That would be great but it's so insidiously interwoven into every aspect of life that it would be much more difficult than simply not having a Ring camera, through "Amazon web Services" at the very least
Never got one, never wanted one. Even the use cases people give for using it (catching porch pirates, 'seeing' who's at the door) don't make much sense. The cops will not be tracking down whoever took your package, if you get someone to pick up the phone in the first place, so that's moot, and if you have to get up to answer the door anyway, what does it matter who's knocking? Anyone who really wants to get in will get in, and your small camera will do absolutely nothing to stop them. Security theater all around.
Love this post. I'm a courier and I'm tired of being ordered around by a doorbell. Nowadays I pretend I cant hear the thing. If I need a signature, come out and sign. Otherwise I'll write up the doorknocker as if you weren't home. If I can leave the box without signature, I already would have done so.
What a shame when you have to get out of your chair at the very last step of a process that brought you product from a long ways away directly to you. How dare this worker inconvenience you in such a way.
This essay made me smile! I live in an "over 55" community. Oy, with the Ring cameras everywhere! "We saw someone cut thru the backyards last night on our camera!!!!" Red alert! 🤪 My kids have encouraged me to install one. NOPE. Also, criticize me for using the L when I'm downtown Chicago. Or EGADS! The subway when I visit NYC. I have friends that avoid going into the city because "CRIME!" What I say is: I REFUSE TO LIVE IN FEAR. What a waste of a life, energy, brain power. THIS is the sound of shit happening. And "they" want us cowed and afraid. Listen; bad shit happens EVERY. DAMN. DAY. It's life; it's not new. We're bombarded with messages of fear from across the world. THAT'S what's new. Freedom from fear. (And if some crazy Mofo breaks into my home and murders me, at least I didn't spend the first 74 years worrying about it.)
I lived in NYC a while back and got a bullshit 'park after dark' ticket. Researching it, I found that the murder rate was down, Im not kidding, 99% from the 70s when the city established the law because they'd given up on enforcing the laws in the parks after dark.
Now I get that boomers were alive when the crime was bad (they were the ones doing the crime because they gave themselves lead poisoning driving their cars around), and it can be hard to change your approach to life.
But I feel like if the world got ONE HUNDRED TIMES LESS DANGEROUS between when I was 20 and I was 70, I might notice.
The number of sketchy neighborhoods that have been broken open by the gentrifiers and are now too trendy and expensive for normals to live in, just in the last -twenty- years. "You're gonna walk through Bed-stuy in the dark? Nice, what cafe you hitting?"
I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid! There are neighborhoods in Chicago I avoid. I know where I'm going, and I remain aware of my surroundings. Yeah: gentrification has been a problem, pushing people out of their neighborhoods. And, I'm a believer in cop on the beat. My gramma called them "peace officers." But it's a different world now, for sure. We moved our family to Chicago, rather than NY, in 1980, because NYC was no place to raise a family, even tho my husband grew up in Brooklyn. I'm just saying: fear of others has gone too far.
I mean, that's both. Its both crazy and stupid to be afraid of cities in 2026.
I promise you you are in no danger in any neighborhood you're likely to have any business at all in and all the ones you're thinking of are more than likely populated by young professionals making 80k/yr and up.
No city in America is as dangerous as whatever city you could have picked out of a hat in 1985. Not even close.
That fear, specifically incited in old white suburban people by cynical liars, and deployed against the poor, the nonwhite and the citizens of those cities is the tool these freaks have been using since Reagan to bring us exactly here. You don't have to believe me but you also don't have to believe facebook and local news.
Just pick a spot in chicago and go with a young relative, in broad daylight. I think you'll be blown away. And when you do, try to remember who filled your head with lies and don't forgive them.
My take is, I make friends wherever I go. And, yes: random bad stuff happens, all the time. Still, I'm not afraid. I'm always cautious; aware. I don't carry pepper spray or a weapon. I recently returned to my late husband's Flatbush neighborhood. Walked around; saw his old three- story walkup. Spoke with people out on the street. Dug a small hole in the front to bury some ashes. It was lovely. So: I'm trying to tell you: I understand the narrative. It's bullshit. Propaganda. My daughter lived in Chicago; a social worker; low vision; doesn't drive. The bus driver said: lady, what are you doin in this neighborhood? She said, checking on a client. Smiled, and got off at her stop. Had folks tell her how to find the building. Funny how if you don't present like a threat, you likely won't be perceived as one. She has that open, warm countenance. Also, the people told her, don't come around here after dark! So, like I said: some may say crazy. Not stupid.
People have started installing them on the outside of their hallway-facing apartment doors in my building. Love to literally not be able to leave the building without being on camera.
Yep. Live on the 3rd floor of a coded-entry building (in a unit I’ve lived in for 10 years and NEVER had any problems with thefts/break-ins) and my neighbors all have them, so every time I enter/exit my apartment I am recorded without my consent. It’s absurd.
Oof man. The defector commentary just had a meltdown on this and I don't envy you the hyperventilating bad faith Disability-face co-optation of the language of trauma etc.
Edit; Like Catherine's above. Man, those people move quick.
One guy got "anxiety" when friends knocked on the door. Musta been tough for him, with friends constantly coming over and giving him a spook. I know I for one find people with that level of anxious nerves that they express with gestapo surveillance gear MAGNETIC.
Anyway pretty ableist of you to suggest people don't NEED the nazi scrying orb for hateful suburban racists everyone got by fine without even ten years ago.
I mean, me making fun of the boomer punctuation wasn't the point of my reply, so, I'll ask again, what's your reply that you haven't seen what I'm talking about on defector supposed to mean?
"Get ready for defector-coded types to get BIG MAD, in a dishonest way about Ring Cameras" I posted, in response to a HamNo post, and what did I get?
A literal defector commentor sea-lioning me about whether or not, in a dishonest way, Defector commentors were dishonestly mewling about the need to beam the comings and goings of people who never consented directly to the cops and billionaires because who can be bothered to go see who's at the door?! It could be a MURderer.
Though, he didn't get mad about his Ring Camera, so I guess technically he did show me up.
Ironically, the same guy who sealioned me several months back when I mentioned Defector's commentariat are kind of unpleasant and suck. Proving what exactly besides the point I'd just made, I couldn't tell you.
It is worth noting that the camera functions on the same principles as an eye.
In that if you scratch its lens with a length of sandpaper, spray paint into it, or in the case of plastic lenses, apply acetone or other harsh solvents, it becomes functionally unuseable.
If you're concerned about the potential consequences see Catherine Clermonts post where in multiple videos of car breakins have been sent to police and the perpetrators are still walking free, still breaking into cars. Just 'greatly reduced'.
Yes, these cameras capture fuzzy videos of masked and track-suited people at night, and are viewed several hours later when the perp is tucked up in bed.
I love that kind of self-respecting, sanity-sustaining sabotage! Got anymore tips (about thwarting any kind of invasive technology)? Asking for a friend.
On the off chance you have the need for a security camera, you can simply buy a camera system with a hard drive recorder for much much less than a Ring subscription. You don’t need to run it on an app to check all day and it’s not connected. All the people bellyaching about the post with manufactured reasons why they need a camera can still be satisfied with a closed loop system using the exact same hardware without the surveillance state software.
I had a neighbor who didn’t like the fact that I parked my older car in front of my own house. Every so often I would get an egg or a big scratch on the old girl so I bought a camera system for $200, set it up, and then emailed the neighbor the clip of her throwing an egg at my car. Never happened again. Camera came down.
If you must have a camera - and there are a few good reasons to have one, for example those of us who work from home sometimes need to know when and when not to ignore the cacophony my dogs create when they're "protecting me from serial killers" - there are still some out there that do not require connection to the black hole for data that is today's internet.
In fact, I'm replacing my Ring today (less destructively, I'm afraid, since I don't want to repair my door frame) with a Eufy device I bought from Costco, which can be configured NOT to connect to the outside world...
I used a cheap game cam for a while when the youths next door were a little methy and boisterous. Also to tell if the semi-feral elderly cat had gone off the front porch or the back. SD card. No internet connectivity. Eventually all the situations resolved themselves, one via gentrification and the other via feral-kitty's natural lifespan, and the cameras came down.
Ring cameras are next to useless for crime deterrence and occasionally effective for helping police solve serious crimes... but not always.
Look up the publicly available data yourself: crime rates, both violent and nonviolent, have fallen precipitously in the United States over the last 30 years. Ring cameras and similar devices did not exist for the vast majority of that period. Their impact on crime deterrence and resolution is negligible.
Catch a thief or vandal on your Ring camera? Great! Post it on Nextdoor. Maybe someone will recognize the perpetrator. Let me know what the cops say when you show it to them.
What about serious crimes, like murder? The accused killer of a couple in Ohio was caught on a neighbor's surveillance camera, but not clearly enough to identify him or his vehicle. He was captured because family members told detectives they suspected the female victim's ex-husband of the killings. Police arrested him with old-fashioned detective work. The surveillance video is a nice bonus, but will be disputed by any competent defense lawyer.
I have no idea how many Ring cameras are on homes in Tucson, Arizona, but they have apparently done absolutely nothing to help law enforcement find Nancy Guthrie, the elderly kidnapping victim, more than a week after her abduction.
Ring is like Flock in that it builds up the Orwellian surveillance state, with the added bonus (for its creators) that you pay for it directly instead of through taxes.
"old fashioned detective work" being a citizen telling the police who the perp is and where to find them. Skim those sorts of resolutions off and the police clearance rate is basically zero, even for major crimes.
Also Savannah Guthrie's mom wasn't kidnapped, she's an old lady who wandered away from home and her daughter is part of the Missing White Woman/Crime Wave Hysteria Industrial Complex. It's sad, she's probably gone, but we don't live in Taken and if we did Sheiks don't steal Morning News Infotainers Moms from suburban Phoenix.
Agreed on the first half, but regarding Mrs. Guthrie, the surveillance photos released today - if authentic - strongly suggest an abduction. Problem is the guy is wearing a mask. Good luck identifying him
Hadn't heard that. But again, if the panopticon is defeated by the simple expedient of a beagle boys style mask, smash your ring camera with a claw hammer.
How ‘bout we all stop 🛑 using Amazon?
Yes! Bozo has enough money and I'll just shop locally. Get to meet my neighbors more
That would be great but it's so insidiously interwoven into every aspect of life that it would be much more difficult than simply not having a Ring camera, through "Amazon web Services" at the very least
“.....Crime!” It is a conceptual delivery system for an unhappy life of fear."
chef's kiss!
(:
Never got one, never wanted one. Even the use cases people give for using it (catching porch pirates, 'seeing' who's at the door) don't make much sense. The cops will not be tracking down whoever took your package, if you get someone to pick up the phone in the first place, so that's moot, and if you have to get up to answer the door anyway, what does it matter who's knocking? Anyone who really wants to get in will get in, and your small camera will do absolutely nothing to stop them. Security theater all around.
Love this post. I'm a courier and I'm tired of being ordered around by a doorbell. Nowadays I pretend I cant hear the thing. If I need a signature, come out and sign. Otherwise I'll write up the doorknocker as if you weren't home. If I can leave the box without signature, I already would have done so.
What a shame when you have to get out of your chair at the very last step of a process that brought you product from a long ways away directly to you. How dare this worker inconvenience you in such a way.
This essay made me smile! I live in an "over 55" community. Oy, with the Ring cameras everywhere! "We saw someone cut thru the backyards last night on our camera!!!!" Red alert! 🤪 My kids have encouraged me to install one. NOPE. Also, criticize me for using the L when I'm downtown Chicago. Or EGADS! The subway when I visit NYC. I have friends that avoid going into the city because "CRIME!" What I say is: I REFUSE TO LIVE IN FEAR. What a waste of a life, energy, brain power. THIS is the sound of shit happening. And "they" want us cowed and afraid. Listen; bad shit happens EVERY. DAMN. DAY. It's life; it's not new. We're bombarded with messages of fear from across the world. THAT'S what's new. Freedom from fear. (And if some crazy Mofo breaks into my home and murders me, at least I didn't spend the first 74 years worrying about it.)
I lived in NYC a while back and got a bullshit 'park after dark' ticket. Researching it, I found that the murder rate was down, Im not kidding, 99% from the 70s when the city established the law because they'd given up on enforcing the laws in the parks after dark.
Now I get that boomers were alive when the crime was bad (they were the ones doing the crime because they gave themselves lead poisoning driving their cars around), and it can be hard to change your approach to life.
But I feel like if the world got ONE HUNDRED TIMES LESS DANGEROUS between when I was 20 and I was 70, I might notice.
The number of sketchy neighborhoods that have been broken open by the gentrifiers and are now too trendy and expensive for normals to live in, just in the last -twenty- years. "You're gonna walk through Bed-stuy in the dark? Nice, what cafe you hitting?"
I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid! There are neighborhoods in Chicago I avoid. I know where I'm going, and I remain aware of my surroundings. Yeah: gentrification has been a problem, pushing people out of their neighborhoods. And, I'm a believer in cop on the beat. My gramma called them "peace officers." But it's a different world now, for sure. We moved our family to Chicago, rather than NY, in 1980, because NYC was no place to raise a family, even tho my husband grew up in Brooklyn. I'm just saying: fear of others has gone too far.
I mean, that's both. Its both crazy and stupid to be afraid of cities in 2026.
I promise you you are in no danger in any neighborhood you're likely to have any business at all in and all the ones you're thinking of are more than likely populated by young professionals making 80k/yr and up.
No city in America is as dangerous as whatever city you could have picked out of a hat in 1985. Not even close.
That fear, specifically incited in old white suburban people by cynical liars, and deployed against the poor, the nonwhite and the citizens of those cities is the tool these freaks have been using since Reagan to bring us exactly here. You don't have to believe me but you also don't have to believe facebook and local news.
Just pick a spot in chicago and go with a young relative, in broad daylight. I think you'll be blown away. And when you do, try to remember who filled your head with lies and don't forgive them.
My take is, I make friends wherever I go. And, yes: random bad stuff happens, all the time. Still, I'm not afraid. I'm always cautious; aware. I don't carry pepper spray or a weapon. I recently returned to my late husband's Flatbush neighborhood. Walked around; saw his old three- story walkup. Spoke with people out on the street. Dug a small hole in the front to bury some ashes. It was lovely. So: I'm trying to tell you: I understand the narrative. It's bullshit. Propaganda. My daughter lived in Chicago; a social worker; low vision; doesn't drive. The bus driver said: lady, what are you doin in this neighborhood? She said, checking on a client. Smiled, and got off at her stop. Had folks tell her how to find the building. Funny how if you don't present like a threat, you likely won't be perceived as one. She has that open, warm countenance. Also, the people told her, don't come around here after dark! So, like I said: some may say crazy. Not stupid.
Every Ring owner is a camera man for the fascist corporate police state. Resist. Persist. And most of all -- DON'T BE COMPLICIT!
I’ve never had one. You know what I do instead? I look out the window.
People have started installing them on the outside of their hallway-facing apartment doors in my building. Love to literally not be able to leave the building without being on camera.
Dipshits.
That should be illegal or at least be in the lease that you can’t do that.
Yep. Live on the 3rd floor of a coded-entry building (in a unit I’ve lived in for 10 years and NEVER had any problems with thefts/break-ins) and my neighbors all have them, so every time I enter/exit my apartment I am recorded without my consent. It’s absurd.
Oof man. The defector commentary just had a meltdown on this and I don't envy you the hyperventilating bad faith Disability-face co-optation of the language of trauma etc.
Edit; Like Catherine's above. Man, those people move quick.
One guy got "anxiety" when friends knocked on the door. Musta been tough for him, with friends constantly coming over and giving him a spook. I know I for one find people with that level of anxious nerves that they express with gestapo surveillance gear MAGNETIC.
Anyway pretty ableist of you to suggest people don't NEED the nazi scrying orb for hateful suburban racists everyone got by fine without even ten years ago.
I . . . don't see this on Defector?
https://i.ibb.co/p6GwnhQ5/Screenshot-2026-02-10-19-24-03-23-dc00545bd3b8828f033a02ac25b2d36d.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
Okay, got it, it was in the comments. Have a nice day!
Yea the commentary (autocorrect for commentariat) was in the comments, you obtuse dipshit
❤️
... and whats that elipsis elipsis elipsis supposed to mean?
A pause, like, if I was speaking. I like to do that sometimes.
me too.
Ahh thanks cicero, for the rhetorical flourish.
I mean, me making fun of the boomer punctuation wasn't the point of my reply, so, I'll ask again, what's your reply that you haven't seen what I'm talking about on defector supposed to mean?
"Oof man. The defector commentary just had a meltdown on this" it's not on Defector. I was confused.
It's not on there?
"Get ready for defector-coded types to get BIG MAD, in a dishonest way about Ring Cameras" I posted, in response to a HamNo post, and what did I get?
A literal defector commentor sea-lioning me about whether or not, in a dishonest way, Defector commentors were dishonestly mewling about the need to beam the comings and goings of people who never consented directly to the cops and billionaires because who can be bothered to go see who's at the door?! It could be a MURderer.
Though, he didn't get mad about his Ring Camera, so I guess technically he did show me up.
Ironically, the same guy who sealioned me several months back when I mentioned Defector's commentariat are kind of unpleasant and suck. Proving what exactly besides the point I'd just made, I couldn't tell you.
It is worth noting that the camera functions on the same principles as an eye.
In that if you scratch its lens with a length of sandpaper, spray paint into it, or in the case of plastic lenses, apply acetone or other harsh solvents, it becomes functionally unuseable.
If you're concerned about the potential consequences see Catherine Clermonts post where in multiple videos of car breakins have been sent to police and the perpetrators are still walking free, still breaking into cars. Just 'greatly reduced'.
Yes, these cameras capture fuzzy videos of masked and track-suited people at night, and are viewed several hours later when the perp is tucked up in bed.
Thank you for common sense! I cx’d subscription and mucked up the camera lens, and taped over it …. It's now just a doorbell (I think)
I love that kind of self-respecting, sanity-sustaining sabotage! Got anymore tips (about thwarting any kind of invasive technology)? Asking for a friend.
Isnt living in a prison becoming the american way to greatness again?
Great rhetorical!
On the off chance you have the need for a security camera, you can simply buy a camera system with a hard drive recorder for much much less than a Ring subscription. You don’t need to run it on an app to check all day and it’s not connected. All the people bellyaching about the post with manufactured reasons why they need a camera can still be satisfied with a closed loop system using the exact same hardware without the surveillance state software.
I had a neighbor who didn’t like the fact that I parked my older car in front of my own house. Every so often I would get an egg or a big scratch on the old girl so I bought a camera system for $200, set it up, and then emailed the neighbor the clip of her throwing an egg at my car. Never happened again. Camera came down.
I love this!
If you must have a camera - and there are a few good reasons to have one, for example those of us who work from home sometimes need to know when and when not to ignore the cacophony my dogs create when they're "protecting me from serial killers" - there are still some out there that do not require connection to the black hole for data that is today's internet.
In fact, I'm replacing my Ring today (less destructively, I'm afraid, since I don't want to repair my door frame) with a Eufy device I bought from Costco, which can be configured NOT to connect to the outside world...
I used a cheap game cam for a while when the youths next door were a little methy and boisterous. Also to tell if the semi-feral elderly cat had gone off the front porch or the back. SD card. No internet connectivity. Eventually all the situations resolved themselves, one via gentrification and the other via feral-kitty's natural lifespan, and the cameras came down.
Got rid of mine a few weeks ago- I also cancelled my Ring account. Important to let the company know you are done with them.
Ring cameras are next to useless for crime deterrence and occasionally effective for helping police solve serious crimes... but not always.
Look up the publicly available data yourself: crime rates, both violent and nonviolent, have fallen precipitously in the United States over the last 30 years. Ring cameras and similar devices did not exist for the vast majority of that period. Their impact on crime deterrence and resolution is negligible.
Catch a thief or vandal on your Ring camera? Great! Post it on Nextdoor. Maybe someone will recognize the perpetrator. Let me know what the cops say when you show it to them.
What about serious crimes, like murder? The accused killer of a couple in Ohio was caught on a neighbor's surveillance camera, but not clearly enough to identify him or his vehicle. He was captured because family members told detectives they suspected the female victim's ex-husband of the killings. Police arrested him with old-fashioned detective work. The surveillance video is a nice bonus, but will be disputed by any competent defense lawyer.
I have no idea how many Ring cameras are on homes in Tucson, Arizona, but they have apparently done absolutely nothing to help law enforcement find Nancy Guthrie, the elderly kidnapping victim, more than a week after her abduction.
Ring is like Flock in that it builds up the Orwellian surveillance state, with the added bonus (for its creators) that you pay for it directly instead of through taxes.
"old fashioned detective work" being a citizen telling the police who the perp is and where to find them. Skim those sorts of resolutions off and the police clearance rate is basically zero, even for major crimes.
Also Savannah Guthrie's mom wasn't kidnapped, she's an old lady who wandered away from home and her daughter is part of the Missing White Woman/Crime Wave Hysteria Industrial Complex. It's sad, she's probably gone, but we don't live in Taken and if we did Sheiks don't steal Morning News Infotainers Moms from suburban Phoenix.
Agreed on the first half, but regarding Mrs. Guthrie, the surveillance photos released today - if authentic - strongly suggest an abduction. Problem is the guy is wearing a mask. Good luck identifying him
Hadn't heard that. But again, if the panopticon is defeated by the simple expedient of a beagle boys style mask, smash your ring camera with a claw hammer.