More Police Are Using Your Cameras for Video Evidence

Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/01/13/police-video-surveillance-california

Private security footage is nothing new to criminal investigations, but two factors are rapidly changing the landscape: huge growth in the number of devices with cameras, and the fact that footage usually lands in a cloud server, rather than on a tape.

When a third party maintains the footage on the cloud, it gives police the ability to seek the images directly from the storage company, rather than from the resident or business owner who controls the recording device. In 2022, the Ring security company, owned by Amazon, admitted that it had provided audio and video from customer doorbells to police without user consent at least 11 times. The company cited “exigent circumstances.”

Archived at web.archive.org/…/police-video-surveillance-calif…

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Comments

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Tremble@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I love technology but I don’t ever see myself installing a camera in my house that connects to the internet like this. It’s literally big brother…

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- WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I give my cam access to the internet when I travel. Outside of that it’s LAN only.
  
  Luckily most NAS’s have software that can capture it and you can back it up to the cloud encrypted.
  
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  - oozynozh@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    do you mind sharing a basic explanation about your setup? i’m looking at doing something similar with TrueNAS and NextCloud.
    
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perviouslyiner@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Obligatory reminder that just getting into a car (or walking past one) is considered by pretty much every car manufacturer to be acceptance of their privacy policy:

…mozilla.org/…/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-…

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- Plopp@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s supported by the famous first principle of Descartes: I think, therefore I accept the terms of service
  
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- guyinachair@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Should there be an expectation of privacy in public? Definitely wrong for footage to be able to wirelessly, without the owners consent, leave a car.
  
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  - sir_reginald@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Should there be an expectation of privacy in public?
    
    No, but there should be an expectation of not being recorded by every car you come across.
    
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- LodeMike@lemmy.today ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Said it in the other thread but: that isn’t legal.
  
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  - BobGnarley@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You’re right but it reminds me of that cop that killed that fumigator guy in Arizona. Total cold blood murder and that was illegal as well. I used to always tell me dad “no they can’t do that” and he would look at me serious as fuck and say “They are the government they can do whatever the fuck they want” its the same idea with rich companies they steal wages and kill workers through incompetence or lax safety practices all the time and sure its illegal but that doesnt matter when you can do it and face no repurcusions anyway.
    
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TimeSquirrel@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The perks of being a security installer and wiring up your own house with a dozen PoE cameras and a local NVR under your control only...

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- Dkarma@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Gimmie some brands then…
  
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  - blueeggsandyam@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I use unifi. I have their dream machine (router/firewall/vpn) a POE switch, two access points, 5 cameras and their doorbell. I rarely have any issues.
    
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- XeroxCool@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Do you have particular recommendations? I somehow landed on Reolink as the option I’m going to buy in a few months
  
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  - Buelldozer@lemmy.today ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Reolink is perfectly fine. They can be setup with or without internet, just remember to put them on their own VLAN that doesn’t have Internet access. If you don’t want to use the Reolink NVR then build yourself a frigrate box or similar.
    
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  - EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If you want something easy but not necessarily the cheapest, UniFi will do.
    
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  - USSEthernet@startrek.website ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Bit expensive, but I run all Ubiquiti network and camera equipment.
    
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  - TimeSquirrel@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Probably avoid anything by Hikvision if you don't want to risk having Chinese backdoors in it. My own system is just a hodgepodge of different used cams I pulled off job sites.
    
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  - SocialEngineer56@notdigg.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m using Reolink and highly recommend it. Without a doubt the best bang for your buck. I bought a bundle on Black Friday a couple years ago with the 2TB NVR and 4 cameras (5MP POE) for a couple hundred dollars, and I’ve since expanded to 6 cameras.
    
    I’m in the process of setting up a NAS, so hoping I can get reolink backed up on it for easy access.
    
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- cyberpunk007@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Ubiquiti used to be the only one I knew about that I could host and block internet access. Is there anything else these days? Ubiquiti stuff is kinda shit these days.
  
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FerociousPea@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Someone set off a bomb close to my house. Police asked me questions about it (time, what it sounded like, etc). They noticed I had security cameras and inquired what I had. The dumbfounded look when I said Ubiquiti (they’ve never heard of it) and that all footage was recorded locally on a hard drive. Like they didn’t understand what that meant - obviously they were looking for an answer such as “google” or “amazon” so they could just circumvent me.

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- MintyAnt@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I have their routers and stuff! It’s way overkill but I was having such major issues with the all in one routers one usually gets.
  
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Plavatos@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I had one of those Vivent door to door folks walk up to me one day, garage open. I was polite enough but explained I had no interest in storing a video feed of my house on their servers as I’d like to do illegal things if I want. They assured me it was stored with “aes256 encryption” - which they expect most laymen to be wowed by - but what good is encryption if they own the keys and crumble to government requests?

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yamanii@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
But they still won’t catch the delivery packages thieves.

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FinishingDutch@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You should always assume any camera to be hostile, unless you have full and complete control over all related software and connections.

Basically, the people who supplied the device will always have more control over it than you do. And big tech just looooves to abuse that and/or cave in to pressure from governments and police agencies.

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- DaDragon@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Sadly there’s little option for some stuff. Robot vacuums have become super useful, even if they are arguably the biggest security risk that exists. And that will never change, no matter how capable the products get
  
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  - ScreaminOctopus@sh.itjust.works ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There are open source solutions for robot vaccums provided you get a compatible robot
    
    valetudo.cloud/pages/
    
    Unfortunately it’s not something the average person’s going to undertake.
    
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  - FinishingDutch@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Why would you consider robot vacuums to be particularly dangerous in terms of security? I’m certainly more weary of things like Google Nest, Amazon Alexa, pet cams, doorbell cams, that sort of thing.
    
    I know that some but not all vacuums have cameras, and I’d assume some might have microphones as well. But in general it doesn’t strike me as inherently more dangerous to one’s privacy.
    
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Asudox@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
A lesson for people that think proprietary internet connected cameras are a good idea. You can literally make open source cameras with a SBC like raspberry pi as the controller. And then using a VPN, you can connect to it from the outside.

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- RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Sadly the average person buying such proprietary cameras does not possess the technical know how for that. Also the average person buying those ultimately also does not care about privacy, unfortunately. They definitely should, but they usually don’t.
  
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- PlantJam@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Compare this to the setup for a Google camera: Plug it in, scan a QR code from the Home app, and that’s it. I understand there are security implications, but I’m not particular concerned about privacy in my backyard.
  
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- tiramichu@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You can also use proprietary cameras but put them on a separate network segment or otherwise restrict their access so they can’t get out of your local network.
  
  Not ideal to use proprietary cameras at all, but if you are doing then that’s the way to do it.
  
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  - sir_reginald@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    yeah, if you can’t find FOSS cameras, I’d recommend getting a good old CCTV connected to a device that does not have internet access.
    
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Suburbanl3g3nd@lemmings.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Does anyone have a rec for something you can buy and selfhost beyond a pi setup?

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- disheveledWallaby@lemmy.ml ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Any closed circuit security systems, ones that aren’t cloud based will come with an NVR (like a DVR) that hosts your recordings locally. Most are wired but some support wireless as well. Generally more expensive but in my opinion worth it.
  
  My mom bought a simple setup for I think 3 or 400 dollars at Costco.
  
  INAL but law enforcement can still request or subpoena your video if they suspect a crime has been witnessed by your cameras AFAIK. But at least you’ll know about it.
  
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  - Suburbanl3g3nd@lemmings.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Thanks! Very helpful to start looking!
    
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- BrownianMotion@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  For “commercial but free” There is AxxonOne (was AxxonNext) But free only allows 4 cameras. However this is best out of all FOSS in terms of what it can do.
  
  For FOSS there is: Frigate Shinobi Zoneminder iSpy Viseron Moonfire NVR motionEyeOS
  
  Lots of options but you will need some baremetal or a decently powered server and hypervisor to run in a VM.
  
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notannpc@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Sadly, since our country is governed by dinosaurs, the responsibility falls on us to help our friends and family avoid sketchy cameras that force the use of their cloud services.

At least until we can convince them to elect people who weren’t born before computers were invented.

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MonsiuerPatEBrown@reddthat.com ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My favorite new toy is my Flipper!

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