7 ms·

Everyone is talking about Amazon promoting their own products, but can we talk about the type of products being promoted in the top 5? Security camera, Ring doo

• imglorp 7y ago
  You're worth more as a data source plus customer than just as customer
  • iscrewyou 7y ago
    “F@#k you, pay me.” https://youtu.be/3XGAmPRxV48 https://youtu.be/3XGAmPRxV48
• ne0flex 7y ago
  My assumption is that Amazon will look to integrate home services (home cleaning, home cooking, etc.) once enough people have installed those surveillance devices. My idea of their pitch will be: "our home cleaners can access your home while you're away and they will be monitored 100% of the time while in your house, you already have security cameras, etc. installed so there's no need to worry."
  • nlfwhulsdhouv 7y ago
    That's just great. They're creating this massive underclass of workers that won't be able to afford any of the services they provide. They'll be constantly monitored and any mistake will force them out of the entirely of Amazon's monopolized workforce. Amazon is playing with fire here. Hopefully these new workers will be able to develop solidarity to resist these actions, because the upper middle class these products are marketed to sure aren't going to care about the implications of the surveillance as long as it means no one can lift their new laptop.
    • criley2 7y ago
      Calling Amazon products upper middle class is like calling iPhones upper middle class. Yeah... uh, about that...
      • nlfwhulsdhouv 7y ago
        I certainly wasn't claiming all Amazon products (or even some of the home security products in isolation) were upper middle class. However, most at-home services _are_ upper middle class, and owning a reasonable number of security products is upper middle class. Furthermore, we're interested in the intersection of those two things, implying an even more well-off group.
      • dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        >is like calling iPhones upper middle class. They are. Based on my experience few below the upper middle buy a used one (they opt for used/refurbished).
        • criley2 7y ago
          Haha you're why the commercials work. Hook line and sinker. Many 'poor' people are poor because of spending habits and lack of saving discipline, and it's a hall mark of the modern poor in America to drive a car you can't afford, own an expensive phone, have a big TV, etc. Whether buying it on credit, or buying with money that could/should have been used to pay off debt, save fore retirement etc, it's trivial to buy something like an iPhone for almost anyone in America. iPhones are BELOVED by the poor as a "rich" status symbol, for all the same reasons why you think the poor don't own them. P.S. you can get a brand new iphone for like $30/mo from any major seller. An 18 year old with their first fast food job can buy a big shiny iPhone today. P.P.S most of the 'upper middle class' I'm familiar with doesn't do iPhones and especially not brand new ones, they do budget phones or cheaper android devices because you don't get wealthy spending $1000 every 2 years on a device that costs $275 to manufacture.
          • nlfwhulsdhouv 7y ago
  • Jamwinner 7y ago
    And when they start denying you footage of their workers in your home, for their privacy, then what?
    • netsharc 7y ago
      Then you (or the market in general) don't use their service, and they'll be forced to change their minds, and have their "independent contractor cleaning partners" sign contracts to agree to surveillance to get any gig at all... Fuck the grim Amazon future, with cloud feudalism spreading to real life and Jeff Bezos is Emperor..
    • m-p-3 7y ago
      This is when I deny access to their equipment and their workers in my home.
    • bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      Wait, in this scenario you're envisioning Amazon is doing something for the benefit of their workers?
      • bnjms 7y ago
        No they're envisioning Amazon claiming to protect their workers in bad faith in order to protect Amazon from suits for not vetting their workers properly.
      • NeutronStar 7y ago
        Can't blame Amazozn if they don't let you view their workers entering your home.
      • a3n 7y ago
        The workers have no cash. They work for Amazon. Amazon has a lot of cash. Amazon is protecting Amazon against lawsuits.
    • rchaud 7y ago
      Someone on Hacker News will comment that since you agreed to the EULA, Amazon can do whatever they want.
• Communitivity 7y ago
  If you are allowing for non-legal or quasi-legal means, then most of the devices we carry are susceptible to mostly non-video privacy invasion (cell phones, fitbits, implanted medical devices, cars, etc.). Adding the Ring increases video surveillance. An Echo Dot in your home increases your vulnerability by adding another device (increasing your attack footprint), but the similar data and more could be accessed through your phone. For example: A phone's gyroscope might be able to listen in on you, even if your microphone is off: https://www.wired.com/2014/08/gyroscope-listening-hack/ https://www.wired.com/2014/08/gyroscope-listening-hack/
  • cmcd 7y ago
    Just because a targeted attack could make you vulnerable via existing tech doesn't mean you should invite new products into your home that openly admit to monitoring you.
• subject117 7y ago
  Perhaps you could offer a more privacy friendly version of their security camera? google:duckduckgo:ring:?
• Dirlewanger 7y ago
  It just goes to show how much the powers-that-be don't want to talk about data privacy, and just want you to go back to your lives while corporations continue to do whatever they want with their newfound oil. The Snowden revelations are up there with 9/11 in terms of American history significance, and when they happened, barely anything changed, especially in the general public. No one cares, no one can be bothered to be galvanized to give a shit, and it's because there's too much money to be made from the status quo staying the same.
  • autoexec 7y ago
    > The Snowden revelations are up there with 9/11 in terms of American history significance, and when they happened, barely anything changed, especially in the general public. I'm not sure the American people have the ability to change it at this point. We elected Obama when he campaigned on a promise to end the mass surveillance of American citizens, but once he was in office he expanded the NSAs ability to do just that. James Clapper repeatedly lied to congress about what was happening and has publicly confessed to doing so, yet he faced zero consequences for it. At this point it doesn't seem like the US government represents our best interests and we have very little ability to change that. We've got actual research showing that: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... In this kind of environment what exactly do you expect the general public to do? We have no power or representation in American government.
• criley2 7y ago
  "Call me tinfoil I don't care, but don't invite me to your homes either if the place is going to be bugged, I'm good." The funniest part of this opinion is that 95% of the time I hear it, I say, can you take the bugged device out of your pocket before you talk about not being near bugs? Always with the iPhones and Androids, even though they have the same exact technology for always listening, activating, and sending your data to a database for collection. Very rarely, they'll pull out a dumbphone and that's respectable since generally only governments bug those, and only once in my entire life have I heard someone criticizing bugs actually not walk with a cellphone at all. Now there's someone who demonstrates their convictions with their actions.
  • calcifer 7y ago
    Yes, because you are either living off the grid in an underground bunker, or you're be a twenty something techie who buys every new device. Middle ground, what's that?
    • criley2 7y ago
      What even is this comment? If you care about bugs, don't carry one around. Smartphones are beloved by intelligence agencies for their ease of access. Most devices running today are full of unreported zero days up to and including "hot mic" exploits that are routinely used. If you care, you care. If you don't, don't pretend lol.
      • criley2 7y ago
        I'll add current events to this reply: Donald Trump's use of android cellphones is widely believed by analysts in multiple countries to be listened into by both allied and hostile nations. He constantly uses an android device and it's believed that France, Israel, Russia and others listen into every call he makes. Just saying, bugs are bugs are bugs.
  • autoexec 7y ago
    > Always with the iPhones and Androids, even though they have the same exact technology for always listening, activating, and sending your data to a database for collection. I think there's a fair distinction to be made between a cell phone which you can configure to not listen to your environment 24/7 and even put into airplane mode so it isn't sending data vs intentionally bugging your entire house. It is certainly possible that my cell phone is lying to me when I tell it not to monitor my every word and it tells me that it isn't, but at that point the fault is on Android and Apple. If I choose to bug my house and send the intimate details of my life to Amazon that's 100% on me. It's also true that while these days a cell phone is basically required to function in modern society, a smart speaker is not.
• deleted 7y ago
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• anon9001 7y ago
  Your phone can do all the same things as those devices, and it's a better target for attackers because it's always on you. I just bought into the Nest system (which also had great deals on black friday), and I'm just not worried about it. In reality, bugging my residence isn't going to result in very interesting data. What exactly do you think is going to happen? I just assume all of my data is already compromised, and so is yours, and neither of us can do anything about it. I think it's only useful to mitigate real world risks that materialize from compromised data. So PIN-lock your credit to avoid identity theft, physically secure your home to avoid break-ins, block ads to avoid influence campaigns, segment and restrict your IoT devices to avoid jumpboxes inside your network, etc. If I'm doing something that I do not want recorded, I'd be using linux with a tor connection and strong opsec. The house can still be bugged as long as I don't have a camera pointed at my monitor. If you're trying to host secret meetings in your house, maybe you should consider building a secure room to facilitate that. There's a reason the feds take this approach with SCIFs, because there's really no other way to do it.
  • giggles_giggles 7y ago
    > In reality, bugging my residence isn't going to result in very interesting data. What exactly do you think is going to happen? This is literally "why do you need privacy if you have nothing to hide" in other words. What do I think will happen? I think someone at Amazon might be able to listen in on a conversation I have with my wife. I don't want a third party like Amazon to have a recording of things that I say to my wife because it's none of their business and I don't see a big utility trade-off in being able to ask a voice assistant how many quarts are in a gallon in exchange for letting Amazon record me in my private domicile. And frankly the only reason I carry a mainstream cell phone is because I'm socially required to do so. I don't find the argument of "Google can hear you already through your phone so why not install more microphones in your house" compelling.
    • reroute1 7y ago
      You're right it's not anyones business, but in reality it's still not going to be anyones but yours. Unless there is some breach that or bad actor and but as mentioned that could just as easily be done to your phone.
• cronix 7y ago
  And to think the more people that add these things, the more of a seamless network it creates for "them." If 20% of houses have the ring doorbell (etc), capturing, processing and categorizing everything that goes by it with ML, how long will it take before they are able to track people basically everywhere? Even those who do not own these devices but happen to pass in front of them which will be increasingly impossible to avoid? Their AI will literally be watching you leave your house (from your neighbors) and driving to work, capturing your license plate and knowing who you are via facial recognition, watching (recording) everywhere you go. All nice and tidy with timestamps, stored forever with easy recall. Coupled with the other data they already have. Where where you Jan 27, 2023 at 19:23:43UTC? You'll likely forget by 2024, but Amazon will know and remember forever, thanks to your neighbor. Just think of how much better they can "target ads" with this data, or whatever their justification is, making the world a better place to live. Our antiquated and broken way of lawmaking will take 10 years at least to catch up. That's a lifetime at the current pace.
  • heartbreak 7y ago
    Far more than 20% of people around you are carrying a cell phone.
    • bjornjaja 7y ago
      Harry Potter has an iPhone
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  • a3n 7y ago
    Our laws will never catch up; those devices watch lawmakers too. I can imagine a late afternoon meeting in a lawmaker's office. The lobbyist shows the lawmaker almost his entire day, to demonstrate the "benefit" to the lawmaker, from when he leaves his DC apartment in the morning, to his one hour stay at the No-Tell-Mo-Tell, to the video of him being slapped on the back as he pockets another lobbyist's cash.
• oxymoran 7y ago
  Yes, but if you carry around a smartphone it’s kind of a moot point. Unfortunately, I think pervasive surveillance is inevitable. Perhaps when video and audio evidence becomes completely unreliable due to deepfakes type shenanigans it will actually be a positive because it will make all the surveillance data worthless? Maybe they are the the answer to each other’s problems?
  • Johnny555 7y ago
    Yes, but if you carry around a smartphone it’s kind of a moot point That's what I tell people when they ask how I can stand having an Echo listening to me in my house -- and then he took out his phone and used Siri to look up the privacy problems. He didn't understand the irony even when I pointed it out.
    • losteric 7y ago
      Well I'm unhappy about cellphone tracking too. Why is that problem justification for bending over to the expanding surveillance state?
      • Johnny555 7y ago
        You can be unhappy about it, but don't use Siri on your phone to tell my why an Echo in my livingroom is the problem.
  • mindslight 7y ago
    Only a "smart" phone full of surveillance software from Google, Apple, et al. If your pocket computer is running software under your control, then apart from baseband malware [0], you're only leaking your location data - a far cry from continual audio surveillance. [0] Who knows how prevalent this is, especially with the popularity of defective by design integrated Qualcomm chipsets etc. But at least this is at the level of national governments, rather than agile consumer companies with stated missions of datamining as much as they can for economic advantage.
• deleted 7y ago
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• bisby 7y ago
  > just waiting for that data to be compromised by hackers, data leaks, you name it you forgot, "sold" or "misused against you". It's just as dangerous in the hands of amazon as it is in the hands of hackers.
• gerdesj 7y ago
  There is nothing wrong with IoT stuff provided that care is taken in deployment. You can do it yourself or you could get me to install it instead as a ... a ... hmmm ... IoT accredited errr ... what standard is appropriate? As it turns out I am personally CREST accredited and run a small IT company with ISO9001, 27001 and advise on PCI DSS and the like. I bathe in tin foil. In the UK we have a pretty simple standard called Cyber Essentials and a higher one called Cyber Essentials Plus. https://www.cyberessentials.ncsc.gov.uk/ https://www.cyberessentials.ncsc.gov.uk/ why not give it a go? Even if you are not from the UK then there is some good advice there - https://www.cyberessentials.ncsc.gov.uk/advice/ https://www.cyberessentials.ncsc.gov.uk/advice/ Anyway, VLANS and firewall and self hosting is the key to my idea of a decent IoT smart home. Also I insist on manual controls if the controller is down. I also do a proper risk assessment on each device.