no thank you vey much

[handrawn]

hard on the heels of yet another notification of how baby monitors are hacked, I read this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-51709247

I wish I had kept that 1940/60 scifi I read as a kid, so much is comming true....

[gwpriester]

Having any "smart" device connected to your network is asking for trouble. Did you hear that ALEXA!

[Egg Bramhill]

Yes, best stick to knocking HD

[handrawn]

cctv and [legal] bear traps - they don't get near the door if i don't recognise 'em [well... maybe a slight exaggeration... ]

[Acorn]

I am so looking forward to Amazon drone season when we are allowed to blow them out of the sky. Amazon's intention is to monitor the delivery address from the air (Note, this may not be an Amazon Customer; you kind Uncle might be gifting you something) and report open doors and windows and abnormal activity.

If it has this capability, the drone will be eyeballing you all.

Orwell's 1984 was oh so tame.

Acorn

[handrawn]

drones always remind me of Dune [the book] - my finger itch for a handy missile every time

[Acorn]

drones always remind me of Dune [the book] - my finger itch for a handy missile every time

Funny, I think of Iain M Banks' The Culture, especially the Special Circumstances ones.

You've got to remember that Herbert's polities shunned thinking machines so the training robots had to be simple automata.

Acorn

[handrawn]

I was very young when I read the Dune books, and the idea of such small [insect sized] killing machines left a great impression on me, the way the could sneek up on you un-observed

I think on one level Herbert was equating these to deadly insects

I have only read Consider Phlebas in Bank's Culture series, not really a Banks fan I'm afraid, I only read that because Eliot's The Waste Land from which the the Title and dedication come is special to me

Edit _ I checked - 1965 Dune... long before we had technology as we understand it today

[Rik]

Many people I know, love and use Alexa.
I don't have one, because, I just cannot accept the fact that there's something in the house listening to everything that's being said within its vicinity.
Sure, there are benefits many of you could list for me.
But, no. Not for me.

[pauland]

Hmm.

It's a balance. These guys shouldn't be logging this stuff. Thank you BBC.

I have three Ring cameras. They could be listening to us, but anyone who was listening would be very bored.

I use them for home security. When I am home I turn them round so they can't record anything. When we leave the house I turn them back. It would be even better if they had a physical power switch. Unplug them, you say - I can't mine are battery-powered (I have tried cabled versions, but they are a pain).

Both my adult children have Ring doorbells.

So why have these?

We used to have a Home Alarm security system. It was fine - if someone came into the house we would know. It required yearly maintenance, the batteries in it would eventually fail. We had several false alarms waking the neighbourhood from the external ringer. If someone entered our property we wouldn't know what they looked like or be able to interact with them ( beyond the siren going off ). We (I) eventually disabled our alarm system because of the costs of running it and it becoming increasingly unreliable.

The Ring cameras and the yearly subscription, cost us less than yearly service fee for our old alarm. A guy used to come along, look busy and dust the sensors. He would then reset the maintenance nag for another year.

The Ring cameras could be put into the garden to watch wildlife, and I plan to use on externally to watch our front door.

So, the cameras are comparatively cheap, low yearly maintenance and I get to see what's going on inside the house whenever I am out of the house. If there was an intruder my phone would alert me.

I understand the privacy concerns and I agree.

Our neighbours opposite have been broken into twice during the daytime. Another friend of ours has also been broken into. We were alerted once at 3 AM by the police, who told us there were intruders in our garden! They were right.

Our neighbours houses have now sprouted Alarm ringers.

So the cameras may not be for everyone, I understand that, Amazon, Ring etc should have better privacy policies for sure. On balance, I'll stick with the cameras.

Whatever you do, don't assume the bad guys won't appear at some stage when you aren't in. Consider having some form of Alert.

I'll also say that our Alarm ringer boxes ( front and back ) remain in place. One was always non-functional, now they both are. The installer said the important thing is that they are a visible sign that there is an alarm system installed. The bad guys would prefer there was no alarm system, so will often move on.

We decided to install our original alarm before we had a burglary, while most people install them after they have a burglary.

The cameras are staying, so are the non-functional external ringer boxes.

Paul



[ Just as well we don't use phones with cameras and microphones. It seems various government agencies and criminals have managed to access those, so I guess if you don't like Ring or Alexa, the phones and tablets are heading for the bin too.. ;-)

Some TVs have cameras and Microphones too. Our Samsung has two controllers, one voice activated. I don't use the voice-activated one. ]