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Startup Wants To Peek Through Your Home's Wired Cameras
alphadogg writes "The little cameras in your home are multiplying. There are the ones you bought, perhaps your SLR or digital camera, but also those that just kind of show up in your current phone, your old phone, your laptop, your game console, and soon your TV and set-top box. Varun Arora, founder of startup GotoCamera in Singapore, wants you to turn them all on and let his company's algorithms analyze what they show, then sell the results as marketing data, in a sort of visual version of what Google and other firms do with search results and free email services."
Startup wants to peek through the wired cameras in your home, sell the data
Wait, wait. Could we go back and cover the part about why I would want them to do this, again?
And ponies, too. Good luck with that...
Free Martian Whores!
I'd trade pictures of myself in my underwear for a "free" console. For an added fee, I'll even put clothes on.
Maybe if ponies were the incentive offered, this would be a viable startup idea.
To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
a startup that provides online storage and software for web and Wi-Fi cams
Sadly omitted from the summary (albeit in the article) — the user gets "free" storage in exchange for the analytics.
Far too little to convince me to share such data, though.
Let's just give the conspiracy nutjobs MORE reasons to freak out.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Let a company spy on me constantly so it can make a profit by selling information about me? That sounds like a great deal for me. Where do I sign up?
No company or "customer" could possibly be this stupid.
Oh, you evil bastards!
If I'm allowed to encrypt the images and videos before I upload them, then sure, you can run all the analytics you want on the encrypted files.
I'll happily take the free storage in exchange for that.
Fuck you. No.
Pardon me for being crude but - what are these nutjobs thinking? All it takes is someone in the household going "Sure, we'll do that!" and then little 15 year old Suzie walks by the camera on the way from her bathroom to her bedroom and *boom!* the company behind this has just analyzed child porn. Congrats!
I cover up or disconnect all cameras in my home that might be turned on remotely for one simple reason -- it is my private home. Period. The end.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfbK_dbsCu0
Good people go to bed earlier.
Ponies and wireless cams?
You pervert.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
founder of startup GotoCamera in Singapore, wants you to turn them all on
Especially those ones in your underage daughter's bedroom.
Sounds like we should give them the same image as one reproduces by sitting on the copy machine, sans trou.
Sounds like a great deal, actually. I get free off-site storage and all I have to do it put little post-it notes over the webcams on my computers. I'd change the color each day, just to give their consumer data algorithm something different to look at. Only draw-back is the resulting spam email with offers for pills that will turn my penis yellow or electric blue.
Um, no.
So, if I got this then I could guarantee that all of my spam would be about weight loss, masturbation aids, and (naughty) maid services? I don't see the difference from my current crop of spam.
My botnet already does this. Except I don't sell marketing data to advertisers. Visit RealAmatuerTube.ru. /TongueInCheek
Silence is a state of mime.
Sign up for the service, get the freebies...and then paste a screenshot of goat.se in front of the camera.
Time's fun when you're having flies. - Kermit the Frog
We very well may be heading toward an Orwellian future. Sadly we seem to be selling ourselves while making it happen more so than it being thrust upon us. I'm still dumbfounded by shows like the Jersey Shore, Kardasians, etc. These people are rich because they act like (or are) complete morons and do so in front of a camera. Then the masses happily do the same on Youtube for free. And now this. Lets' not forget the domestic drones and other cameras that have been slowly invading our privacy for years.
I remember as a small child being creeped out thinking that the people on the television could see me the same as I could see them. It seems this could very well become reality soon.
Weren't we supposed to have flying cars, no poverty, and shiny cities under glass domes on the moon to go along with the computers, "eyes in the sky", the police state, and video phones? Someone really screwed this up.
I don't know about ponies... surely it is horses that would sell more videos.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If you want to sell some porn, hire some actors you cheapskates.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I don't think these guys are going to get what they are looking for.
Or maybe they are - if they are going to sell the data to Durex and Trojan...
We are timing the product to launch at the same time these cameras become available. We are making it easier than ever to block intrusive cameras in your home.
Look for our product out soon.
Electrical Tape.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Is it 1983- are we getting ready for 1984?
Cameras in our home watching us? Plus bad.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Me
For now, his company makes money by charging manufacturers for offering its services with their products, or from users that upgrade to extra storage. Currently most such cameras are USB-driven, but a new wave of cheap Wi-Fi models are on the way, and manufacturers like Samsung and Panasonic are putting them into TVs and other devices, mainly for motion control and video conferencing.
"USB is a sunset industry" for cameras, Arora said. He showed off a tiny wireless camera from partner Trek 2000 International, about the size of a roll of film. It sells online for about US$65, and other manufacturers will soon launch for less than $50. Unlike USB models, Wi-Fi cameras don't need to be plugged into a computer or network, and usually just require a power source, which makes them ideal for security and monitoring.
As the prices of such devices fall, manufacturers will be squeezed, and GotoCamera proposes to provide a portion of the online fees it receives back to them, a rare ongoing revenue stream he compares to disposable blades for shaving razors, that must be continually purchased.
"What we say to them is, 'Please accept that you're a commodity, and let us bring the Gillette model to you,'" Arora said.
Their primary audience seems to be camera manufacturers, not users. The indirect offer to consumers seems to be, "buy this camera at a discount and in exchange we get access to its video feed."
Which is not enough to make me buy one, but hey, maybe it's enough for others. Or it'll just be in the fine print and people won't know about it.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Isn't it cheaper to just buy USB memory (or disks or..)?
Korma: Good
Google, Bing (from Microsoft), and others track your search requests but also provide free access to their search results when you ask for them.
GMail (from Google). Live Mail (from Microsoft) and others may scan your e-mail, but they also block spam and give you a functional e-mail account.
GotoCamera is not from a rich company and only seems interested in selling your data to marketers. Could they at least offer some sort of "We'll call 911 for you..." or other feature that would at least be a benefit to the consumer. Just noticing the brands in my kitchen and filling the living room TV with ads from their competitors just doesn't work. Why do we need to connect our cameras to him in the first place?
no, ponies are of a much more comfortable height. For a horse you'd need a ladder.
upload bandwidth is limited in most homes mostly on DSL but lot's of cable systems as well. And it all counter as part of the CAP.
And that's final.
Did he really just say that?
Did he just call me a fungible mass material, like pork bellies and orange juice? Am I going to be traded as futures at the Chicago Board of Trade?
My God. He just called us sheep. No, not even sheep. Less than sheep. Meat. Raw materials. Resources, in the most over-the-top insulting reading of "Human Resources" possible.
Wow. I guess some people have no subtlety. And no shame. And scum like this wants to turn the world into the largest episode of The Prisoner ever.
Let me reiterate. I am not a number. I am a free man.
I must respectfully decline your intriguing offer. I will not be subscribing to your newsletter.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Fuck No!
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I don't plug in a web cam in unless I'm going to use it, then disconnect it when I'm done,
I have a web cam built into the monitor, that I have only connected once, and then only briefly.
Adobe's Flash configuration gave fair warning, Before, every time you updated flash if you
didn't disable "sites can access your Web Cam" it was allowed by default.
Nope, got lot's web cam sitting around none are connected at this time
Have you read Microsoft's Kinect TOS/privacy agreement?
It's scary. I'll never get one, and they want to put this crap in laptops? HAaHHAHAHAHahHAH
I wonder how many crack smokers are busted in front of their xbox by kinect/dea
Bonsai horses...
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Whoever bred the morons that came up with this idea: YOU FAIL IT.
Seriously, amok runs should be a lot more common around these guys.
Gonna be getting a whole lot of porn adverts in my home
EULA...I agree
Privacy Policy...I agree
Countersurveillance Agreement...I ag...wait, wuh?
Sure, I'll take them up on the offer. If they want to give me a free high quality camera I could remove from the device and use for a webcam I see 100% win-win for me, all they are going to be receiving is "No Signal".
Why you think the net was born? Ponies, ponies, ponies...
(And Mr. Varun Arora of GotoCamera? I'll have you know I'm not wearing underwear today!)
Unless they can actually figure out useful marketing info from 99% dicks, I'm not sure how this is supposed to work.
... they will see I won't buy any penis enlargement treatments!
So you've purchased a cellphone with microphone, video camera and GPS capability. And you've also purchased an extremely high-powered computing device to play games on that, coincidentally, has high-powered voice-processing and surveillance capabilities (e.g. Xbox360 w/kinect). On neither of these devices do you have admin/root privileges. And both of them have been shown to connect to their "home" manufacturers/owners and send back data periodically.
So... suppose law enforcement decides to publish their Top 10 Wanted to both of these manufacturers with the understanding that all capable devices will periodically scan for known voice patterns and/or facial patterns and report back findings. Nothing technically impossible about this.
So... once it becomes ridiculously cheap to store this data... why not scan continuously under the guise of "homeland security"? Characteristics can include people with long beards, dark skin, particular languages, what-have-you.
But you may be thinking... "I have nothing to hide. If a company is willing to buy me a camera/game/etc they can watch me all they want." Recall... there's a difference between having nothing to hide and having nothing to show.
... a pickpocket and a peeping tom?
A: a pickpocket snatches watches
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
rant >
I've been peddling this argument to the pro surveillance people for years: "Would you like someone looking into your bedroom at night ?" - and every time I've been booed off stage with comments about things would never go that far... lol
Seeing how people piss away their last shreds of privacy and how governments are forcing deep packet inspection on users even in a small western so called democratic country like Denmark and how now these (CENSORED) targeted commercial morons are wanting to run the peep show - To those people telling me to lighten up l can now triumphantly say - See, I told you so - Now go cry at someone else's doorstep as STASI 2.01 is being installed in your bedroom.
This is a filthy idea thought up by individuals and corporations that sees you as nothing more than a commodity... I hope the idea will be stopped dead in it's tracks as people realise that this is simply going too far...
aaaagh !!
/ rant ends >
Oh by the way if suddenly tomorrow I'm very cheerful about this idea it might be because I'm somewhere warm and sunny with a nice cold drink in my hand on the deck of a yacht that I suddenly won along with an around the world trip ;)
This will do wonders for duct tape sales.
Is buying a Harley Davidson as your first motorcycle since you were 16 at age 49 a midlife crisis issue?
"But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows "
How about......NO!!!!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
They seem to have forgotten something: ...Or dont they get a choice at all (other than to not buy any product with this 'feature')?
What benefit does the user get from giving up their privacy? i.e. what is their motivation for agreeing to this?
house hunts YOU!
Why would you want a ladder? You can't get down off of a horse, so why go up one?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Look, the last thing I need is more penis enlargement ads.... :-)
Ian Ameline
These may work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chincoteague_Pony
They are smaller. And you can actually buy them. They have an auction every year.
It seems like it would be fairly easy with a Unix machine to feed this guy still images from an archive rather than live shots. So, serve up your five terabytes of porn to this guy and rake in the dough.
Actually I just want to see what's showing from your wife's webcam ;)
Who the hell even thought this is even close to being a good idea?
You got got to wonder maybe too much curry screws up your head or something.
Let them collect the data from a Chatroulette window every night while you're sleeping.
Thank you for reminding me of the TV that was always on in "1984". Ever present, ever vigilant and recording.
If only Orwell/Blair had known what we can do with technology today, he would have had a field day writing "2014".
FUCK THAT SHIT!
You don't need to ask permission, you only need to know how to google. Lots of people install cameras and leave them wide open for anyone to view.
Search for anything with inurl:/view.shtml
This has been known for a long time.
There is even a bunch of blogs and videos detailing exactly how to do this:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/hack-to-search-and-view-free-live-webcam-with-google-search/
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-view-live-cams-through-google-155767/
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
FUCK OFF AND DIE!
I do not have any "wired cameras" and if I did, they would be both disabled, and physically covered! Talk about the ultimate invasion of privacy!?
The business world is becoming obsessed with the value that can be attached to knowing more about people's habits and using that knowledge to sell them stuff. There isn't infinite value in this stuff, though. The more you collect, the less value individual data points have. Ultimately, it will be self-defeating - when every competitor knows everything there is to know about their customer base, there's no point in knowing anything. At which point, I suppose, they take the final step in monetizing the data by selling it to the government.
By accident this system takes a picture of an under age child with less than 100% clothing coverage - Mr Arora's system just made a child porn image. I suspect that Singapore has strict liability and very harsh penalties for such crimes.
How many pictures of minor children in various states of undress to they need to upload before they get shut down by onerous child pornography laws?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I have no control over what anyone else says or posts about me on Facebook or elsewhere, irrespective of whether or not I choose to create a page on Facebook.
In point of fact I have a Facebook page that I didn't create and have no control over. Because I wrote some RFCs I've been found to be a "public figure".
On the bright side there would be more marketing
for correctly sized (smaller) condoms.
Please allow me to set the record straight.
First, this is horrible - this is not what we do, it is not what I meant. What it is is a lesson in being VERY careful with what one says to the media, as it can and will be sensationalized. Catchy headlines generate interest.
We do NOT analyze and sell customers' video data. NOT.
What we're about, first and foremost, is making video monitoring accessible for everyone. A large part of this is about making it affordable. The part about analyzing video data and selling this to marketers was a thought about ONE way to reduce costs for folks who want the full service but need it to be free, on a VERY UPFRONT OPT-IN basis, selectively, one by one. At some point in the future.
It's not meant to be a one-size-fits-all - I know I, for one, do NOT want my home camera video feed being analyzed and sold. My point was that there COULD be folks out there who think this is okay so long as (a) no human's looking at it (b) it's non-personal, sort of like what Gmail does with our email. As video analytics capabilities get better and systems get faster, this is a possibility that might arise, especially for folks who want the full service for free.
As things stand, the entire loop - starting with the camera connection to the server through to the browser - is encrypted. We do not have access to any of this. Customers' privacy is important to us. Please remember: WE are people too, WE are customers and users of the service too. It's very easy to lose sight of the fact that a company comprises individuals, real people, with real values, real families.
To conclude, this is NOT what we do today, it is NOT what we do or intend to do with our customers' data, and this is merely a thought about what MIGHT happen in the future. It does make for an interesting headline, though, which is probably why Jay chose to focus on it. :-)
- Varun Arora
CEO, GotoCamera