Business & Finance The Ring Doorbell Issue
- Thread starter Sailor.X
- Start date
This is why the only cameras I have are WIRED and on an isolated system.
posh-goofiness
Well-known member
But then how will you allow our overloards to monitor your every moment?
They can just assume that I'm constantly lifting my middle finger in perpetual salute.
Ring is a horrid idea.
Wireless cameras aren't. But you really should have each camera incorporate its own Trusted Platform Module and have its communications with the controlling server be encrypted in both directions.
None of the public commercial, consumer, systems are a good idea. For example, Ring routes everything from the camera through Amazon's systems and then feeds it to you (and the Ring hardware isn't particularly secure, nor are most peoples home WiFi networks). Note that Amazon is the actual owner of all of those recordings and they count as business records and are thus subject to subpoena without your necessarily being aware.
Seriously, if the government (or even a private party in a civil suit) sees that you have a Ring system then they will just subpoena Amazon for all of their records related to you and Amazon will hand them over without hesitation. Going through a divorce and think your spouse cheated on you with someone who has a Ring system? Well you can subpoena that other individuals Ring records to see if you can find your spouse visiting them (as just one of the many, many, potential issues).
If you want a smart home (of any real description) then you need to set up your own server at home to manage it, use hardware that talks with that server without going through third party systems, and is probably open source. It's not actually that expensive to hire someone to make a custom app for you to manage all of your smart home systems or to pay an IT person to do the initial set up.
Much more expensive than buying Ring but then you aren't giving Amazon (or Google) eyes and ears inside your home.
Wireless cameras aren't. But you really should have each camera incorporate its own Trusted Platform Module and have its communications with the controlling server be encrypted in both directions.
None of the public commercial, consumer, systems are a good idea. For example, Ring routes everything from the camera through Amazon's systems and then feeds it to you (and the Ring hardware isn't particularly secure, nor are most peoples home WiFi networks). Note that Amazon is the actual owner of all of those recordings and they count as business records and are thus subject to subpoena without your necessarily being aware.
Seriously, if the government (or even a private party in a civil suit) sees that you have a Ring system then they will just subpoena Amazon for all of their records related to you and Amazon will hand them over without hesitation. Going through a divorce and think your spouse cheated on you with someone who has a Ring system? Well you can subpoena that other individuals Ring records to see if you can find your spouse visiting them (as just one of the many, many, potential issues).
If you want a smart home (of any real description) then you need to set up your own server at home to manage it, use hardware that talks with that server without going through third party systems, and is probably open source. It's not actually that expensive to hire someone to make a custom app for you to manage all of your smart home systems or to pay an IT person to do the initial set up.
Much more expensive than buying Ring but then you aren't giving Amazon (or Google) eyes and ears inside your home.
Doomsought
Well-known member
No. Avoid wireless cameras at all costs. The manufacturers leave in hard coded passwords for customer support. This is an endemic problem.
Get power over Ethernet cameras and hook them up to an on prem server. You don't need much throughput, so you can make a cheap home server using PC parts and a bunch of hard drives.
That isn't a problem with wireless cameras. It is a problem with most of the wireless cameras available on the consumer commercial market, as I already said.
The issue with wired cameras is that you have to run the ethernet cables and, likely, drill through exterior walls. It's not so bad if you are putting the cameras into new construction but it is a pain in older buildings. It is also a pain if you want cameras covering the grounds of a facility. With wireless you can slap on a relatively small solar panel and some wireless repeaters and have a camera installed. With wired you will likely need to trench (or hang) wire.
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The issue isn't with wireless cameras as a concept, it is with bad implementations of wireless cameras.
posh-goofiness
Well-known member
@Emperor Tippy You still need to drill holes for power. So you might as well use PoE.
Depends on the setup.
Homes are also already wired for power, most aren't wired for data (even most new construction isn't wired for data, although they should be). Connecting a camera to the already extant electrical wiring is generally substantially easier than running ethernet cables through the walls.
Making a wireless setup very secure (it's inherently less secure than wired but can still be very secure) isn't that hard. Doing it using off the shelf consumer grade cameras and other hardware is where it becomes difficult to impossible.
I mean if you wanted to take over a home security network the place to start most of the time is the homes WiFi. Once you compromise the home WiFi you can leverage that access into compromising basically everything else given relatively little time.
Granted, if you want to break in to most homes (even with "good" security) then generally all you need is a relatively weak jammer, lockpicks, and wire cutters. Cut the phone/cable/fiber connection and turn on the jammer and the home alarm is basically entirely disabled along with any off site feeds from cameras, etc. Pick the lock, do what you want, and just pull the HD from computer controlling the cameras (if there are any).
Doomsought
Well-known member
Having been roped into some home improvements when I was younger, this is absolutely not the case. Wires are only run horizontally though studs when a house is being built or during a full walls-off renovation. Whenever you are adding new outlets to a house, you are dropping a fresh wire from the attic down between the studs.
Adding a PoE switch or two to the attic is actually substantially easier than splicing in the same number of new lines to existing circuits. With a PoE setup, you only need to add a single outlet to the attic if you don't already have one in a good spot. After that there is no additional splicing of wires into mains power will be required. This makes a PoE setup easier, it is a handyman job rather than a licensed electrician job.