Your "Ring" Doorbell Cam Also Allows People To Spy On You
Bill Budington writes at the Electronic Frontier Foundation that the Ring doorbell app on Android covertly shares personally identifiable information on its users with third-party companies, including Facebook:
An investigation by EFF of the Ring doorbell app for Android found it to be packed with third-party trackers sending out a plethora of customers' personally identifiable information (PII). Four main analytics and marketing companies were discovered to be receiving information such as the names, private IP addresses, mobile network carriers, persistent identifiers, and sensor data on the devices of paying customers.The danger in sending even small bits of information is that analytics and tracking companies are able to combine these bits together to form a unique picture of the user's device. This cohesive whole represents a fingerprint that follows the user as they interact with other apps and use their device, in essence providing trackers the ability to spy on what a user is doing in their digital lives and when they are doing it. All this takes place without meaningful user notification or consent and, in most cases, no way to mitigate the damage done. Even when this information is not misused and employed for precisely its stated purpose (in most cases marketing), this can lead to a whole host of social ills.
Ring has exhibited a pattern of behavior that attempts to mitigate exposure to criticism and scrutiny while benefiting from the wide array of customer data available to them. It has been able to do so by leveraging an image of the secure home, while profiting from a surveillance network which facilitates police departments' unprecedented access into the private lives of citizens, as we have previously covered. For consumers, this image has cultivated a sense of trust in Ring that should be shaken by the reality of how the app functions: not only does Ring mismanage consumer data, but it also intentionally hands over that data to trackers and data miners.
Consumer DNA tests are another form of privacy violation people are setting themselves up for.
There's an assumption people frequently make, "Well, if I'm not guilty of anything, I have nothing to worry about.
It's a naive assumption. From the link just above, a story on a DNA company by Jennifer Lynch at EFF:
We should worry about these searches for another reason: they can implicate people for crimes they didn't commit. Although police used genetic searching to finally identify the man they believe is the "Golden State Killer," an earlier search in the same case identified a different person. In 2015, a similar search in a different case led police to suspect an innocent man. Even without genetic genealogy searches, DNA matches may lead officers to suspect--and jail--the wrong person, as happened in a California case in 2012. That can happen because we shed DNA constantly and because our DNA may be transferred from one location to another, possibly ending up at the scene of a crime, even if we were never there.
This horse left the barn a long time ago. Unless you are living like the unibomber with no credit cards, no bank accounts, no health insurance, no phone, no job, no computer and no passport, drivers license or SS card, ( and have been since birth) the government already knows everything about you.
Ring isn’t much of an additional threat. The only thing that protects people’s privacy now, is the massive volume of irrelevant information, your little bits of data are swimming in.
Isab at January 28, 2020 2:58 AM
“We should worry about these searches for another reason: they can implicate people for crimes they didn't commit. “
Nothing is statistically more sure, and more unreliable than an eye witness.
OTOH
You don’t leave DNA in the vagina of 16 different murdered women by accident.
Isab at January 28, 2020 3:11 AM
Isab brings up a very good point. That ship has sailed. Anything you do today creates a transaction data trail. Buy groceries with a credit card? Transaction. Buy something on Amazon Prime? Transaction. Subscribe to a magazine? Transaction. Etc.
With data storage becoming cheaper every day, companies can store trillions of transactions and farm them for trends.
Most of the time, no company cares that it's the specific you doing these things. Data are rolled up to tell the company that people who buy this particular brand of milk at the grocery store also buy this particular brand of bread. Or that this neighborhood is a good place to advertise a certain brand of product with billboards, posters, and flyers.
You're one of millions of individuals transacting business in a data stream of trillions of transactions.
Conan the Grammarian at January 28, 2020 5:17 AM
"You don’t leave DNA in the vagina of 16 different murdered women by accident." ~Isab
Depends on how poorly the police handled that evidence. There have been a few cases where the police lab got caught either outright faking results due to laziness or so poorly mishandled the evidence it was contaminated beyond use.
But yes I agree on the general point about being tracked.
The real issue with door cameras and electronic locks is how easy it is for them to be compromised by criminals. Most of those cameras don't get software updates. Many have built in back doors for manufacturer use. Such things inevitably leak allowing other people to watch you using your own camera. (Same thing with those baby monitors.) And then there are those locks you can open and close with your phone. If you can do that so can other people. Yes people can pick a physical lock. But a guy with lock picks or a crowbar is pretty obvious. A guy with a phone doesn't stand out.
Ben at January 28, 2020 5:51 AM
Isab is right; the privacy ship has sailed. Every single company you buy anything from is sharing your data, regardless of whatever privacy statements they claim. Every single analytics company and large retailer has every bit of it. Your bank has every bit of it. The government has every bit of it. Your health insurance carrier will have it soon (they will know how much alcohol you buy, what groceries you buy, how often you eat out and what you order, how often you put gas in your car, when you buy OTC drugs, etc.) Don't think for a minute that your insurance rates won't go up based on what they learn about you.
Now what?
Cousin Dave at January 28, 2020 6:40 AM
You'd think people would have gotten your point when they were giving them away for free... Bezos is good at getting people coming and going, and not even he always tries to monetize installing these little nannies.
El Verde Loco at January 28, 2020 7:02 AM
User DNA: On Long Lost Family, they show only cases where people are happy to find a lost relative. But this is so not necessarily true. I know someone who was contacted by a DNA service (Ancestry?) that they discovered that this person had a second cousin who had given up a child for adoption in a certain year in a certain city. This person could instantly tell who this was: a cousin who had a child out of wedlock at 15 or 16 and gave it up for adoption 50 years ago. This person did NOT want to be contacted but now at least some of the relatives know about it. This could ruin your life. In other cases 2 sisters found out they are only half-sisters: parents divorced after husband found this out.
cc at January 28, 2020 8:51 AM
Useful but they need to get the privacy thing fixed.
Mind the clowns.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at January 28, 2020 9:40 AM
Related.
https://www.technologyreview.com/f/615096/this-is-how-a-popular-free-antivirus-program-sells-your-data/
Clowns? I was assured there would be no clowns on this here blog! https://youtu.be/FsUnTXBh0sA
I R A Darth Aggie at January 28, 2020 10:25 AM
> That ship has sailed.
Well, mostly, but....
Crid at January 28, 2020 10:27 AM
Isab, maybe the government, per se, already knows just about everything it wants to know about me and you. However, it's easy enough (in some cases) to avoid a lot of modern technology in one's life without necessarily crippling one's career or domestic happiness, and thus protect oneself much better from criminals. I have the word of a software support engineer on that. (Of course, one never knows when a phone with a camera will come in handy when you need to get someone arrested.)
lenona at January 28, 2020 1:24 PM
""Well, if I'm not guilty of anything, I have nothing to worry about."
Of course you do.
Radwaste at January 28, 2020 3:12 PM
"Well, if I'm not guilty of anything, I have nothing to worry about."
Ha! Tell that to the Duke Lacrosse Players or any other person/people in which a zealous prosecutor wants to find ANY party, not necessarily the guilty party.
charles at January 28, 2020 6:27 PM
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