[factotum]

It's interesting how the article accuses Ring and Amazon of selling via fear, but that's also exactly what the article itself is selling.

I live in Albuquerque. We have Ring cameras, and I feel so much safer when I leave town. We caught someone rifling through our pickup truck a few weeks ago and were able to correlate it with other reports in the area so that if/when these thieves are caught, they'll go away for longer.

Why did I decide to buy these cameras? We were subject to a massive burglary a couple of years ago in which we lost $30k worth of valuables.

There are always downsides to every security-related thing, but I highly appreciate the ability to better police my own property, and I bet a bunch of other people feel the same.

[citilife]

I think the point a lot of other people make, is that you can simply use another camera network that doesn't sell your data, centralize it, and share with 3rd parties without your knowledge or [knowledgable] consent.

I have a camera system that is similar, I set it up myself, and I could do exactly what you suggested. All without also telling amazon my neighbor goes to-and-from their house 6 times a day (because my door camera faces them). Or that my daughter comes home from school at 3pm.

[nullc]

Exactly this: People who respond with the benefits of having a security camera are arguing a false dichotomy.

IP security cameras are inexpensive and readily available, and support things like remote access fine. (And I say this from first hand experience)

When you narrow the counterargument to the actual differential features of ring-like solutions-- that they automatically store video offsite mitigating by default the fringe risk that a thief takes the recorder--, the argument in favor of handing this video feed to state and corporate surveillance apparatus alike is much less interesting.

It would be trivial for ring to encrypt the video with a password only known to the device and your remote client never to the server... and would avoid a lot of trouble dealing with requests for video and potential civil ligation for leaks. The primary reason these products don't is because surveilling the user is the business proposition.

Aside: I have lots of security cameras, I like security cameras. Yet at the same time people radically overestimate their usefulness in stopping crime: The positioning and lighting have to be nearly perfect to get a shot that you can identify a stranger with and it's easy for people to conceal their faces against an unmonitored camera. Even if you do get a clear face shot the police often can do nothing useful with it. With the low prices today I think cameras can well worth their price, ... but where they create mass surveillance risks, the case is far less clear.

[spamizbad]

> Yet at the same time people radically overestimate their usefulness in stopping crime: The positioning and lighting have to be nearly perfect to get a shot that you can identify a stranger with and it's easy for people to conceal their faces against an unmonitored camera. Even if you do get a clear face shot the police often can do nothing useful with it. With the low prices today I think cameras can well worth their price, ... but where they create mass surveillance risks, the case is far less clear.

If you already know who you're looking for they can be quite useful. They can be quite effective when they're used to help document violations of an order of protection or restraining order, where even a profile shot at an odd angle is sufficient.

[nullc]

Indeed. I've found cameras super useful in debugging issues with wild animals and contractors, figuring out where something outside went or how it got broken, etc.

Anyone interested in cameras should check out the forum at https://ipcamtalk.com/

One of the reoccurring points there though is actual experience with the low utility of cameras-- especially if they're not very carefully positioned and prolific-- at identifying strangers.

[chaostheory]

> It would be trivial for ring to encrypt the video with a password only known to the device and your remote client never to the server... and would avoid a lot of trouble dealing with requests for video and potential civil ligation for leaks.

That is not trivial for most people. I doubt it was even trivial for you unless it’s a built-in feature for an off the shelf system. Setting up an open source surveillance system isn’t exactly what I would call easy

[nullc]

For ring-- not the end user.

[jxramos]

I have a friend who works for the public defenders office for something like a 30 year timespan. He shared with me once during a conversation on the topic of surveillance videos how much they've transformed criminal cases. So many people are damned by evidence where the criminal is caught red handed after the fact. He even told me a comedic technique of the DA showing a zoomed in region and asking the defendant if they recognize the person in the photo. They reply no, zoom out some more, and eventually the criminal admits "that's me".

[Thriptic]

You set your camera system up yourself. A lot of people aren't going to be willing or able to do that if we are being real. Do you see the average person wiring up a bunch of cameras or troubleshooting networking, configuring a DVR, standing up a web server to view things, setting up off site backups, ensuring their cameras don't go down if power is lost, configuring mobile alerts, etc?

People want a plug and play solution. At least systems from Google and Amazon will probably be reasonably secure so they won't get roped into the next botnet when their owners forget to change default creds.

[dbalan]

That's the central problem, isn't it? Technology only gets more complicated, and we have never bothered much about giving general population effective tools and skills to make informed decisions for themselves. A well-known company vouches for something, and that's all I'd know if I was buying a ring device.

[deogeo]

There's no reason the setup has to be any more complicated - it could work exactly as it does currently, only with the option of pointing it at your own server, instead of Amazon's, or even keep using Amazon's server, but end-to-end encrypt the data, with only you possessing the key.

Amazon and others know this. They don't offer it on purpose, because they want to retain control and a new revenue stream.

[Thriptic]

Sure, I agree we should have a local storage option: however, if we are concerned about population level problems then a local storage option isn't going to help because the vast majority of people wouldn't use it.

[chaostheory]

it’s not just revenue. It’s also support. There’s a lot more support involved and it also increases the upfront cost making it even less accessible to people.

[cpwright]

Ideally, I would have an appliance that recorded from my 6 Ring cameras without going over the internet. But the cost of that in terms of setting up and maintaining a server/software is actually higher than just paying Ring $10/month.

I work making computers do stuff all day, I don't want to futz around with them on my free time. This is also why Apple TV/Tivo has beaten out MythTV in my home.

[turtlebits]

The problem is that there are no good offline alternatives.

It's trivial to get a camera setup and recording. The hard part is getting useful data out of that 24x7x365 (per camera) stream.

[ehsankia]

Indeed. People fear monger about the police's ability to request footage from a neighborhood (key point being request, the owner of the Ring still gets to look at the footage and decide to release it or not). Yet no one speaks about all the previously unsolvable burglaries and crimes that can now be prevented or solved thanks to this.

A lot of these articles make it sound like Ring gives unilateral full access to the police, which is just plain and simple FUD.

[citilife]

> A lot of these articles make it sound like Ring gives unilateral full access to the police, which is just plain and simple FUD.

Actually, we know that a large portion of data obtained by the NSA can be shared with law enforcement[1]. We also know the NSA isn't exactly upfront about how much they collect and that they can basically collect what they wish without reprocusions[2]. We also know that Ring has given access to police and partnered with 630+ departments[3] directly.

Not even close to "plain and simple FUD", as most things it's a bit more nuanced.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more...

[2] https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-united-states-secrets-pa...

[3] https://www.cnet.com/news/ring-gave-police-a-street-level-vi...

[ehsankia]

The first two have much more to do with NSA just having too much unilateral access (re: Snowden leaks) than anything Ring specific. I guess it can be argued that any company that collects any data whatsoever is making NSA more data rich, but what's the alternative, but again the root issue there lies with the US government itself.

As for the third one, I'm not sure what your point is. The specific article only speaks of a heatmap of doorbells. The article also states the the precise location of the doorbell isn't even given, let alone footage.

I don't think anyone considers that data to be anywhere equal to giving access to video feed. You can simply drive down the road and see which houses have a Ring doorbell, or probably even detect them sniffing packets.

[antris]

> I guess it can be argued that any company that collects any data whatsoever is making NSA more data rich, but what's the alternative, but again the root issue there lies with the US government itself.

Buying less "on the cloud by default" devices and using encryption.

[ehsankia]

Your first point is fair, though, again, you can't completely ignore the utility these services bring. And while it is possible to have Cloud-less alternatives, not everyone is a Hackernews type person that can setup local opensource alternative on a linux box in their spare time.

Your latter point doesn't really make sense. I'm fairly sure all of these devices use encryption to the cloud, it's just that the NSA has access to the unencrypted data on the cloud itself, theoretically. Unless you mean storing your own encrypted data on the cloud, which again goes back to the point above.

[autoexec]

> Indeed. People fear monger about the police's ability to request footage from a neighborhood (key point being request, the owner of the Ring still gets to look at the footage and decide to release it or not).

If you refuse to give police the video they can just request from amazon directly. You don't get to control what happens to that video once it touches amazon's servers. Once the police have it they can keep it forever, share it with others (like ICE or the FBI), and once again you have no control. Amazon tracks people who refuse to hand over video to the police directly and they share stats about them with police.

[megascone]

> Amazon tracks people who refuse to hand over video to the police directly and they share stats about them with police.

What are you talking about?

[autoexec]

https://gizmodo.com/ring-gave-police-stats-about-users-who-s...

As discussed here not that long ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21346307

[ehsankia]

Sounds a little misleading. I'm not sure that most people would feel violated due to being included in a "2% of users pressed Do Not Share button" statistics. It's not like Ring is giving actual user data or any way for the police to pin point said users.

[autoexec]

Police get actual user data when users agree to submit video to them, they know that requests are sent to every user within a certain range of the location they choose, and they often know exactly who has the cameras installed in that area (because the cameras were sold/installed by them or purchased using taxpayer-funded discount programs or just by driving past and looking at the doors). If you refuse to share the data but most of your neighbors do it would not be hard for them to narrow down which houses didn't.

[Spooky23]

The "request" is a convenience. Just like any other cloud provider, it's just a subpoena away.

It's incredibly dumb to host 24x7 video surveillance of your home and your comings and goings outside of your home.

[pdonis]

> It's incredibly dumb to host 24x7 video surveillance of your home and your comings and goings outside of your home.

"Incredibly dumb" is way out of line. Many people (including me) find having such video available to be extremely useful. Yes, there is a tradeoff involved if you are buying the video capability from a third party instead of rolling your own, but many people find it a tradeoff worth making.

[Spooky23]

There are solutions that provide a seamless experience for accessing footage without storing data outside of the home.

When you host information with a third party, your only protection is your contract.

[pdonis]

> There are solutions that provide a seamless experience for accessing footage without storing data outside of the home.

Can you give some specific examples?

Also, storing data outside of the home (or at least backup copies of it) might be a good idea in case something happens to your home.

[jonathankoren]

Self hosting isn't dumb. It is literally what was done for decades. The fact is that most crimes are smash and grab, and they literally do no have the time to wander around your house looking for a DVR. It's fine.

[awalton]

You misread; gp said it was dumb to host this content outside of your home. Self-hosting this content is completely reasonable, as noted.

[heavyset_go]

> People fear monger about the police's ability to request footage from a neighborhood (key point being request, the owner of the Ring still gets to look at the footage and decide to release it or not).

The police can ask nicely for it by requesting it, or demand the video with a warrant or subpoena.

Getting a warrant or subpoena for your video data is infinitely easier than it would be without Ring as an intermediary, because Ring already told the police the data does, indeed, exist and that you have it. It's also infinitely easier because a judge is more likely to sign off on a warrant for video from a specific person and camera, than they are for a warrant that casts a wider net.

If they go to Ring with a warrant for video the company says you have, you don't even have to be notified when its taken.

[JohnFen]

> I feel so much safer when I leave town.

Good for you, and if Ring cameras are positioned so that they can't see past your property line, then I have no problem with them.

However, I have a really serious problem with people who install cloudy surveillance cameras -- especially those from Amazon -- in such a way that they capture innocent people walking by your house.

I don't think anyone should have the right to subject such people to surveillance networks like that, and strongly condemn those that do.

[downerending]

If you're worried about being caught on camera while walking about in public, I have some really bad news for you...

[kyboren]

It's not so much a worry about being caught on camera while in public. Please forgive me for assuming, but I don't think JohnFen is particularly concerned about cameras owned and exclusively operated by private citizens disconnected from any network with limited retention.

Amazon Ring is a different beast entirely. With your help, Amazon has even more data--in addition to every other user's raw video feed--and the computing resources to be able to pinpoint a frighteningly large number of people at any given moment.

That's a scary amount of power, and a direct threat to liberty. Aiding and abetting such an enterprise deserves strong condemnation at the least.

[ctvo]

How do you feel about so many people having Gmail accounts? Do you refuse to communicate with them? Imagine the data Google has access to when you send them a message or messages sent about you.

You imply Amazon is willing to use the data it collects for liberty threatening purposes, do you think Google wouldn’t?

To be explicit: at what point do you draw the line and why now with this product and company?

[JohnFen]

> How do you feel about so many people having Gmail accounts? Do you refuse to communicate with them?

My perspective on this is easy -- this isn't a problem I have to deal with much, because almost nobody that I exchange email with uses Gmail.

But yes, I avoid sending email to gmail accounts when feasible. When not feasible, I keep the emails as brief as I can, and I don't engage in lengthy exchanges.

[satanspastaroll]

Just because something is bad, doesen't mean you should make them twice so

[JohnFen]

> I don't think JohnFen is particularly concerned about cameras owned and exclusively operated by private citizens disconnected from any network

This is correct. I'm not worried about the cameras, I'm worried about the database and who is in control of it.

[matt-attack]

I’ve never understood how a passive camera is supposed to actually stop such a $30k heist. I get that it records it but it doesn’t stop anything. Unless you include deterrence but an unplugged fake camera does the same.

[rhacker]

It stops this shit over time. So, in other words, the people that would be heisting are now in jail, had ring been popular 10 years ago. If, indeed that doesn't change anything, then the blame would at least be on the police or our laws or something.

[bromuro]

So what’s that, a tool to jail people more easily?

[Thriptic]

Are you advocating that people committing burglaries not be punished?

[braythwayt]

Sometimes, yes!

Allowing suspects to refuse to answer questions--a/k/a "remaining silent"--means that some people who commit crimes won't self-incriminate, and won't wind up being "punished."

Interrogating suspects without a lawyer present is a related tool for solving more burglaries.

Allowing suspects to have a lawyer present during interrogation definitely means that some people who commit burglaries won't be "punished."

So advocating for the right of suspects to remain silent, and to have a lawyer present during interrogation are both indirect ways of advocating for people committing burglaries to not be punished.

Same for advocating that police evidence which is "fruit of the poisoned tree" not be admissible in court. Or really, for any limitation on enforcement.

It's all implicitly choosing that allowing some people who commit crimes to go free, serves a greater good.

TL;DR The phrase "Advocating that people committing burglaries not be punished" has a lot of nuänce to it. Best not to try to spin it as a simple boolean.

---

There's another thing, which is the word "punished." Punishment is not, and should not, be a goal in any civilized society. That's a whole 'nother discussion, but for the purpose of discussing surveillance, let's agree that we are talking about convicting people who commit crimes, and leave the discussion fo what to do after obtaining a conviction for another day.

[Dylan16807]

You're mentioning things where not getting a verdict is an unfortunate side effect in pursuit of more important goals. That's not what the question was supposed to be about; it's a complete tangent that doesn't help the discussion.

[bendbro]

Giving your argument the benefit of the doubt, I think you're saying:

1. Currently no legally recognized right is being violated by police when they are given Ring surveillance footage from a homeowner to prosecute a potential criminal.

2. But perhaps we should codify some right that prevents the police from obtaining Ring surveillance footage from a homeowner to prosecute a potential criminal.

I agree with 1, but I disagree with 2, and further I suspect you're going to have quite the uphill battle convincing the majority of people some right should exist that prevents homeowners from providing surveillance footage to the police.

[stevenhuang]

We are talking about those who have commited crimes & are caught in the act, not alleged/unsubstantiated claims.

[bromuro]

It seems pretty obvious that punishment doesn’t work and it is a path to worse disasters for the whole society.

Specifically the comment author was insinuating that just by eradicating a group of individuals out of the society (as punishment) would stop other people to do the same. It seems a very dangerous way of thinking.

[Thriptic]

The comment author was not insinuating that, you just assumed that. What I was insinuating was that you can't allow unlawful behavior to go unchallenged or else you will have a breakdown of society. Even rehabilitation programs are a form of punishment. If you catch a criminal and they say "I don't want to go to your rehabilitation program", are you just going to say "oh ok" and let them go? Of course not, you force them to go. That is corrective action aka punishment. I just happened to use a term which is loaded on this forum in this context.

[bendbro]

As are police cars, radios, handcuffs, and computers. What's your point?

[minikites]

The Code of Hammurabi is almost 4000 years old and we still have crime. Punishment is not a deterrent because nobody commits a crime believing they will get caught.

[modriano]

Short answer: Cameras produce the evidence needed to build prosecutable cases that can put burglars in jail (thereby preventing them from victimizing/terrorizing people while they're in jail).

Longer answer: People who commit one burglary often commit multiple burglaries. State's Attorneys won't prosecute cases if they don't have strong evidence. The number of burglary victims in a month is basically given by (number of burglars active in a month)(average frequency of burglary in a month). To reduce the number of victims, you could reduce the number of active burglars in an area, and/or you could work to reduce the frequency of burglary by hardening the world, which would be prohibitively expensive. The former strategy is much less expensive, as video evidence is strong evidence, and video cameras have become very affordable and convenient to operate. This helps build stronger cases, which can remove predators from communities, which averts all of the offenses that the predator would have committed had they not been jailed. It is possible to burgle a home with cameras, just as it's possible to get the flu despite a flu shot, but both the cameras and the flu shots help defend more of society against harm.

[factotum]

It's part of my overall security solution. I also have an alarm system among other things. After being the victim of a $30k heist, I learned not to rely on just 1 method of detection/prevention.

[Thriptic]

A. It's a detective and corrective control so you can more easily claim losses with insurance and the police, see what has been taken, and know that someone was there.

B. It's a preventive control. People doing recon on your place will see that visible security is in place and that you have done some level of risk management. Perhaps you have other security measures there as well such as an alarm, or maybe you secure your valuables with a safe or they are stored off site which they can't know until they get in. It makes you a less appealing, higher risk target. Additionally, in most neighborhoods you can't walk around in a ski mask without attracting attention, so many burglaries will be done with faces exposed. If someone bursts in and sees they are on camera, maybe they leave without taking anything.

[r00fus]

Has there been any records/stories of police actually catching and holding the assailants accountable using Ring?

I know that there's a lot of (possibly astroturfed) youtubes out there about thefts being deterred but what are the actual stats?

[modriano]

I'm a crime researcher in Chicago and I work mainly on aggravated battery (shooting) and homicide cases. There have been many homicide and shooting investigations that have been substantially aided by Ring footage (always received with the (often enthusiastic) consent of the homeowner). But it typically takes at least 3 years before homicide cases are tried in court, and no responsible law enforcement agency would release information that could impede cases, so it will be a while before any agency does this kind of analysis and decides to publish it (very unlikely without being incentivized by a consent decree or something). A lot of people (read: relatively well-off (white) people who live in safe neighborhoods) are pretty irrational about cameras and law enforcement in general, but the people who live in the neighborhoods where homicides and shootings happen generally hate living with the constant possibility of their loved ones being accidentally shot in a spontaneous shooting, they want these threats removed from their community, and it's much easier and safer to provide footage rather than testify as a witness over many court dates 4+ years later.

TLDR: Yeah, there are many investigations that are only cleared because of CCTV footage, including Ring footage. No, that data isn't public.

[xyzzyz]

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/11/steal...

Be sure to read the whole thing.

[plughs]

What a mean-spirited article. How dare wealthy Potrero Hill residents act upset just because their Stranger Things backpack was stolen!

( nice username tho )

[r00fus]

So that's a great article about essentially a single data point.

How many of these kinds of things actually happen to prevent crimes? And how many of these are break-ins rather than package theft?

[goldcd]

awaits the Ring-minigun

[awalton]

Bad Robocop vibes from this one.

You have 20 seconds to comply.

[goldcd]

"server reports 404, autonomous defense mode activated"

[rhacker]

I was in an RV park in Albuquerque during the big snow a week ago. The parks over there sit on the west side of town.

30 Minutes into the blizzard a loud SUV rolls up right next to us. My wife and I turned off the lights and opened the windows to watch. They didn't go near our truck. But within 3 minutes they were rifling in someone else's truck bed. They then opened the SUV's back hatch, threw a large box in and drove off, all at a super-fast speed indicating they've done this before.

The RV Park replied to the reviews about theft and kinda blamed various people for leaving their stuff outside, unlucked.

The larger park next door thought ahead and installed security cameras and security gates. The park next door is about $5-$10 more per night. Well worth it.

[StuffedParrot]

> It's interesting how the article accuses Ring and Amazon of selling via fear, but that's also exactly what the article itself is selling.

Just because something is published by vice doesn't automatically make it untrue (though it broadly is very suspect). However, you've made the great case yourself that these product purchases are motivated by fear, not by material return on investment.

[rdiddly]

Funny, my opinions/biases are such that on first reading, I read your comment as "We have Ring cameras" (i.e. most people in Albuquerque), and "I feel so much safer when I leave town" (i.e. away from all that surveillance). Minds are funny.

[P_I_Staker]

Why do you assume petty thieves "going away for longer" is a purely good thing?

[comunekate]

I ask this question in good faith and it's in no way an attack on you. It's really just food for thought and an invitation for discussion:

You say that a person searching through your pickup/ other peoples stuff is going to go away for longer when they are caught because of the ring surveillance network.

Do you as a person who uses HN, has the money to buy a Ring and can weather the loss of $30k in valuables (which is a terrible thing and I can only imagine how traumatic it would be, I would probably buy a ring after that as well) really need to make sure that the pickup truck sniffer gets the maximum jail time?

Our prisons are supposed to be some of the most crowded in the world.[1] There are networks just for exfelons to try and get jobs because so much of the gen pop turns them away at this instant red flag.[2] Among Americans who aren't in prison >50% can't pay a $500 emergency expense.

I'm willing to accept that a lot of these people could work hard and reach a higher level of financial security in life but they choose not to. I have no issues with you having worked hard and wanting to protect what you've earned and making sure others don't pillage your things.

Does an extra 5 years in prison for the truck snooper really make you feel safer? Do we really need to make sure that more people are subjected to our prison system that does little to rehabilitate people?

Will fear and mistrust bring us a safer nation? What is really gained by you personally by ensuring that the perp get's twice the sentence? Does it bring you twice your lost assets? Do you fundamentally gain in anyway by putting a nonviolent offender into a cage for extra time?

Maybe the hope is that we can lock up all the criminals and the streets will be safe of porch pirates. I've heard somewhere that you can't have the top without the bottom. If we get rid of the least violent criminals committing the crimes that have a low and local impact who do we expect to be left to represent that necessary bottom but the mass thieves of fake financial firms and slaughter happy killers?

To put it in a very abstract metaphorical way: If you stumble on a hike and twist your ankle and have to break a branch off of a tree to use as a support to get you home... how much should you suffer for breaking that branch? should they also compound all the twigs you stepped on into your sentence?

[1]https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2019.html [2]https://exoffenders.net/employment-jobs-for-felons/ [3]https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-...

[factotum]

I'm definitely for prison reform, and for mitigating wealth inequality. However, the fact that our prisons are overcrowded and we have a lot of poor people in our country does not excuse crime like this. Burglary is not comparable to a non-violent drug offense, for instance. It is an invasion of someone's property, privacy and well-being. It is more comparable to rape than just a simple drug offense. I have no sympathy for thieves and I'm fine with wanting them to be locked up away from society.

[comunekate]

On the other hand I guess maximum prison sentences makes sense under the idiom "from those who have everything more will be given, from those who have nothing more will be taken"

[comunekate]

If your reading this here's hoping you already have everything

[allovernow]

CCTV cameras have been around for decades and have none of the privacy issues associated with ring. Of course there's a little more overhead in setting them up which I'm sure turns the average person off, but they also won't brick if the manufacturer stops supporting them and don't need internet to work.

[est31]

If your CCTV camera setup has no live off site backups, someone burglaring the property could just take or destroy the recorder on-site and delete the record of them breaking into the property.

[nullc]

Yes, and if we're talking hypothetical risk vectors: a ring camera does nothing against someone who covers their face.

The reliance on remote storage limits the resolution and number of cameras, making it much less likely that you'll manage to capture a clear face shot esp from someone intentionally concealing their face.

Thieves stealing the recorder is something I think I've never heard reported in a residential setting, however. It's certainly a much less common problem for cameras than people covering their faces.

Non-cloud camera systems can still upload remotely (and there is the potential of encrypting those realtime backups, at least w/ some systems). My camera system takes periodic and event driven still snapshots, encrypts them, and uploads them remotely. (Though, I admit, I implemented the encryption step myself). Bonus: sending only snapshots means that it can reasonably be done over cellular, which keeps it going even if all the lines are cut.

[est31]

> Non-cloud camera systems can still upload remotely

I have only talked about cloud based backups, not running the entire system via the cloud. Of course it's best if you have an on-site storage of video material, as well as a (live) off-site backup.

I'm not a proponent of Ring. In fact, I'd never put their hardware into my house. However, there are advantages of putting video footage into the cloud (encrypted or in the clear). Compare this to internet based locks where there are no advantages that can't be done locally as well.

[e2le]

I'm not convinced off-site backups are enough to protect against burglars destroying the footage. There are many options available to them to prevent the camera from functioning.

1) In the case of WiFi cameras, sending of deauth packets or signal jamming the 2.4/5ghz spectrum.

2) Damaging of fibre/copper cables which might be out of view of the camera.

3) Turning off power to the property although this might draw attention.

Given the sheer popularity of WiFi cameras, I can't see it being too long before a device capable of spamming deauth packets becomes a common part of the burglars toolset. esp8266's with the appropriate firmware can already be found on ebay for less than £10.

[est31]

Of course in physical security, for every protection there's always a way for attackers to counter it. But it gets more and more costly each time. What I wanted to say with my comment is that off site backups do have value (compared to say cloud based door locks which don't have any advantage over internet free approaches).

For 1 and 2, ideally you'd avoid WiFi cameras for the reason you stated and use cable based ones and put everything into view.

To 3, actually this happened recently in my country Germany where they stole crown jewels of one of the german states. The alarm system died and allowed for silent entry but the CCTV still worked (no idea why it worked tho, maybe backup power for CCTV only but not for the alarm?). Ideally both your CCTV and alarm system run from some way of backup power.

[autoexec]

> I can't see it being too long before a device capable of spamming deauth packets becomes a common part of the burglars toolset.

How many break ins are professional thieves with any kind of toolkit vs drug addicts and kids who just smash a window with whatever they find or take advantage of opportunities like an unlocked car or a package left outside? I'm guessing that the vast majority aren't bringing tech, lockpicks or even masks.

[e2le]

You might be right, apparently only 4.1% of burglaries involve a lockpick.

https://www.art-of-lockpicking.com/criminals-dont-pick-locks...

[Johnny555]

I'm surprised it's even that high, lock picks are pretty time consuming and it's hard to be inconspicuous while you're doing it.

Ahh, I looked at the linked article, and it's not just lockpicking, it's "picked lock or window", which presumably also includes things like using a knife blade to slide a window latch open.

Further in the article it mentions this:

If you were to separate lock picking from shimming latches, the percentage of lock picking incidents would very likely evaporate.

...

However, because we have no data to separate these two methods of bypassing — that is lock picking and shimming –, we will stick with the higher survey number of 4.1% for good measure.

But wait, that’s 4.1% of ONLY non-forced burglaries. What about ALL burglaries— forced and non-forced?

...

That’s only 1.36% of TOTAL burglaries that utilize either picking a lock or shimming.

[awalton]

Sure. Criminals could also hack into Ring's servers and delete footage there too...

Of course, neither of these are likely to happen, as criminals that are doing burglaries are in a hurry and not looking for security camera DVRs and data stores, but valuables they can fence quickly like TVs, stereos and jewelry.

If "Stealing your CCTV's recorder" is actually in your threat model, maybe then you should consider a cloud-based solution (or, you know, a real security system and not just a CCTV system). But this just isn't the general case - not even close. The vast majority of these systems are essentially nanny/evil-maid cams.

[cgsmith]

This is a risk. The risk is minimal as most criminals do not destroy the recorder. To minimize the risk the owner could configure the Video Management System to store video offsite. Or the owner could configure the VMS to send an email with video on motion or a digital input paired with a burglar system.

[LinuxBender]

If your system can write 60 second video chunks, then you can sftp the data to a write-only (append only) off site location and only when there is motion. If your system is properly physically secured, then the most you can lose is 60 seconds of them tampering with the cabinet.

[tehlike]

End to end encryption would solve for the downsides.