to video or similar data. I can't easily think of a
         | circumstance where the police are outside my house, encounter
         | an exigent circumstance, but also have the time to
         | request/obtain data from Google. And if the police are made
         | aware of to something in advance, they have time to get a
         | warrant.
        
           | FollowingTheDao wrote:
           | Didn't you know? Future Crimes are now exigent circumstances!
        
         | mattnewton wrote:
         | > This is a "In Case of Emergency Break Glass" type of
         | situation.
         | 
         | The problem is there isn't any broken glass here. No judge is
         | stamping this, and I see no duty to warn the customer about
         | what device and data was accessed, and there doesn't seem to be
         | a way to opt out ahead of time. This removes a lot of checks in
         | the name of expediency.
        
         | causi wrote:
         | If it's reasonable, then there shouldn't be a problem letting
         | users turn it off.
        
         | bushbaba wrote:
         | How do you define this though. If someone say talks about XYZ
         | politician. And the current governor feels if said XYZ person
         | takes his position that it'd cause you personal harm. Can the
         | current governor access your camera?
         | 
         | If a police officer comes to your house without a warrant are
         | they allowed to break in? If not they shouldn't be given access
         | to my camera feeds without my permission.
         | 
         | The move by google here just re-affirmed that I made the right
         | choice to not buy their products.
        
           | TedDoesntTalk wrote:
           | > If a police officer comes to your house without a warrant
           | are they allowed to break in?
           | 
           | Absolutely. If they hear gunshots or screams of "help! Help!"
           | they will break the door down. I'm sure there are other
           | triggers, too.
        
           | tantalor wrote:
           | > circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to
           | believe that entry (or other relevant prompt action) was
           | necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or other
           | persons, the destruction of relevant evidence, the escape of
           | the suspect, or some other consequence improperly frustrating
           | legitimate law enforcement efforts
           | 
           | https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/exigent_circumstances
        
             | DonnyV wrote:
             | Yeah like police always follow the law.
        
             | mattnewton wrote:
             | I am not a lawyer. But, there seems to be a pretty clear
             | difference here. If you have time to ask google you have
             | time to call a judge. If you don't have time to call a
             | judge, google doesn't have time to vet your decision and is
             | effectively just streaming your cameras to your law
             | enforcement office.
        
               | tantalor wrote:
               | The right time/place to argue this question is after the
               | fact in front of a judge.
        
         | jeffbee wrote:
         | Yes, the only sensible comment is downvoted to the bottom of
         | the page. In U.S. jurisprudence "exigent circumstances" gives
         | police all kinds of powers including warrantless searches of
         | all kinds, up to and including electronic surveillance and
         | phone taps.
         | 
         | The "process" to which you are "due" when it comes to these
         | things is if the police try to use this information to
         | prosecute you, they have to explain it in court, whereas if
         | they obtain it through a search warrant, they have to explain
         | themselves in advance. It's all "due process".
        
       | mikece wrote:
       | "Google will allow law enforcement to access data from its Nest
       | products -- or theoretically any other data you store with Google
       | -- without a warrant."
       | 
       | At this point, what _doesn 't_ Google know or is unable to
       | accurately infer about any given person on the internet?
        
         | FollowingTheDao wrote:
         | At this point I cannot believe that anyone in Tech would have a
         | Google account being that they should know better. Anyone could
         | be made to look guilty when the authorities have enough data.
         | 
         | Adding this for the people who keep downvoting this:
         | 
         | https://www.mintpressnews.com/national-security-search-engin...
         | 
         | "Google - one of the largest and most influential organizations
         | in the modern world - is filled with ex-CIA agents. Studying
         | employment websites and databases, MintPress has ascertained
         | that the Silicon Valley giant has recently hired dozens of
         | professionals from the Central Intelligence Agency in recent
         | years."
         | 
         | We are imprisoned by our addiction to convenience. I am in the
         | middle of dealing with this now, switching my services where I
         | can: dumb phone, linux laptop, swisscows, openstreetmap and an
         | old Garmin GPS, and just being OK with uncertainty.
        
           | TedDoesntTalk wrote:
           | > old Garmin GPS
           | 
           | I want this. Which model did you get and does it have up-to-
           | date maps?
        
             | FollowingTheDao wrote:
             | I have Garmin Drive 51. Yes, up to date maps. The only PITA
             | is that you need windows or MacOS to update the system and
             | the maps. I have a windows clone I put on my laptop every
             | few months to accomplish this.
        
               | orangepurple wrote:
               | Just use Osmand on an old smartphone without a SIM. It's
               | less worse than old Garmins and map updates are constant.
               | Keep your system clock accurate for fast GPS lock.
        
               | FollowingTheDao wrote:
               | That is a great idea. I have a Pixel 4a with GrapheneOS.
               | I am an idiot for not thinking about just not putting my
               | SIM in the phone.
        
               | orangepurple wrote:
               | Phones without a SIM can also always call 911. Funnily
               | enough Google Maps and Waze works without Google Play
               | services. Just click past the modal that shows up very
               | rarely complaining about it.
        
         | freediver wrote:
         | "Any" includes people who do not use Google and this is about
         | 10% of online users. For them, a lot.
        
           | hedora wrote:
           | They still have facial recognition feeds, car feeds, and they
           | purchase data from third-party consumer surveillance firms,
           | including credit card purchase histories for non-Google
           | users. You don't need to have a Google account to be tracked
           | by AdWords, and there's no practical opt-out, other than
           | staying logged in all the time, and then being tracked in
           | other ways, and agreeing to all sorts of things in their
           | (ever-changing) EULA.
           | 
           | https://epic.org/documents/google-purchase-tracking/
           | 
           | I'm sure they have other programs I haven't heard of.
        
             | freediver wrote:
             | Sure, but not using Google for search, and having an ad-
             | blocking browser circumvents 99% of that threat.
        
       | nebukadnet wrote:
       | Is anyone really surprised? I am not. Google has such a bad
       | relationship to data privacy, they don't see the problem. Getting
       | a warrant is so easy in the US right now, so there is very little
       | reason to disrespect your customers privacy. They just don't see
       | the problem.
        
       | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
       | Why do people still put a camera in their homes connected to the
       | internet?
       | 
       | That itself is the most bizarre behaviour.
        
         | Grazester wrote:
         | So I could see what the hell my nanny is up to with my
         | children. I also don't want to have to spend 2 days setting up
         | some hacked together system that I also have to spend time
         | supporting when I simply don't have the time or will. That's
         | why!
        
       | boplicity wrote:
       | Is there a decent "connected" camera that allows you to specify
       | and use your own storage solution?
        
       | LatteLazy wrote:
       | In fairness, there is good reason to release footage without a
       | warrant for the reasons they list (including "school shootings,
       | kidnappings, suicide prevention, and missing person cases"). I'd
       | like a robust monitoring of how the information is used. But the
       | law already recognises that you don't need a warrant in urgent,
       | life threatening cases. And let's get real, getting a warrant is
       | so easy these days as to be meaningless...
        
       | judge2020 wrote:
       | > "If we reasonably believe that we can prevent someone from
       | dying or from suffering serious physical harm, we may provide
       | information to a government agency -- for example, in the case of
       | bomb threats, school shootings, kidnappings, suicide prevention,
       | and missing person cases," reads Google's TOS page on government
       | requests for user information. "We still consider these requests
       | in light of applicable laws and our policies."
       | 
       | So this is just an article pointing out something in the TOS.
       | 
       | National security requests are common for any big company[0-2]
       | since they'd rather play ball today, under their own terms, than
       | resist and trigger new legislation that forces them to hand over
       | information in any warrantless circumstance.
       | 
       | 0: https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
       | 
       | 1: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/us-
       | national-...
       | 
       | 2: https://transparency.fb.com/data/government-data-requests/
        
         | freedomben wrote:
         | I think you're probably right in your analysis of their thought
         | process, but I'd almost rather they force legislation's hand.
         | Then there's a chance to hold elected officials accountable if
         | they pass it, and there's a chance (IANAL) for a Supreme Court
         | to throw it out as violation of the 4th amendment to the US
         | Constitution.
         | 
         | Even in the worst case (law passes, court upholds, and people
         | re-elect the politicians) at least we have a definition
         | somewhere on what is and what isn't ok. Today where it's
         | ambiguous and "Company X may or may not" leaves a person to
         | wonder.
        
         | praxulus wrote:
         | Maybe this would just make me a bad service admin, but if I
         | believed that I would be literally saving someone's life by
         | sharing data from one of my users with law enforcement, I would
         | be hard pressed to hold their privacy above another's life.
         | 
         | Exactly what it takes to be reasonably convinced that I would
         | be saving someone's life is of course not a simple question,
         | but in at least some situations it seems like it would be worth
         | the tradeoff.
        
           | kayodelycaon wrote:
           | One that I've run into several times is suicide. Most of the
           | time, the person isn't in immediate danger. I've been around
           | when people were.
           | 
           | I'm not going to go into any detail for people's privacy, but
           | it took over an hour to figure out who a regular member of a
           | community was in real life and then get emergency services in
           | another country to them. Got independent confirmation they
           | got dragged to a hospital in time. They weren't exactly
           | grateful afterwards, but they stayed in the community and
           | didn't repeat the attempt.
        
             | ev1 wrote:
             | Faked requests for situations like this are routinely and
             | frequently used for harassment/attempted murder in gaming.
             | Unless this is solvable, this is rather problematic and
             | dangerous.
        
               | kayodelycaon wrote:
               | Maybe I should have clarified, I don't act on the vast
               | majority of things in this manner, especially when I
               | don't know the person or the circumstances. Unless I have
               | some method of confirmation, escalating to emergency
               | services is not happening. Even then, it's last resort
               | for precisely this reason.
        
           | aiisjustanif wrote:
           | Why not end to end encryption so we don't need to even
           | discuss this.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | bastawhiz wrote:
       | The article implies that Apple makes a doorbell. Do they? There
       | are obviously Homekit doorbells, but this sentence implies
       | otherwise:
       | 
       | > Apple's default setting for their doorbells is end-to-end
       | encryption which means the company is unable to share user video
       | at all.
        
         | EricE wrote:
         | Homekit doorbells use iCloud services and storage to host/serve
         | the video; that's how Apple is involved even though they don't
         | make the doorbells.
         | 
         | I had a Nest at my previous house - decided to try the Wemo
         | Homekit doorbell this time and I'm very pleased with it. I also
         | use an Apple TV to drive all the content on my TV and the
         | Homekit video notifications are amazing - instantaneous since
         | the Apple TV is my local homekit hub. Way faster and far more
         | reliable than the Nest doorbell ever was.
        
       | hedora wrote:
       | Infuriatingly, as a non-well-connected victim of a boring (not
       | going to be good PR) crime, I've found it is completely
       | impossible to get the police to pull data for my own yard,
       | warrant or no.
       | 
       | In my experience, these capabilities are only used to protect the
       | politically connected or for oppression.
       | 
       | I'd be less skeptical if the program allowed any homeowner to
       | pull any nest footage that included their property, and also
       | allowed individuals to pull any footage that included them.
       | 
       | Of course, that will never happen.
        
         | buzer wrote:
         | > I'd be less skeptical if the program allowed any homeowner to
         | pull any nest footage that included their property, and also
         | allowed individuals to pull any footage that included them.
         | 
         | I don't know how exactly it's in the US, but in EU security cam
         | footage is considered to be personal information and as result
         | of that GDPR applies. So whoever controls the security camera
         | is the data controller and is required to e.g. provide access
         | to people who were recorded. In this case it would likely be
         | the home owner and unless Google was acting as data processor
         | for the home owner they wouldn't be allowed to process that
         | data.
        
         | daniel-cussen wrote:
        
         | reincarnate0x14 wrote:
         | I gave the police a 4k camera video of a crime happening and
         | they did nothing with it. This is pretty standard police
         | laziness in the US, individual cops might care but departments
         | overall give zero shits for small people except as revenue
         | sources.
         | 
         | Data ownership issues like this in the US will never be pushed
         | by existing political interests, hopefully we'll see more EFF-
         | ish PACs in the future that take a page from the fascists and
         | provide the written laws and bills they would like enacted to
         | state and municipal governments so local representatives can
         | edit the title block and get back to harassing their interns.
        
           | icelancer wrote:
           | Same. I even know who stole stuff from our place of business
           | and found the eBay listing tied to the person who did it. And
           | yet, nothing.
        
           | tedivm wrote:
           | When I was younger our house was robbed and some prescription
           | drugs stolen. Not only did we know who did it, we had text
           | messages where they admitted it and a witness who came
           | forward. The police refused to do anything about it, and told
           | us that if we wanted them to do anything at all we should
           | consider voting for a different mayor.
        
             | evancox100 wrote:
             | Actually I think the police should take direction from a
             | democratically elected mayor. The problem is that they are
             | most often not politically accountable to anyone at all.
             | Not sure about the particulars of your situation, but that
             | is a very odd response.
        
             | Buttons840 wrote:
             | Because the mayor created policies that tied the police's
             | hands? Or because they just wanted a different mayor ("vote
             | that librul out or we ain't doing shit" type of thing)?
        
               | epicide wrote:
               | I read it as more "we won't do anything unless the mayor
               | forces us and we know this one won't".
        
               | jonathankoren wrote:
               | Probably because they just want a different mayor. Mayors
               | and prosecutors don't have the ability to tie cops'
               | hands. Even council and plebiscite acts to direct the
               | police to treat certain crimes as "lowest priority" are
               | routinely ignored. Mix in decades of copaganda and
               | qualified immunity, and you get American cops that aren't
               | accountable to anyone.
        
         | teachrdan wrote:
         | If the police refuse to subpoena the security company, in the
         | US you can get a civil attorney to file a "John Doe warrant"
         | and use that lawsuit against that unknown defendant to subpoena
         | whoever has the footage you need.
        
           | kop316 wrote:
           | Thank you for that info! I am in a similar situation and that
           | was something that did not occur to me.
        
         | Thorrez wrote:
         | Are you saying police issued a warrant but a large tech company
         | ignored the warrant?
        
           | spullara wrote:
           | He is saying that the police weren't interested investigating
           | crimes.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | Thorrez wrote:
             | Hmm, I think you're right. I was confused by the phrase
             | "warrant or no", thinking it meant hedora had tried to get
             | data both with and without a warrant and neither worked.
        
             | chabons wrote:
             | OP is also raising the point that because only the police
             | have the ability to retrieve Nest footage that pertains to
             | them but is not owned by them, access to that data is gated
             | by the police, who may not use that access evenly.
        
             | aliqot wrote:
             | Coming from a small-ish area, how does this happen? Do they
             | say "no" and then offer you the door, or how does it
             | normally go? I assume it could be a manpower issue, if it
             | is a city with more pressing issues, or a city without a
             | detective unit maybe, but outright saying no is hard to
             | justify. I can't imagine a situation that would make it
             | normal to just say no with a straight face.
        
               | standardUser wrote:
               | It's not a coincidence cops spend a large portion of
               | their time busting consensual drug users and enforcing
               | traffic laws (while armed to the teeth). That's where the
               | money is. Helping find my stolen computer is way more
               | difficult and provides the department with nothing of
               | value.
        
               | uoaei wrote:
               | This is especially true in jurisdictions where private
               | prisons operate. Very (too) often the people who own the
               | prisons and profit off of them have close ties to people
               | of authority and power in local government. If you are
               | skeptical, consider: otherwise the prison contract would
               | have gone to someone else with closer ties or more
               | leverage.
               | 
               | Corruption is rampant in the "developed" world but we
               | just use different words for it.
        
               | aliqot wrote:
               | I had not considered this hypothesis. I think my area may
               | be small enough where it's not just a crime against me,
               | but a crime against the community. For what it's worth, I
               | hope your situation gets better. That has to be
               | unsettling.
        
               | fknorangesite wrote:
               | > your situation
               | 
               | Unfortunately this situation is by no means unique.
               | 
               | > That has to be unsettling.
               | 
               | And now you know why there has been a growing movement
               | predicated on the idea that the vast sums of money we
               | spend on police may not be well-spent.
        
               | jonathankoren wrote:
               | Police are revenue generators. It's the same in both big
               | cities and small towns.
               | 
               | A town of 300 people I grew up next to, always had their
               | one cop ticketing every car that didn't slow down from
               | the posted 55 mph (but honestly, it was always faster) to
               | 30 mph, or accelerated over 30 before they passed the
               | city limits sign.
               | 
               | The city government loved that guy, because he brought in
               | thousands of dollars every week.
               | 
               | When the NYPD threw a fit over de Blasio, they famously
               | refused to arrest anyone unless "it was absolutely
               | necessary". Why? The police union wanted to hurt NYC's[0]
               | budget.[0] It's the same reason why civil forfeiture is
               | so prevelant.
               | 
               | [0]
               | https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/the-
               | ben...
        
               | heavyset_go wrote:
               | They get more state funding, grants and incentives for
               | focusing on things like drug crimes. Enforcement and
               | investigation of crimes are completely at their
               | discretion, so they choose to go after "sexier" and "fun"
               | crimes and criminals.
        
               | colinmhayes wrote:
               | I live in Chicago. It's not uncommon for police to just
               | not show up when you call in a non violent property
               | crime. If that happens you can go to the station and fill
               | out a report but they won't actually do any
               | investigating. Sometimes they'll be honest and say this
               | isn't going to go anywhere, but usually you'll just get
               | ghosted.
        
               | jlarocco wrote:
               | Here in Boulder most property crimes are ignored by the
               | police. They'll file a report to give to your insurance
               | company, but they'll flat out tell you that they're not
               | going to do anything.
               | 
               | I think it's a few things contributing to it. First is
               | not having enough man power. And also a lot of stuff
               | isn't worth the expense of investigating. A stolen
               | laptop, phone, or bike just isn't worth the cost of
               | detectives hunting it down. $20k of police work to get a
               | $1000 laptop doesn't make much sense.
        
               | heavyset_go wrote:
               | And yet they choose to go after people for $20 worth of
               | weed, coke, MDMA, etc. It's not about cost, it's about
               | police discretion when it comes to the crimes they choose
               | to investigate or the laws they choose to enforce.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | uoaei wrote:
               | Putting that body in a jail cell or prison is worth much
               | more than $20 to those who have influence over how police
               | spend their time. That's the point.
        
               | sgjohnson wrote:
               | Because it's easy to prosecute. You got the suspect dead
               | to rights, with $20 worth of whatever on their person.
               | 
               | And it's not like those cases even go to trial. I don't
               | have the exact data on hand, but I'd be seriously
               | surprised if >90% of small-time drug crimes ended up with
               | a plea deal that most of the time doesn't even involve
               | pleading guilty to a felony.
        
               | heavyset_go wrote:
               | > _Because it's easy to prosecute. You got the suspect
               | dead to rights, with $20 worth of whatever on their
               | person._
               | 
               | Police regularly spend countless man-hours investigating
               | people for selling $20 worth of marijuana. Those are not
               | open and shut cases, they have to spend time building
               | cases, use confidential informants or undercover officers
               | to gather damning evidence that won't be thrown out in
               | court, etc.
        
               | Innominate wrote:
               | Drug cases mean seizing assets.
        
               | heavyset_go wrote:
               | They regularly go after teens and young people with no
               | assets who are selling pot to their friends.
        
               | usefulcat wrote:
               | Manpower seems the most likely explanation. I have a
               | friend who works in a bike shop. Recently, the shop was
               | broken into and $20K+ worth of high end bikes were
               | stolen, plus a fair amount of damage to the shop.
               | 
               | The next day, they found someone offering to sell the
               | same bikes online (in the same geographical area even).
               | They gave this info to the police, basically "hey here is
               | someone trying to sell known stolen property" and the
               | police told them to try and set up a meeting with the
               | sellers themselves! Called back a week later, still had
               | not even assigned a detective.
               | 
               | $20k is not pocket change, so it does make me wonder
               | exactly what kinds of property crimes they do
               | investigate, if any.
        
               | hinkley wrote:
               | I have heard that in some cases telling the insurance
               | company that nothing is being done might get some
               | movement, but I'm not really sure what they could do that
               | you can't. Call the Chief of Police?
        
               | zo1 wrote:
               | Yeah calling him will fix it in no time. Assuming you
               | "have his number".
        
               | lovich wrote:
               | > I assume it could be a manpower issue, if it is a city
               | with more pressing issues, or a city without a detective
               | unit maybe, but outright saying no is hard to justify.
               | 
               | Why would they need to justify anything? They have no one
               | to answer to. Look at groups like the Uvalde police who
               | are internationally known fuckups at this point and
               | they're still just throwing other people under the bus
               | left and right in response. The police only do their job
               | when they feel like it and that's usually never unless
               | it's writing down that they went to guard a construction
               | site for the overtime pay.
        
           | copperbrick25 wrote:
           | Since when does police issue warrants? A warrant is issued by
           | a judge, unless it somehow works differently in the US. I
           | assume police just didn't do anything with that warrant.
        
             | tomschlick wrote:
             | Police request warrants. Judges approve and sign said
             | warrants and they then become legally executable.
        
       | delecti wrote:
       | I'd find this much more acceptable if the system told people when
       | their data was provided to police without a warrant. There's less
       | potential for abuse if they're transparent about it.
        
         | ajross wrote:
         | Then you might want to read the linked article and not the
         | headline, because CNET asked that question and... got an
         | affirmative response, that Google will try to notify users
         | whose data has been shared.
         | 
         | Really almost all the top comments on this topic are people
         | overreacting to the headline without realizing that the
         | circumstances involved are emergencies and not just routine LE
         | requests. Clickbait has ruined everything.
        
           | ocdtrekkie wrote:
           | They will try but can be legally prohibited from notifying
           | you. A server you control and have the keys to can be
           | compelled by the police, but not without your knowledge.
           | 
           | Every supposed attempt to protect you is really just an
           | attempt to justify an inherently unethical business model
           | because it is profitable.
        
           | TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
           | _Try_.
           | 
           | They'll _try_ to notify users? _After_ their data has been
           | shared with police.
           | 
           | Well that's reassuring.
        
             | shadowgovt wrote:
             | Consider the circumstances. The context in which this data
             | is shared is imminent danger to life. That includes
             | kidnapping.
             | 
             | If Google had a magic system for getting information to a
             | kidnapping victim reliably, they wouldn't need to share
             | user's private data with law enforcement, they could just
             | share the information on where to reach the kidnap victim.
        
               | TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
               | You don't fool me.
               | 
               | What this will _predominantly_ be used for is abusive
               | partners, who also happen to be law enforcement officers
               | (police) to terrorise their victims, or, more generally,
               | abuse of powers by LE.
               | 
               | Here in Australia the police already have 30% more
               | domestic violence charges than the average, and have been
               | caught way too many times abusing their powers as LE.
        
               | trasz wrote:
               | >The context in which this data is shared is imminent
               | danger to life.
               | 
               | Not at all - it's merely somebody's _claim_ that there's
               | some danger.
        
               | shadowgovt wrote:
               | A subpoena is based on merely somebody's claim that
               | there's reasonable suspicion of a crime. All this policy
               | by Google does is shift the set of people who are making
               | the decision of what "reasonable suspicion" looks like;
               | one's reaction to that depends on one's relative threat
               | models of judges (and time delay of interacting with
               | judges) vs. Google employees.
               | 
               | FWIW, anyone still doing business with Google probably
               | has a relatively high trust of Google, so that comparison
               | is probably closer to equivalent than many might imagine
               | for Google's users.
        
           | turdit wrote:
           | in 1984, it's an emergency if you wrongthink
        
           | yardie wrote:
           | > the circumstances involved are emergencies and not just
           | routine LE requests.
           | 
           | Fine, every routine LE request is now an emergency. Because
           | one thing US LEOs are known for is their reserve in only
           | requesting just the absolute minimum to do an investigation.
        
       | egberts1 wrote:
       | It is far, far better to set up your own personal cloud and run
       | your own encrypted video capture system.
       | 
       | You get both security AND privacy.
        
         | shadowgovt wrote:
         | And all it costs is the anxiety of wondering whether you
         | succeeded or your bedroom is currently visible via shodan.io.
        
       | GiorgioG wrote:
       | So glad I ditched Gmail several months ago. I have a single
       | Google Home device that was gifted to me by a friend, but I'm
       | tempted to just unplug it at this point.
        
         | Jim_Heckler wrote:
         | What are you using now? been aching to get off gmail for a
         | while, just haven't found the right alternative that supports
         | IMAP.
        
           | GiorgioG wrote:
           | I switched to Fastmail and haven't looked back. Love it. IMAP
           | is supported: https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-
           | us/articles/1500000279921-IM...
        
           | TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
           | Not the person you replied to, buy Fastmail does IMAP just
           | fine.
        
           | beej71 wrote:
           | If you have a hosted website, check your provider. I have my
           | domain at Dreamhost and they have IMAP included at my tier.
           | 
           | I moved off Gmail to them about 9 months ago and it's be
           | good.
           | 
           | The worst part is that Dreamhost's spam filtering is abysmal
           | compared to Google's. But my desktop is always on and I just
           | keep Thunderbird running on it. TB's spam filtering is pretty
           | good after training.
           | 
           | I figure some of the dedicated email hosting services do a
           | better job with spam.
        
           | derwiki wrote:
           | Fastmail, Protonmail
        
       | NaturalPhallacy wrote:
       | Wildly fascist. The warning sign was when AT&T got retroactive
       | immunity for sharing customer data with the NSA. I wonder when
       | Americans will decide to push the reset button.
        
       | silentsea90 wrote:
       | Why isn't end to end encryption a standard now?
        
         | pseudalopex wrote:
         | Pressure from governments reportedly.[1]
         | 
         | [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-
         | exclusiv...
        
         | daveoc64 wrote:
         | Because it's impractical in a lot of cases.
         | 
         | Most consumers don't want to (or can't) deal with managing
         | encryption keys, and aren't going to be keen on the idea that
         | if you lose the key, you lose the data permanently.
        
       | TedDoesntTalk wrote:
       | > Apple's default setting for their doorbells is end-to-end
       | encryption which means the company is unable to share user video
       | at all
       | 
       | Why won't Google Nest and Amazon Ring do this?
       | 
       | I have 6 Nest cameras throughout my home ( not the doorbell
       | product)
        
         | EUROCARE wrote:
         | > which means the company is unable to share user video at all
         | 
         | You said it yourself... How would you analyze the data if it's
         | encrypted?
        
           | nkozyra wrote:
           | On the device itself, perhaps. Video data stored encrypted,
           | metadata not.
        
         | ajross wrote:
         | Because Apple's HomeKit stuff is significantly inferior. HN
         | privacy nattering aside, consumers clearly _want_ cloud-
         | accessible home surveillance. It 's what they pay for. And if
         | you can get to it from that website using only your Amazon or
         | Google account, so can Amazon or Google.
        
           | TedDoesntTalk wrote:
           | How do you access videos from the Apple HomeKit products?
        
             | solardev wrote:
             | Siri will narrate it frame by frame.
        
             | lotsofpulp wrote:
             | In the Home app, on iOS or macOS, or in control center -->
             | HomeKit on Apple TV.
             | 
             | https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/set-up-homekit-
             | secure...
        
             | endemic wrote:
             | I was actually curious about this. I didn't realize that
             | HomeKit-compatible doorbells existed. The product page for
             | the Logitech Circle View Wired Doorbell (the least
             | expensive listed on apple.com) notes "Receive rich
             | notifications with two-way audio across all your Apple
             | devices whenever a person or package is at the door." So
             | maybe access via PC/web is what's missing?
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | oakesm9 wrote:
             | HomeKit secure video stores an encrypted video in your
             | iCloud account so you can access it from anywhere. It does
             | require a paid subscription and a hub (HomePod, Apple TV,
             | or iPad) where the hub does the video analysis on device.
             | 
             | https://support.apple.com/en-
             | gb/guide/icloud/mme054c72692/1....
        
           | kevincox wrote:
           | You can still store the data on the cloud and access it
           | anywhere. I think the only features that probably need to be
           | limited are video-analysis features such as who is at your
           | door and what is moving across the lawn.
        
           | nerdjon wrote:
           | I have a hub (multiple actually thanks to a few HomePods and
           | Apple TV's) for HomeKit. I can control all of my HomeKit
           | devices remotely and I can view any video remotely.
           | 
           | Yet it is still end to end encrypted because the processing
           | happens locally on device (on the hub) instead of on a cloud
           | server.
           | 
           | I have the ability to detect people, animals, vehicles, and
           | packages and set recording settings based on that. In
           | addition to if I am home or not based on the existing
           | detection round that built into HomeKit.
           | 
           | This narrative around Apple's products missing major features
           | is no longer true and has not been for a while.
        
             | seanmcdirmid wrote:
             | How good is the recognition? One of the reasons I went with
             | nest rather than ring was because the ML on the latter just
             | wasn't very good.
        
               | nerdjon wrote:
               | I have never used the package or the vehicle recognition.
               | 
               | But it seems to work decent enough. However the face
               | recognition works off of the faces you have categorized
               | in photos. So actually recognizing specific people will
               | only be as good as that database is. I assume in the
               | backend it is largely the same tech so you can get an
               | idea of how well it will work based on that.
               | 
               | I can't compare it to other offerings since I have never
               | used them, but it does what I need it to do.
               | 
               | I have had issues with false positives, but I also am
               | using a not great quality camera with it so it is limited
               | with that. I plan on getting a better camera but just
               | have not had a need for it yet.
        
             | mdeeks wrote:
             | Is it possible to view video on the web? What about sharing
             | videos or clips of videos? I assume you have to leave your
             | Apple TV running 24/7 then?
             | 
             | Also, can Android users use it?
        
         | JumpCrisscross wrote:
         | > _Why won't Google Nest and Amazon Ring do this?_
         | 
         | Ring says it offers end-to-end encryption [1].
         | 
         | [1] https://blog.ring.com/products-innovation/ring-announces-
         | end...
        
           | ceejayoz wrote:
           | It breaks most of Ring's more compelling features, though.
        
         | prepend wrote:
         | I suspect because Google and Amazon want to use the data from
         | the video feeds for their own purposes. I think using it for CV
         | modeling and advertising can make them more money than not
         | using it.
         | 
         | Also, they can charge police for these data.
         | 
         | I won't buy their products because of their decision to
         | monetize over privacy. What I find interesting is that their
         | products aren't cheaper than other privacy preserving products
         | from Wyze and Apple so this extra revenue is pure profit or
         | gravy. This isn't some essential need of their business model,
         | they just don't respect user privacy enough to avoid this extra
         | revenue.
        
           | dymk wrote:
           | It's probably because it's somewhat more complex to implement
           | encrypted end of end video and storage, with a slightly more
           | complex user experience. So they cut corners, knowing most
           | people don't care about encryption.
        
             | nicce wrote:
             | Complexity is not an issue. It a very basic thing to do in
             | these days.
             | 
             | UX might be a bigger issue, as it is harder to view this
             | data in any device and still keep keys unaccessible by
             | Google. But still not too hard. People use Whatsapp web in
             | daily basis.
             | 
             | Main problem is the ML use for video feed to trigger some
             | stuff etc.
        
               | dymk wrote:
               | Of course complexity is an issue. If users don't care
               | about E2E encryption, why would Google spend more time
               | implementing an E2E application?
        
           | gh02t wrote:
           | Has Wyze ever provided privacy guarantees on their cloud
           | service? Their privacy policy says they will gladly share
           | data.
           | 
           | > In response to a request for information if we believe
           | disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any
           | applicable law or legal process, including lawful requests by
           | public authorities to meet national security or law
           | enforcement requirements;
           | 
           | IANAL but that sure sounds to me like they will provide data
           | in cases where they aren't legally _required_ to (as in a
           | warrant) as long as they believe it 's "in accordance with"
           | the law. Which could mean almost anything other than a
           | clearly illegal request.
           | 
           | https://www.wyze.com/policies/privacy-policy#c
           | 
           | I like Wyze and think they are acting in good faith, but I
           | wouldn't assume they would say no to a request from
           | government/police. They may offer local recording and RTSP,
           | but AFAIK they are still cloud connected unless you otherwise
           | block them or use alternate firmware and hence not private.
        
             | NoGravitas wrote:
             | According to TFA, Wyze and Anker will both hand over data
             | in response to a warrant or a court order, not simply on
             | request.
        
         | seanmcdirmid wrote:
         | Probably because of the ML processing (event recognition),
         | which is the only good reason to subscribe to Nest/Google home
         | in the first place. Otherwise, you just have streams of video
         | without much context. If the analysis could be done on device,
         | then that would be a different story.
         | 
         | Unfortunately, either Ring or Nest is required in my
         | neighborhood given our property crime issues.
        
         | edm0nd wrote:
         | It sucks with Ring if you enable e2e encryption, they tied it
         | to the ability to have live notification and alerts so you lose
         | that functionality.
        
           | bushbaba wrote:
           | How do you expect Ring to provide live notifications that are
           | processed server side if you enable e2e encryption? If
           | Ring.com can decrypt the data, they can always share the feed
           | with 3rd parties.
           | 
           | It's a sensible design choice given the current constraints
           | of the hardware.
        
         | kornhole wrote:
         | Maybe this article hints at why.
         | https://www.mintpressnews.com/national-security-search-engin...
        
         | daveoc64 wrote:
         | Ring does offer end-to-end encryption, but it breaks various
         | features. You can see a list of what it breaks on their
         | website:
         | 
         | https://support.ring.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360054941511-Unde...
         | 
         | Many of these features are key selling points, so most
         | consumers aren't going to be interested in turning end-to-end
         | encryption on.
         | 
         | It also doesn't work on battery-powered devices, presumably
         | because they offload as much work as possible to the server to
         | save power.
        
         | cronix wrote:
         | Knowing the car your neighbor(s) drive and what times they come
         | and go are very valuable marketing tools, to someone. Just like
         | knowing what they search for and the content of their emails
         | tells them other things about you, and your neighbor who didn't
         | sign up for this service.
        
         | cinntaile wrote:
         | Maybe it makes it harder to analyze and or sell that data to
         | third parties.
        
           | nisegami wrote:
           | Do Amazon and Google sell data to 3rd parties? I always
           | figured they wouldn't because it's literally the core of
           | their value.
        
             | tomComb wrote:
             | They don't. As you note, it wouldn't make any sense for
             | them to do so.
             | 
             | It's one of those perverse things that they are some of the
             | few companies that actually don't sell user data, and yet
             | they're the ones that are most frequently accused of it.
             | 
             | I don't think it helps us in keeping big tech companies to
             | account when we spread false information about them.
        
             | egberts1 wrote:
             | Yes. They do and often indirectly through 3rd parties. It
             | is that obvious; It's pervasive.
        
             | cmiles74 wrote:
             | I'm not convinced that they are simply "giving" the data to
             | law enforcement, it strikes me as much more likely that
             | they are charging them.
        
       | BurningFrog wrote:
       | 11 times in a year across the US sounds quite reasonable though.
        
       | zokier wrote:
       | I have difficulty understanding Googs (or Amazons etc) motivation
       | to do this. What do they have to gain by being excessively
       | cooperative with police force, especially on a local level? I can
       | understand that having good rapport with feds might have
       | benefits, but this doesn't sound like that
        
         | elil17 wrote:
         | Just giving out the data with no due diligence saves billable
         | hours from their lawyers.
        
         | AlexandrB wrote:
         | Amazon's motivation is quite clear - they want to reduce
         | shrinkage by discouraging "porch pirates" from stealing Amazon
         | deliveries. Not sure what Google's motivation is, but it might
         | just come down to optics. Consider how Apple gets raked over
         | the coals in the media by DAs when they refuse to unlock a
         | suspects phone.
        
           | entropie wrote:
           | > Amazon's motivation is quite clear - they want to reduce
           | shrinkage by discouraging "porch pirates" from stealing
           | Amazon deliveries.
           | 
           | You say they hand all the information to the police to
           | prevent package stealing? Iam pretty sure thats not the
           | reason at all, maybe a very very little part of it.
        
         | fredgrott wrote:
         | Simple, if they cooperate without being asked by warrant they
         | might hope that their using the underlying data may be
         | overlooked and not reviewed by say oh US Congress.
        
       | yellow_lead wrote:
       | > "If we reasonably believe that we can prevent someone from
       | dying or from suffering serious physical harm, we may provide
       | information to a government agency -- for example, in the case of
       | bomb threats, school shootings, kidnappings, suicide prevention,
       | and missing person cases," reads Google's TOS page on government
       | requests for user information. "We still consider these requests
       | in light of applicable laws and our policies."
       | 
       | What's the penalty for police lying to Google?
        
         | NoGravitas wrote:
         | Do you really think someone would do that? Just go on the
         | internet and tell lies?
        
         | jaywalk wrote:
         | Why, they would never! And if they did, surely there was a good
         | reason! We have to trust the police and Google!
        
       | wly_cdgr wrote:
       | Some may be uncomfortable with a company that has access to the
       | most private data of so many people being ready and willing to
       | cooperate with the police state, but voicing your support for
       | this policy is actually a great way to demonstrate your
       | Googleyness during the interview process!
        
       | alangibson wrote:
       | For those of you old enough to answer: 30 years ago, did you
       | foresee people spending significant amounts of money to install
       | spy cameras in their homes and tracking devices in their pockets?
        
         | LatteLazy wrote:
         | Actually yes. 30 years ago I was 8 and the first home CCTV
         | setups were just coming out. People loved that shit. But then
         | Im a brit and we're all nosey neighbours...
        
           | sterlind wrote:
           | weren't the Brits using CCTV to catch kids skipping school a
           | while back?
        
             | LatteLazy wrote:
             | One of the reasons we have school uniforms is to help
             | police identify kids. That's why they're all weird colours
             | with insignia etc.
             | 
             | We have facial recognition stations too.
             | 
             | :(
        
         | humanistbot wrote:
         | 30 years ago (which was the early 1990s, eek!), analog CCTV was
         | all the rage. Costs for cameras and VCR units plummeted, tapes
         | became cheap commodities, and multiplexing video became
         | trivial. With time-lapse and multiplexing, you only needed one
         | VCR for four cameras, which could record for 24-48h on a single
         | tape. It became cheap enough for businesses, hotels, apartment
         | complexes, and the like to install them everywhere. Private
         | CCTV became a staple of police procedural shows like Law and
         | Order (1st season was 1990), which made people expect to be
         | able to "check the tapes" after an alleged crime.
         | 
         | Edit: This same issue was also a problem in the 1990s with
         | private CCTV! If a police officer or detective tells a business
         | owner that a crime has been committed and there might be
         | evidence on the tape, the owner doesn't have to show the police
         | the tape without a warrant. But they usually did, because it
         | looks suspicious if they don't.
        
         | hedora wrote:
         | Here's a quote from Max Headroom (of Pepsi commercial fame, for
         | people old enough to remember Pepsi), from 1987:
         | 
         | Edison Carter: Security Systems has its tendrils into every
         | element of our society - the government, our homes, the police,
         | the courts - I'm not gonna spike this story just because it
         | deals with dollar amounts beyond your comprehension! It's too
         | important!
         | 
         | Murray: ...cerebral...
         | 
         | Theora Jones: Murray, we're trying to play this takeover as a
         | threat to our average viewer. Nobody knows who's doing it. I
         | mean, we all deal with SS every day - what if some really
         | dangerous people got control of it?
         | 
         | Murray: Who do you think controls it now?
        
       | 0xbadc0de5 wrote:
       | Your daily reminder - if you don't host the data, someone else
       | does. And their interests may or may not align with yours. And
       | even if their interests align with yours today, that's no
       | guarantee they will tomorrow. If you don't want audio, video, etc
       | potentially shared with authorities, don't install cloud-enabled
       | audio/video devices in your home.
        
         | MBCook wrote:
         | Apple stores HomeKit video in their cloud.
         | 
         | It's worthless because it's end-to-end encrypted. They can hand
         | over the data but no one can view it.
         | 
         | There are safe ways of using the cloud.
        
           | O__________O wrote:
           | >> " During this process, the HomeKit data is encrypted using
           | keys derived from the user's HomeKit identity and a random
           | nonce and is handled as an opaque binary large object, or
           | blob."
           | 
           | If you don't control the keys, to me, that's not end-to-end
           | encrypted.
           | 
           | Source: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/data-
           | security-sec49...
        
             | bushbaba wrote:
             | You do control the keys though, "Because it's encrypted
             | using keys that are available only on the user's iOS,
             | iPadOS, and macOS devices"
             | 
             | "The authentication is based on Ed25519 public keys that
             | are exchanged between the devices when a user is added to a
             | home. After a new user is added to a home, all further
             | communication is authenticated and encrypted using Station-
             | to-Station protocol and per-session keys"
             | 
             | "The user who initially created the home in HomeKit or
             | another user with editing permissions can add new users.
             | The owner's device configures the accessories with the
             | public key of the new user so that the accessory can
             | authenticate and accept commands from the new user. When a
             | user with editing permissions adds a new user, the process
             | is delegated to a home hub to complete the operation. "
             | 
             | https://support.apple.com/guide/security/data-security-
             | sec49...
        
               | O__________O wrote:
               | By control, I mean, create, replace, destroy, etc -- I
               | would never create keys based on "identity and a random
               | nonce" selected by a third-party.
               | 
               | Also, since you brought it up, appears Ed25519
               | vulnerability has been reported:
               | 
               | https://www.google.com/search?q=Ed25519+exploit
               | 
               | Also, are these HomeKit "keys" in iCloud backups
               | unencrypted? Meaning that the HomeKit data is encrypted,
               | but the keys are not; to be clear, not saying they are,
               | asking if they are.
        
           | AndrewUnmuted wrote:
           | If the backup password to these encrypted files is known, it
           | can be rather trivial to access the data within.
           | 
           | Recently, a certain head of state's son had 100s of GB of
           | iCloud backups thrown onto a torrent, and within a day rogue
           | manchildren living in their parents' basements cracked most,
           | if not all of it open.
           | 
           | With the backup password in hand, all one needs is this
           | README.md file [0] to be off to the races.
           | 
           | [0]
           | https://github.com/avibrazil/iOSbackup/blob/master/README.md
        
             | O__________O wrote:
             | Some parts of iCloud are encrypted, some are not.
             | 
             | Please stop posting this same topic in your comments.
        
             | multjoy wrote:
             | >If the backup password to these encrypted files is known,
             | it can be rather trivial to access the data within.
             | 
             | That's how encryption works...
        
           | fezfight wrote:
           | Can you verify that or are you just taking their word?
        
             | Ajedi32 wrote:
             | The client side software can easily verify that. Whether
             | you can trust the software running on your device is a
             | somewhat different question that has nothing to do with
             | whether or not you're storing things in "the cloud" (though
             | it is still a valid concern).
        
         | dymk wrote:
         | I like my Eufy doorbell and cameras, which stores recordings on
         | an appliance that I keep in my office.
        
         | MichaelCollins wrote:
         | "Cloud" means somebody else's computer. This is pithy, people
         | here are sick of hearing it, _but it 's still true._
        
           | kornhole wrote:
           | It could be your private cloud therefore your computer. <5%
           | of people probably have their own server. When that % changes
           | significantly, we may need to stop saying this.
        
             | rolph wrote:
             | we could do that back in 1992
        
             | shadowgovt wrote:
             | It's going to be an "if," not a "when." The percentage of
             | users who want to manage their own cloud is vanishingly
             | small. If people are sensitive to the risk of handing over
             | their data to a trusted (well, trusted enough) corporation
             | with a reputation to lose and money on the line, how safe
             | should they feel putting their data on a cloud they manage,
             | essentially stacking themselves up against every Joe Random
             | Hacker on the Internet without the benefit of a Google,
             | Microsoft, or Amazon SRE team to keep the shields up and
             | the lights on 24/7?
             | 
             | The risk surface for self-hosting is higher, on multiple
             | axes, than cloud-hosting. Hosting your own cloud is the "I
             | don't trust auto mechanics so I'm going to become an auto
             | mechanic" approach and most people have neither the time
             | nor the talent.
        
               | 0xbadc0de5 wrote:
               | I think this is missing the forest for the trees. There
               | are plenty of products that make self-hosting seamless
               | and transparent. Take the Ubiquiti Protect series of home
               | video cameras as just one example of self-hosted plug-
               | and-play.
        
               | dafty4 wrote:
               | Self-hosted VPN for at least a narrower risk surface, in
               | theory?
        
               | kornhole wrote:
               | It is a 'when' not 'if' since it is becoming easier and
               | easier to self-host, and more people are realizing the
               | benefits. I did it this year and convinced many others to
               | do the same or use mine.
               | 
               | Hackers go after value targets which are companies or
               | organizations holding a lot of valuable data. My little
               | home server with social media, XMPP, Home Assistant and
               | Nextcloud for pictures and such is not something they can
               | do anything with. Good enough security is built into most
               | self-hosting platforms.
        
               | shadowgovt wrote:
               | Hackers go after two kinds of targets: centralized high-
               | value targets and distributed targets with common failure
               | modes, via scripting. There's definitely risk in
               | centralization, but there's risk in distribution as well:
               | known exploits take forever to patch out of the
               | distributed ecosystem. There's a reason Microsoft became
               | so aggressive about patching Windows: without the
               | aggression, people didn't put the effort in and internet-
               | connected desktops became weaponized.
               | 
               | I predict a correlation between small self-hosting
               | projects and more entries on shodan.io. Your small home
               | server is probably secure enough... Probably. But you're
               | the sort of person that posts on a site called "hacker
               | news..." How much should we trust the average soul to do
               | the bare minimum to not get owned? Do we imagine they're
               | checking in regularly on
               | https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-
               | list/vendor_id-1723... ?
        
               | kornhole wrote:
               | Keeping things patched to latest was difficult in the
               | past, but it is much easier these days. Unattended
               | upgrades run every day on my server, and I get an email
               | from my server that tells me any issues and if packages
               | or applications have updates available. I open the web UI
               | on my phone and make a couple clicks to update them all.
               | The community at Yunohost is one of a few maintainers who
               | have really simplified things.
        
               | trasz wrote:
               | >handing over their data to a trusted (well, trusted
               | enough) corporation with a reputation to lose and money
               | on the line
               | 
               | Not sure how anyone who understands how Internet works
               | could claim Google is in any way trusted, or trustworthy.
               | Or has any reputation it could lose by a mere data leak.
        
               | shadowgovt wrote:
               | The last major data breach Google suffered was in 2009,
               | via a targeted Chinese espionage program involving
               | personnel intrusion.
               | 
               | Contrast that with, well, _gestures widely to most of the
               | Internet._ While Google 's security model is "We secure
               | your data," so the trust interface between the end-user
               | and Google is significant, Google for their part does an
               | execllent job holding tightly to that data. If anything,
               | the biggest risk working with Google is losing access to
               | your own data because they stop believing you are _you,_
               | not some third party getting your data out of Google 's
               | clutches.
        
               | trasz wrote:
               | The last major data breach Google "suffered" is
               | continuing as we speak, as mandated by US national
               | security laws. "Most of the internet" looks better in
               | that regard.
        
               | shadowgovt wrote:
               | US national security law is perfectly capable of applying
               | the same subpoena pressure and sealed requests for data
               | to any provider operating in the United States that it is
               | to Google. If your argument is "Google is bad because it
               | complies with the laws of the countries it operates in,"
               | I have bad news about enforcement authority and
               | governments in general.
        
             | ericmcer wrote:
             | I would guess less than 5% of people even know what cloud
             | means. Even among devs its considered pretty hardcore to
             | host things on your own hardware.
        
               | kkielhofner wrote:
               | I'm building an early stage startup where the application
               | requirements are constant GPU usage, 30TB of VERY fast
               | NVMe storage, 512GB of RAM, LOTS of bandwidth transfer,
               | and roughly 130TB of local storage (dataset for
               | training). There is no combination of abstracted API-
               | driven cloud services that can be pieced together to do
               | what we need to do.
               | 
               | I didn't want to bother dealing with the advanced
               | calculator but the AWS EC2 instance to handle this
               | bespoke application would be $130k/yr with one year
               | upfront and 12 month reservation:
               | 
               | https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=b3de412ba6a7748e9acd
               | 782...
               | 
               | This doesn't include bandwidth (which AWS has an insane
               | markup on) or nearly enough storage.
               | 
               | Needless to say you can lease the hardware from $VENDOR
               | and host it for years with an all you can eat 10gig port.
               | Oh and the cost is absolutely fixed - no worries about
               | getting that shocking AWS bill we all know of.
               | 
               | With a lease and hosting it's still an operating expense
               | and with Section 179 it's actually preferable from a tax
               | standpoint.
               | 
               | With datacenter remote hands and vendor support you're
               | still not dealing with hardware - you don't have to even
               | step foot in the hosting facility. Ever. If a hardware
               | component fails the vendor dispatches someone and it gets
               | handled (same day). That said hardware failures are (in
               | my experience) exceedingly rare until you get to some
               | significant scale where it's a numbers game.
               | 
               | Because ec2 is OS up anyway from a dev ops standpoint
               | it's pretty much identical.
               | 
               | Let's say you keep it for three years and upgrade. The
               | old hardware is still worth something so you can
               | repurpose, sell, trade, whatever.
               | 
               | Rough math but let's call this approach 1/4 the cost (but
               | likely much less).
               | 
               | At AWS markup you can hire a dedicated full time person
               | to manage just one server and still come out ahead. Want
               | five of them around the world? Now you're saving a TON of
               | money vs different AWS regions.
               | 
               | Even with this when I tell people we deployed our own
               | hardware they look at me like I'm crazy. We have an
               | entire generation in tech from jr devs to the C suite to
               | investors that are terrified of hardware and will pay
               | anything to avoid it.
               | 
               | Because of this they don't even know what hardware,
               | bandwidth, etc actually costs. It's assumed the cost is
               | whatever $BIGCLOUD offers it at. I know this is an
               | extreme case but it probably happens more than most would
               | think.
        
             | cruano wrote:
             | I guess 0.00001% is still < 5%
             | 
             | Most people _in tech_ still use @gmail addresses, do you
             | think regular people bother to have their own private cloud
             | for data storage ?
        
               | apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
               | There's no way it's 5%, but Gmail addresses are a pretty
               | poor indicator to use. Hosting your own email is one of
               | the most difficult sysadmin tasks out there because
               | keeping your server off the blocklists is not trivial;
               | it's becoming more and more common for blocklists to just
               | block entire CIDR ranges if a single IP in it gets
               | blocked. I don't fault anyone for not going down that
               | rabbit hole.
               | 
               | Granted, they could be using Proton or some other
               | alternative. But you still have the same inherent problem
               | that someone else hosts/owns your email data.
        
               | jlund-molfese wrote:
               | Yeah, the easiest way to go is to have a bigger name like
               | Apple or Migadu handle the actual mail server stuff, but
               | use your own custom domain
               | 
               | Of course that doesn't help when you've had a Gmail
               | address for 15 years and can't get rid of it
        
               | LinuxBender wrote:
               | I think server/app deployments would need to be just a
               | little more happy-clicky and lower friction and less risk
               | before more non techies would venture into that space.
               | All the "best practices" a sysadmin performs would have
               | to be baked into it or at least be checkboxes that enable
               | them _at a cost_ with simple explanations of each
               | functions cost /benefit in video format. Some VPS
               | providers are slowly going in this direction but have
               | quite a ways to go in my opinion. They have lowered the
               | bar for new techies at least.
        
           | HaZeust wrote:
           | "Someone else's computer" would be misinformation in any
           | other medium SOLELY because it makes it sound like it's being
           | stored on the same kind of computer that an average person
           | has - that another average person is using. There was a smear
           | campaign in 2013 for cloud computing under this very message.
        
       | sandworm101 wrote:
       | Incorrect title. Not the nest, Google here is allowing thier
       | devce. Google is the one handing over data without a warrant.
        
       | throw7 wrote:
       | How easy would it be for google to, you know, program an
       | interface that allows the police request to be shown to the owner
       | and have them say yes or no to the video wanted?
        
       | qwertox wrote:
       | This just left me with my head shaking in disappointment after
       | just reading the title.
       | 
       | I'm done with all these devices, yet I know that my phone will
       | still have this ability even if I've disabled the hotword
       | functionality.
       | 
       | Luckily for us, there are still the single board computers with
       | cameras attached to them, which can do the same job without the
       | could.
        
       | jesuspiece wrote:
       | Was never your data to begin with
        
       | smrtinsert wrote:
       | The market seems to be wide open for a range of home devices that
       | don't violate your privacy.
        
       | SN76477 wrote:
       | Police should not be able to ask without a warrant.
       | 
       | down with surveillance capitalism!!
        
       | lettergram wrote:
       | I can't seem to find the direct link, but I remember when the
       | state of Illinois created a program to give these out for free
       | 
       | Recall at the time I mentioned to friends... I bet police get
       | direct access and within 5 years, here we are lol
       | 
       | Many utility companies still do https://themoneyninja.com/free-
       | google-nest-thermostat/
        
         | tdub311 wrote:
         | Do the thermostats have cameras in them?
        
           | elil17 wrote:
           | They have occupancy sensors (not cameras), but those can
           | still be used for surveillance.
        
             | entropie wrote:
             | Iam not sure. That means that it has to log every triggered
             | sensor.
             | 
             | I only have nest protect (stove heating) with occupancy
             | sensor/pathlight and I really dont think it will record
             | motion events nor submit them later (while connected).
             | Could be wrong.
        
               | elil17 wrote:
               | For nest thermostats, they advertise that their cloud
               | based algorithm uses your phone location and occupancy
               | sensor data to switch between "home" and "away" set
               | points, so they have to be sending the sensor readings to
               | the cloud. From there I can't understand why they
               | wouldn't log those.
        
               | hedora wrote:
               | The occupancy sensors include wifi and bluetooth.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | core-utility wrote:
         | I have no direct experience, but every time I see Illinois
         | mentioned on commentary (HN, reddit, etc.) it's always
         | surrounding corruption.
        
           | solardev wrote:
           | FWIW, Illinois sometimes does crazy things the other way too.
           | They banned facial recognition altogether, so Nest (and other
           | cameras) can't offer the "familiar faces" feature, like to
           | not alert you when a spouse comes home instead of a stranger.
           | 
           | Facebook also paid me several hundred dollars because they
           | were auto tagging faces for Illinois users.
        
           | ocdtrekkie wrote:
           | Illinois actually has some of the strongest privacy
           | legislation in the country. I got a $350 check from Facebook
           | for running facial recognition on my photo without
           | permission, and Google owes me a similar amount when it's
           | class action gets approved.
           | 
           | Check out the Illinois BIPA, it's the reason tech companies
           | are trying to get federal privacy legislation that preempts
           | state law.
        
           | 999900000999 wrote:
           | You haven't seen my comments praising Chicago ?
           | 
           | The friendliest city I've ever lived, amazing public transit
           | and where I met my first real girlfriend.
        
       | sys_64738 wrote:
       | It should never be possible for a cloud provider to decrypt data
       | from your devices. It should be encrypted by a public key you
       | load on the device and only decrypted by your private key. The
       | cloud prouder should be a dumb provider of the service and not
       | get in the way. As soon as the cloud provider gives your
       | decrypted data away to random people then that is a massive
       | security hole.
        
       | hackererror404 wrote:
       | I would happily pay more for a company that will refuse to do
       | this. This will be a strong market opportunity, at least for this
       | buyer.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-07-27 23:01 UTC)