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Across the US, Popular Video Doorbells Are Recording their Own Thefts (digitaltrends.com)
There has been an uptick in reports of video doorbells getting stolen, according to local news reports. A story adds: According to the reports, residents are waking up in the morning or coming home at night only to find their video doorbell devices stolen. Typically the devices are screwed into place on the outside of a house, often with mounts or braces to hold them in place. While they are wired into the wall, thieves don't seem to care too much about that. In most cases, residents appear to report the devices have been pried off the side of their home. In some cases, the cameras are able to capture an image of the perpetrator as they are stealing the device. Those images are usually available through mobile apps connected to the doorbell, which might help police track down the person responsible for the theft. However, there's no guarantee that officers will be able to find the thieves, especially if they steal the device while keeping their face and other identifying features covered while on camera. Police are suggesting that people keep track of the serial number on their devices in order to keep track of them and watch in case the devices appear on Craigslist, eBay, or other online marketplaces.
I always wondered about those loose easily grabbable and expensive cameras sitting where they could be easily plucked.
This is yet another case where Star Wars has important life lessons to offer us, this time on the subject of door security.
Do you think anyone tried to grab Jabba the Hutt's door security camera? Hell no and if they tried to grab it even after it came out from the shielding, you can bet the camera could take care of itself (and the grabber).
So, still waiting for some company to produce the armored and active Jabba door cam. Been waiting for a while now, come on guys!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... if they could ring back home "maybe" we could know their location!?
Unless the perpetrator kills someone in the process, are the police going to do anything even if they know who did it?
I'm NaN, I'm a free variable.
It's cute that you think that these are equipped with secure enclaves and such like a cellular phone rather than a hard reset like your garden variety WiFi router or IoT device.
Security is something to add in v4 so that you capture a an additional round of upgrades after the early adopters and first wave mass adopters get burned by having multi-hundred-dollar pieces of equipment wander off.
I have a Nest Hello. If it gets stolen, Nest will replace it for free as long as I file a police report.
Yoda of Borg am I! Assimilated shall you be! Futile resistance is, hmm?
What to do if Your Ring Device is Stolen
Question: My Ring device was stolen! What should I do and is there anything that Ring can do to help me?
Answer: Yes. Ring has a procedure and policy in place that will help you get a free replacement Ring device as quickly as possible after your Ring device has been stolen. The remainder of this article contains the steps you should follow.
Immediately report the theft to the police. Before you do anything else regarding your stolen Ring device, you should report the theft to the police. Follow their instructions regarding what you should do until an officer arrives to take your report. They may tell you not to enter your home just in case the theft of the Ring is part of a larger break-in.
Take pictures of the damage but do not touch the scene before the police arrive. You should take care not to remove or touch any damaged components that remain behind or disturb the ground around the location. By doing so you may disturb potential evidence such as finger or shoe prints.
Request a copy of the theft report as soon as possible. You will need the police report in order for Ring to provide you with a free replacement device.
Once you acquire a police report, report the theft to Ring by using the email address Theft@Ring.com. Note that all communications from Ring regarding a reported theft will emanate from this email address. You will need to provide a copy of the police report to begin the free replacement process.
Once the police report is verified, Ring will gladly provide a free replacement within 7-10 business days.
Important notes concerning the Ring theft replacement policy:
The replacement of stolen Ring units is a courtesy service provided by Ring. Ring reserves the right to deny this service at any time due to suspected fraud, malfeasance, or any other cause.
Notifications of device theft sent to theft@Ring.com must be received within six months of the date printed on the police report concerning the theft of the device. Honoring the stolen item replacement policy subsequent to six months after the theft of a Ring device is solely at the discretion of Ring.
Replacement devices offered under this policy are offered on a "like for like" basis. The replacement device will be the same make and model as the original stolen device.
You don't need a secure enclave to lock them out. These devices requires you to create an account with the manufacturer, so Ring/Nest/etc will have a record of both the serial number and who owns it.
When they're hard reset, the serial number doesn't change. All they need to do is prevent re-registration of the same camera again on their system.
This. I've been of the opinion for a while that any hardware costing more than $100 should be required by law to have a lock-out feature that prevents unauthorized use, in such a way that if the user locks himself/herself out, it can only be unlocked by the manufacturer after providing the original proof of purchase or some other plausible chain of custody from the original purchaser.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Thief bait . . . . . hmmmmm . . . . . that gives me some ideas. Extra wire which, when broken, unlocks the gate and lets the pit bulls out. Or something along those lines. I guess Claymores would be going a bit too far.
But I honestly believe that porch pirates deserve killing.
Police "suggesting" that people record serial numbers and "patrol" craigslist, fb market place, eBay, store bulletin boards.. what nonsense. Either the police actively will work a crime or they won't. Apparently personal property crime has become such a banality, law enforcement have abdicated their responsibilities. We as citizens shrug with little recourse other than conscientious objectors, must accept the fact the US is one step from anarchy.
This reminds me of the early 1970s when crime was so bad all the cops could do was recommend you get a gun to protect yourself.
That seems like it might be used by some manufacturers as an excuse to effectively prevent selling of used devices. Which is not to say that it would be a net negative—just that it can be abused.
Then, possibly less than a year after the thing hits the shelves, the company loses interest and you're just out over $100 because they've been "discontinued".
I assume they then blacklist the serial number of the stolen camera rendering it useless. This is what all electronics companies should do. Make it absolutely clear that any stolen device with a serial number that needs to talk to home base to operate becomes useless once stolen.
Ideally, if you try to configure a stolen device, a big flag comes up on the phone/tablet/computer you're using to do the setup informing you the thing you are setting up has been stolen and is a useless piece of junk. Even better, QR code on every device you can scan with their app and see if it's been recorded stolen or not.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Criminals are, for the most part, not the brightest bulbs on the tree, which is mostly why they're only an inconvenience in the grand scheme of things and not a tremendous threat to civilization. It's certainly not the cops (at least not those around here) who protect us from petty crime.
I had some idiot break into my truck, in my driveway and in plain view of three different security cameras, and steal a variety of rather worthless items - prescription glasses, my old radio scanner, and (worst) my half-broken 3-year-old cell phone (cracked screen, 802.11 radio no longer worked, etc. but I was still using it). Called the cops, gave them the videos that showed the guy's face, and told them the phone was still on so I could get its location. The phone was getting good coverage (gps was reporting +/- 20ft error), and given its presence in a wooded ravine about a mile away known to be a homeless hangout, I suspected it was still with the thief. Literally all the deputy would have had to do was drive over and I'd call it. Bust the guy, haul him in. Nope. We'll take a report, call your insurance company, we don't plan to do anything. Yet later that day, on my way to replace my sunglasses, they had plenty of time to pull me over for 7 over the speed limit.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
In California, if they don't steal more than ~$1000 worth of stuff, the courts won't convict them. So the police have responded by not even arresting them.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I am not a lawyer, but here is how it was explained to me: You can resell it, but right of first sale does not obligate the original company to re-register the device. If they say that registration costs them money (any amount), then unless they are paid again by the new owner, they are not obligated to provide the service. And they do not have to accept payment from the new owner. So I could legally buy a video door bell device from you (company cannot stop that), but the video of my front door would continue to go to your cell phone.
Courts? Judges do not decide guilt, so you must be talking about juries. Are you saying your juries find them not guilty unless $1k? How does that happen? Why is your populace so forgiving? Or is it actually prosecutors who will not bring the cases to the court?
The court schedules are clogged and everyone involved is fine with a bench trial, so the defense attorney asks for one.
The jail and prison system reports its expected population levels and how many new prisoners it can take in the next N days. They have to keep space for violent felons, so there's no space for small-time thieves.
Ergo, the judge doesn't sentence prison time and the system helps this whole process along with a non-custodial plea bargain. Better yet, "everyone" thinks that stayed sentences which are expunged after 2-3 years are better for the criminal and society (no bothersome record to impede jobs or housing), so that's what they get.
Incarcerating nearly 1% of your population is hard.
True problem criminals usually wind up arrested in weeks or months at most, so no expungement is going to hide them. I mostly agree that saddling someone with a lifelong criminal history for a single instance of petty crime is a mistake, especially if complicates jobs or housing -- economics is a big driver towards further criminality if legitimate employment isn't an option.
The lack of jail space is a real issue. I interned in the legislature and was told by our state's prison director that the sentencing guidelines flexed based on some complex formula involving projected prison space. If you're going to sentence someone to prison, you have to have a place to actually put them. The relief valve was releasing inmates early, mostly males over 40 who were seen as unlikely to reoffend (single violent crime, committed early 20s, no history of discipline problems behind bars). The average length of incarceration for *all* crimes including murder was just 7 years, you take out a handful of people serving life or 30 year stretches and that number dropped a lot -- nobody stays in jail for long for any non-violent offense.
Prisons are fucking expensive to build and operate as a facility alone, let alone the costs of inmates individually (food, medical, etc). If you want them locked up you have to either be willing to put forward the money to run the institutions right or stop locking people up.
Frankly, start with the failure that is the war on drugs. Stop arresting anyone with less than an ounce of anything, whether its heroin or marijuana. Just don't bother. If you must, keep arresting actual dealers with kilos/pounds, but the ones in between an ounce and a kilo? Just confiscate the supply, the cartels/bosses will take care of sloppy dealers on their own.
I'd actually like to see freed up police effort on better patrolling/protection of residential areas and property crime enforcement. That's real quality of life stuff, but I don't have any illusions you can imprison away that problem. Interdiction and raising the risk level to property thieves should help drive down that number, as well as broadening the ability of people to defend their property with deadly force.