More Privacy Failures - Dropcams are a Black Friday Hit

[MineralMan]

Got $150. You can live stream anything at no charge. This year, the Dropcam is one of the hottest technology toys out there. You buy it, plug it in, connect it to your wireless network, and give the camera a name. You're streaming video. If you make your dropcam's feed public, anyone can look in.

Wanna see some samples:

https://www.dropcam.com/cameras/featured

Now, I have no problem with streaming live cams, but this new system is going to make it really easy for people, like some have in these samples, to put up a live streaming cam of anything, without disclosing the fact that if you come into view on the cam, anyone can see what you're up to.

Examples at the link above include a convenience store, a restaurant, and a couple of other public places. Do the people coming into those places know that they're on a live streaming camera? I doubt it very much. Anyhow, when you make your camera live, it's IP address becomes easy to access. If it's not private, you're on candid camera.

I'm not sure this is such a good thing, really. If you buy one of these things, consider whether you really want what it's seeing to be publicly viewable. Lots of people won't bother, and you'll soon see links to lots of these cameras.

Here's the convenience store camera: "Are You Open?"

https://www.dropcam.com/demo/a9e3c6a8a4694cb6a49a03981a9cb06c

[elehhhhna]

1. my teen uses my laptop

her bf is a computer savant

I took an emery board to the camera lens on said laptop, jus in case

Yay, Mommy!

[MineralMan]

2. Good plan, I think.

Teens are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier sometimes, especially when it comes to boyfriends and girlfriends. Stuff happens.

[elehhhhna]

3. gracias

[xulamaude]

5. It's a sad state of being

that we feel compelled to 'disable' a tool which could be very useful in order to protect a daughter from her boyfriend AND the whole rest of the world.

Mine has a Band-Aid over it so I can remove it if I need to Skype with my partner or friends

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. Mine is a tiny butterfly sticker.

[bemildred]

4. So now we can all be spies.

I just spied on a guy in a convenience store.

[MineralMan]

6. Pretty much, yes.

There will be misuses of this capability, I'm sure. Since the camera streams to the cloud, and since they can be made public, there is a lot of potential for misuse. There will be some who put up one of these cams pointed at something like a neighbor's house and then make the link public. There will be morons who put one in their dorm room and put a link to the feed on twitter or facebook, not thinking about who might be watching.

And, since this system has great potential for use as security cameras, they will get installed in lots and lots of businesses, some of which, like that convenience store will make the stream public without informing their customers that they're on live TV. I'm sure other uses will soon be thought of and exploited.

Since there's no recurring charge to set up one of these cameras unless you want to store video in the cloud to review later, it's a really low bar set for people who want to use these cameras maliciously. And there will be people who want to use them that way, for sure.

The images are of excellent quality, too. Point one at an ATM, for example, and watch customer poke in their numbers. I'm not sure I like the whole idea, but it's not going to go away.

[bemildred]

7. I think we are going to have to be much more clear about the differences

between public and private space. That lack of clarity is being exploited both by the "intelligence" community, and for commercial purposes.

I can see uses for these that are quite legitimate, and others that ought to be crimes.

[Archae]

8. These things will be used for porn in 3-2-1...

Somebody will put one in a locker room or such.

[MineralMan]

12. Yup. If it exists, there will be porn of it.

With free wi-fi available just about everywhere, now, the locker room cam is inevitable, I think. People watch for those, though, so it probably wouldn't last long, I'd think. At $150 a crack, I'm not sure too many people are going to risk losing their cam that way. But, some, no doubt, will.

[Archae]

13. All they need is just one video of some women in a locker room...

They sell it to "Girls Gone Wild" or such, make lots of $$$.

$150 is a small investment.

[MineralMan]

14. I'm not sure there's all that much money in such stuff any more.

People are posting their own stuff online, I understand, and I think it's a lot harder to sell porn video than it used to be. I'm not very current on the porn industry, though, so I'm not sure.

[rudolph the red]

9. If you are in any convenience store, the odds are pretty good that you are being filmed,

and since you are out in public, there are probably thousands of strangers who see you going about your business on a daily basis. I don't really see the issue with streaming video in that instance, although I guess it would be considerate of the business owner to post up a sign.

It would be different if they had a camera in the restroom or changing room, where you legitimately expect and deserve privacy, but I just don't see the controversy otherwise.

[MineralMan]

11. Of course, but folks on the Internet aren't watching you.

That's the difference. And it's an important one. A security camera is one thing, and they have caught many crimes in process, but a live video feed that is public is quite another.

[rudolph the red]

15. I guess I still don't get it

public is public. If I'm out and about, I have no control over who or how many people see me walk into a store or go to a restaurant and eat. I understand the potential for abuse in situations when a person would expect total privacy, but otherwise it's not something that I would consider a problem.

[WinkyDink]

18. No, you DON'T get it. Being seen out and about is WAAAAAY DIFFERENT from being FILMED out and about,

you NINNY.

Normally, fellow diners do not STARE AT YOU. Normally, fellow pedestrians DO NOT STARE AT YOU AND FOLLOW YOUR EVERY MOVE.

NORMALLY, WE LIVE WITHOUT WORRYING THAT OUR MUNDANE TASKS WILL BE PUT ON YOUTUBE.

[rudolph the red]

20. Why are you using caps and calling me names?

Did you look at the video link to the convenience store? Did you find yourself staring at the guy that was getting a quart of milk?

Take a deep breath before you hyperventilate.

[WinkyDink]

16. Big Brother's family has been greatly expanded.

[matt819]

17. Sounds like one of the technological wonders in Dave Eggers' book, The Circle

The camera was called either C-Change, Sea-Change, or See-Change (I listened to the audio, so not sure how it's spelled out). They cost almost nothing and were tiny and could be place anywhere unobtrusively. One of the selling points was that you could place this at your favorite surf spot to check the waves. Sure, totally benign. Yea, right.

[MineralMan]

19. Yup. What could go wrong? nt

[X_Digger]

21. I have multiple cams pointed at my (currently empty) marine aquarium and office

I very carefully limit the travel of the cameras (they can be remotely moved via pan/tilt buttons on a web page.)

I actually looked at the dropcam when I went shopping for a new camera, but it doesn't have remote pan / tilt.

My wife and I walk around them with the expectation that someone's watching the cameras.