And even then, big question mark, as most Chinese produced camera modules have black box firmware. If it's on the Internet it's not yours.

The problem isn't that it's being sent to the cloud, the problem is that it's not being encrypted and Amazon is doing whatever they fuck they want with it, including giving it to law enforcement without a warrant.

Can't you get a surveillance camera from anywhere and use that?

Copyright theft is only an issue for the poor.

Have you been in a cave where AI doesn't exist, or....?

I’m half curious if I cut open the box… you think there’d be an easy way to replace the camera with a video stream of my choosing? Because I wouldn’t mind cutting out the camera and leaving the device plugged into my PC for a constant headless stream of video content.

Nope. Ring cameras are part of Amazon Sidewalk which is effectively an automatic, invisible, and not end-user-controllable wireless mesh network "meant to keep devices working during wifi outages" or in other words to ensure the data makes it back to the cloud at any cost.

Their are more and more device manufacturers starting to use techniques like this to ensure connection regardless of owner intent.

Interesting, I didn’t think about that nor did I know about the mesh network someone else mentioned in a reply to you. In my case, I’m renting the home. The landlord pays for a very small internet package that is reserved for the cameras. He stopped paying for the subscription at some point but he still pays for the Internet it connects to, which is how we were able to access live footage in the past.

When I said “we no longer have the ring camera.” More accurately I could have said “we stopped charging it.” The landlord would probably have a minor aneurism if we tried explaining why we want to replace the camera he mounted a case for into the stucko by the front door.

I used to have a nest doorbell. You can set it to record continuously, just FYI.

E: that will also require a subscription, which includes 60 days of saved footage (and other stuff)

I'm late to your reply but it was well explained and I feel like I learned something new. Thanks!

Meta algorithms have ghost profiles, including dead people or babies not yet born

You can’t put a mask on and cover your distinguishing features? Weak

Tell me without telling me that you've never needed the police to do anything useful.

If I could figure out how to engage with your nonsense I would.

People seem suprised when they find out that they capture where their mouse moves, where their finger swipes, the duration, the speed. Everything is a metric.

It's pretty trivial to block devices from accessing the Internet.

So, what security cameras would you use or are you just back seat driving without a good suggestion?

I have absolutely no problem using these kinds of devices.

I have an old phone and a generic Play account that I used for setup so the companies have nothing of consequence but my public IP address. Setup takes less than 15 minutes and after that all Internet access is completely blocked just like it would be if I unplugged my cable modem. There is no way for the cameras to override my router settings.

My smart TV is much more of a concern.

I have a few Amcrest cameras and they're pretty decent as well. Outdoor rated, PoE, 4k, UV LEDs, they have PTZ variants too and offer standard RTSP streams without any kind of vendor software hassle.

Running a local NVR with some image segmentation and classification models is goodbut also consider adding a bit of Kismet and SDR trickery. Having a bit more awareness is always useful and the radio spectrum is increasingly full of useful information that can be relevant to home security.

Most people are also radio beacons of some form or another due to their tech/car/flipper zero and being able to detect things like modern cars, people wearing bluetooth earbuds, wifi deauthentication attacks or new radio sources which could indicate some kind of hostile surveillance or tracking... those are all useful and relatively simple things to monitor. With a bit more money you could make some good estimates about the location and relative motion of these sources.

You could also add some cheap SDRs and listen to your local county's dispatch trunking system. This is perfectly legal, it's all broadcast in the clear. CB users and scanner owners used to do this but it became harder once they switched to trunking systems because you required some kind of processor to navigate the trunking protocol. Now you can do the same thing with 2 cheap RTL-SDRs and some open source software: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9KJrtIO8_4 Language models reading transcripts of these could alert you to any major events near you, like a traffic accident (or active shooting, USA! USA! USA!).

Obviously this is a bit more involved than 'Press buy button on Amazon, login to camera, glue to wall.', but the end product that you can create is better than anything that you can buy as a commercial product.

SD - Secure Digital (memory card you’d use for most things)

FTP - File Transfer Protocol (a way to upload files to a server)

RTSP - Real Time Streaming Protocol (a way to stream video)

NVR - Network Video Recorder (a device that records video)