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A Smart Doorbell Company Is Working With Cops To Report 'Suspicious' People, Activities (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Smart doorbell company Ring is making it easier for customers to call the cops on "suspicious" people and activities. The startup, which Amazon acquired for reportedly "more than" $1 billion this year, uses security cameras to let people monitor their entryways. Now, it's launching its Neighbors app -- a platform for reporting crime that, so far, police in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, and the Ventura Sheriff's Department, have access to. "Over the next days and weeks, law enforcement across the U.S. will be joining Neighbors," a Ring spokesperson told me over email.

The app, while presented as a crime-fighting aid, could also be a new place for paranoid people to profile fellow citizens, as similar platforms in the past have turned out to be. According to the company's statement in a press release for Neighbors today: "In addition to receiving push notifications about potential security issues, app users can see recent crime and safety posts uploaded by their neighbors, the Ring team and local law enforcement via an interactive map. If a neighbor notices suspicious activity in their area, they can post their own text, photo or video and alert the community to proactively prevent crime."

5 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Re:In Florida? Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In Florida it was decided that it was OK to shoot someone much larger than yourself who had you down on the ground and was slamming your head into the concrete. That's not the same thing as just shooting anyone who looks suspicious.

  2. Re:In Florida? Really? by ganjadude · · Score: 4, Insightful

    trayvon made the first contact not the other way around, per trayvons girlfriend under oath. last i checked, walking behind someone isnt a crime

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  3. Re:Makes sense by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Kids aren't stupid, they just have to be trained right."

    Well, it worked for me.

    We had a gun in the house, and I was a young child, I think I was likely in about 5th-6th grade when we got it.

    My dad showed me how the pistol worked, and let me shoot it, etc.

    They also put the fear of God into me if I ever so much as thought about touching it without supervision.

    I was a latch key kid...both parents worked, I came home alone most school days and when I was about 13yrs, I would spend summer days home alone.

    I was told where the guns was, and I knew it was loaded.

    One day when home alone, it was raining. A strange man came up and stayed in our door way, He was asking for a drink of water, I refused behind the locked door. I was frightened....as per my parent's instructions, I was then ok'ed for me to get the gun.

    I retrieved it, I chambered a round and held it, till the storm passed, and he finally left.

    After I felt safe, I dropped the magazine, un-chambered the round, put the round back in magazine and put magazine back in gun, and replaced it where it was usually hidden.

    After I did that,I called my Mom at work and told her what happened, etc.

    Are kids more stupid today and can't handle this?

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  4. It's paranoia when they're really victimizing you? by swb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've lived in large single family home residential neighborhood in a city (looks suburban, but is in the city) for 19 years and over the past 5+ years, the amount of nuisance theft has skyrocketed. Just on my *block* it's not unusual to hear about a car being rifled, strange "door to door" sales people with no materials/identification/logos. We had a rash of car entries using keyless entry repeaters and a couple of sneak burglaries (snatching purses from kitchen tables). Over a week last November, the entire larger neighborhood was hit by package thieves, including my house. 3 different people had footage of the car involved.

    I had a long conversation with my council member about what can be done and was told that we should just report it and then do insurance or whatever. I asked why we couldn't get more police patrols and was told our area was "too low crime" (the numbers say we're the lowest crime area in the city) and there wasn't sufficient resources.

    So what the fuck? Just put up with it? That's the answer? Or just change my thinking, it *must* be my racial bias?

    Or this is somehow really ad-hoc redistributive economic justice, and I'm just too racist to notice?

  5. scare quotes by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I love the scare quotes around "suspicious", like that's just some crazy impossible concept.