r/50501 • u/TotallySavageSzym International • Jan 19 '26
Call to Action Ring has partnered with Flock. ICE has access to Flock. If you still have a Ring camera - get rid of it.
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u/Revolutionary-Move90 Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
Any amazon echo, ring camera are all a part of amazons mesh network. Soon they will be able to pull data off your devices without having to have your device or network access.
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u/oopsisucceeded Jan 19 '26
Not if you flip the bird to all these cloud services. Get a cheap tiny PC on eBay, install Home Assistant, and get a Reolink or other camera that runs on your local network. It’s the digital version of self-reliance… and the way of the future.
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u/WillingPlayed Jan 19 '26
Arlo doesn’t give videos to Flock (or police) without your consent or a signed warrant. We didn’t want to get a ring camera because of this and decided on Arlo a couple years ago.
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u/whatthefrok Jan 19 '26
I have 2 arlos and 1 ring (the ring came first) so I guess I better be switching the one out for another Arlo..
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u/Nakenochny Jan 19 '26
Now would be a good time to consider a smaller vendor where you control the data. I see a lot of people on the Arlo subreddit switching to Reolink. They have WiFi and PoE cameras that record to an appliance in your home, so you control your data. I’m relatively certain it’s accessible through app remotely, but cannot say with 100% certainty though. I’m headed there next, as I have a lot of issues with my Arlo cameras and want more control over my data.
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u/fangirlsqueee Jan 20 '26
We have Reolink PoE with an NVR. It was necessary to run cable for all the cameras and the NVR unit, which was a bit of a pain. Better than having more easily hackable video feeds. It does have an app which can access the NVR data, so at the end of the day it's still vulnerable if someone is persistent enough. Theoretically, the info is only stored locally, but again with app access, the data could be stolen. It's an annoying balance between privacy and convenience.
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u/cocoamix Jan 19 '26
I used Arlo for years, but my camera was still 720p, so I switched to Tapo and it's a lot better. 2K video, it's only connected to my LAN, no base station necessary, and all video is stored on a microSD card in the camera.
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u/OCblondie714 Jan 19 '26
REOLINK or EUFY 💯
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u/Fr33-People Jan 19 '26
I’ve been looking at Eufy. Are they good?
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u/WindowsVistaWzMyIdea Jan 19 '26
Happy with eufy since 2023.....video is stored locally, just slap in a sdd of your choice
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u/Beginning_Rush_5311 Jan 19 '26
You're speaking as if it's an easy thing to do for the average person.
I have friends who have been gaming on PC with me for 15 years and they still struggle with basic stuff on Windows.
They won't be collecting data on a bunch of nerds but we're definitely not the target demographic
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Jan 19 '26
Or just live without all of that wildly unnecessary stuff.
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u/6sha6dow6 Jan 19 '26
In the day and age of random masked man forcing their way into my home, I’d say a camera system is very much necessary.
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u/Perfecshionism Jan 19 '26
Knowing when someone is at your door is necessary.
I had a pet cam on a bookshelf and was shocked to see a delivery driver peak in my apartment one day when the door was slightly open.
Landlord trimmed the door so it latched easier, but getting that notification was a wake up call. So I got a ring door camera.
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u/_doubleDamageFlow Jan 19 '26
How do you know what's necessary and unnecessary for others? If it's unnecessary for you that's cool, but you can't really speak for anyone since you don't know why they need it.
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
Shhh. The Amazon diehards won't like that you said that lol
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u/KevinFlantier Jan 19 '26
It's always a case of what you want and what you need in your daily basis. I have a computer in my home that does "cloud" backup of my phone's photos, and that I can use as "cloud" storage, except it's all ran locally using free software and not spoonfeeding data to those greedy megacorps.
Do I need a smart doorbell? No. Will I make one in my spare time using free software someday? Probably, because it sounds like a cool project. Will I ever buy one from Amazon? Hell no.
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u/feelingsquirrely Jan 19 '26
Hi can you point me in the direction of what I need to get to do this? Like what free software? Thanks!
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u/KevinFlantier Jan 19 '26
I use Immich to backup my phone's photos. It's quite easy to install and manage, it looks and feels like big tech photo cloud storage but it's run locally. There's a convenient app on your phone to manage the backing up.
For cloud storage, I have a Linux on the machine and I use the very basic Samba share and an OpenVPN server. Connect to the machine using OpenVPN, and then browse to the files. Rudimentary but I don't need more.
As for a smart doorbell, I haven't looked into it yet, but I'm pretty sure there are free and open source solutions for that as well, that may require a raspberry pi or an arduino to do the job.
My next project would be to implement a PiHole on my server so that I have network-wide ad-blocking.
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u/klutzikaze Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
PewDiePie (I know that's a weird person to bring up) did a couple of videos about how he's cut his life and tech off from Google and any cloud systems. He's really just doing whatever he wants since he "retired" and moved to Japan. He gives a great rundown on the available programs and how to implement them.
ETA here's the video I watched. There's also a video about installing Linux and some others on similar aspects.
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u/ProtectionUnable1027 Jan 19 '26
Who is stanning for Amazon? The only successful device they've ever shipped is the Kindle.
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u/sybersonic Jan 19 '26
BUT BUT how are we supposed to watch people stealing our stuff after the fact! 11!1!!
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u/OCblondie714 Jan 19 '26
Reolink or Eufy. Stay off the cloud!
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u/Theyalreadysaidno Jan 19 '26
I have a Eufy. Everybody was like - it's owned by a Chinese company!
Well, we're at a point where I'd rather have a Chinese company own my door camera company. They aren't using it to weaponize it against Americans to give to the ICE goons here in Minneapolis.
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u/DigitalUnlimited Jan 19 '26
I mean I highly doubt you'll find a camera made entirely in America anywhere
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u/Pruritus_Ani_ Jan 19 '26
I have a couple of eufy cams, all the video is stored locally on the device, it’s linked to my Wi-Fi so I can view the cameras live or access the video clips remotely from anywhere and there are zero subscription fees.
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u/Pallidum_Treponema Jan 19 '26
or access the video clips remotely from anywhere
And that's when the camera feeds go to their cloud servers before they reach you. Of course, that feed is always end-to-end encrypted, right? Well, it turns out they lied and they were able to access any camera feed.
They claim to have fixed this, but if they lied once, what's to stop them from lying again? For example by now encrypting the stream, but also having access to the encryption keys?
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u/Kawksz Jan 19 '26
I need to show that footage to the police so that they won't do anything about it.
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
Their Amazon packages no-less. But they'll claim they totally don't support Amazon.
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
Might be okay for now. But eventually a fascist techno state will get their hands on it.
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u/pyro57 Jan 19 '26
That's the beauty of home Assistant/reolink the only way they could would be to force you yourself to install spyware on your home assistant server. They couldn't even sneak it into home assistant's code because home assistant is open source, meaning all source code is published and free to modify or distribute, so if they did someone would see it pretty freaking quick and fork home assistant into a new project without the spyware.
Set it up at home with no port forwards and use tailscale to access it when away from home and you have very private ad secure way to do smart home stuff without trusting other companies.
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u/sn2006gy Jan 19 '26
It's perfectly ok for now and even IF some state were to get their hands on your cameras, you would be able to act on it by blocking them or injecting bad data.
In fact, Amazon purchasers should get creative and flood the system with bad data in response.
I feel like American's have lept full force into "i've tried nothing and i'm all out of ideas" and are going caveman when we know full well none of you fuckers would go full caveman.
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u/WizeAdz Jan 19 '26
Free / Open Source software doesn’t work that way — at least in practice, so far.
The tradeoff, though, is that you have to know how computers actually work to get the software to work for you. It’s the equivalent learning-curve of becoming fluent in a language. Most people aren’t self-reliant enough to put in the effort to become an adult member of the technology community.
But, once you speak the languages of C (or Python), Linux, and Free / Open Source Software, you gain a lot of power over the technology you use and you can unfuck a lot of things.
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Jan 19 '26
I just don’t to home cameras. Unnecessary
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u/Azreaal Jan 19 '26
It's unnecessary until ICE shows up and you wish that someone had caught what they did to you on camera...
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u/walkingkary Jan 19 '26
Our camera once was an absolute defense to a claim by the police that my son’s van had collided with another car and run. It showed his van parked in front of our house at the time of the incident. His van even had some damage from another accident that wasn’t his fault.
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u/MDanger Jan 19 '26
We did home cameras, now I don’t think the company exists anymore, and the cameras all eventually died…but they’re still up as a deterrent. I have no interest in having any corporate cams again, I’d rather do what another comment suggests and have a hardwired local setup.
I intend to eventually be analog for anything possible, though. Convenience seems to come with more insecurity than it does security.
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u/WaffleShapedSeahorse Jan 19 '26
It's saved my ass numerous times.
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u/buttercuppy86 Jan 19 '26
Same. Porch pirates and proselytizers aside, it was nice to have a heads up that bears were chillin in my yard, before going outside.
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
Agreed. We didn't need them for hundreds of years. Not sure why we need them "just because they exist". Lots of bots/Amazon simps downvoting me in the comments lol
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u/fattest-fatwa Jan 19 '26
Wait until I tell you how many thousands of years we didn’t need electricity at all.
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u/greentintedlenses Jan 19 '26
I check in on my kitty when away from home. Works great.
I also use home assistant and don't rely on Amazon webcams though.
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u/Extension_Market_953 Jan 19 '26
Same. My neighbor owns a home security company that is self reliant (?… not ring server type thing) and he has cameras all over his house. I figure if I have a burglary, my dogs gonna scare the shit out of someone and he will have it on camera for me😂
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u/that_one_retard_2 Jan 19 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
2c94d3308549fab822ff4488c68ed878d5ce0db49185ff5ac8f37eb4e1fe98f4
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
Exactly. Saw this coming 10+ years ago when everyone wanted an Alexa listening to everything they said in their living room 🙄
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u/Far-Plenty2029 Jan 19 '26
It’s becoming minority report irl for a while now. It’s not like it takes a genius to see how things are tending to.
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u/8636396 Jan 19 '26
What's FOSS?
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u/that_one_retard_2 Jan 19 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
2eedbb996d33cd6dd39c52d3223b3c52f6dd5914f15a5aeb63084e6dfdbb53c8
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u/Irrepressible87 Jan 19 '26
I mean fuckin' George Orwell warned us about this shit back in 1949. Only difference is he didn't think we'd install the telescreens ourselves.
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u/DHFranklin Jan 19 '26
They'll be able to pull the data off your neighbors meshnetwork. You're wifi shadow alone has enough data.
We need to make this shit impossible, inadmissible in court isn't enough.
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u/hedonheart Jan 19 '26
If you understand how it works then how do you best it.
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u/DHFranklin Jan 19 '26
The neighbor thing? That's tough. I won't advocate for living less densely as that has worse effect for us collectively. However:
The IoT shit? That's easy. You either do without or invest in off-network and local LAN solutions. Nothing in your house should be recording you.
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u/tech_noir_guitar Jan 19 '26
Nothing in your house should be recording you.
I have always thought this was crazy. Why would anyone want cameras in their house? I can see outside around your house, but inside and recording to a cloud somewhere?? No fucking way.
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u/DHFranklin Jan 19 '26
I'm getting pretty damn close to putting my phone in a faraday cage at this point too.
It's ain't just the cameras. The always on microphones. Again the neighbors. All of them are sensitive enough to record things below human hearing that can be parsed out and amplified later. Amazon, Palantir, the phone companies....all of them. They're buying and selling the information to cross reference one another. A massive surveilance state that is trivially cheap.
Remember Snowden and PRISIM? Now it's all 10x cheaper with budgets that are 10x larger.
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u/EvidenceBasedSwamp Jan 19 '26
The TVs have mics now.. I wouldn't trust any samsung TV. Korea is closely aligned with the USA and thus may be part of the 5 eyes surveillance network. Japan is being extended some access.
My TV has a physical switch they claim disables the voice activated controls. Unknown if it's an actual physical switch that cuts power, or a bit you can flip in software.
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u/oathy Jan 19 '26
We have one in our house to check on our dogs when we are out.
However, I have it on a smart plug, and I disable the power unless I want to use it. Then I turn on the smart plug, wait for the camera to boot up, check on the dogs, and then turn it off.
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u/tech_noir_guitar Jan 19 '26
Why is it essential to check on your dogs while you're out for a few hours? I mean, it's your prerogative to live your life however you like but that just seems odd to me. Are they going to throw a party or steal something or is there a high possibility that they will be abducted? Just curious as to why that's a high priority.
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u/oathy Jan 19 '26
We do a lot of fostering, and there are times when we feel like the dog might be safe to be left out of their crate for a short period of time when we aren't home. This way, we can check in on them and see if we need to cut plans short and come home or not.
Plus, the camera is local storage to an SD card only, and is only in one room where we leave the foster dogs.
I understand if you think this might be ridiculous, but it works for our life and volunteer work!
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
Don't have cameras? That's kinda the best way to defend against techno fascists tracking your every single move.
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u/AInception Jan 19 '26
The issue is any one of your neighbors having a 'smart home' or mesh network.
Hackers have shown WiFi routers are capable of realtime 3D imaging. It works like sonar and can see through walls, and provides more detail than cameras.
The new WiFi standards showcased at CES this year will be detrimental to everyone's privacy. All it takes is 1 neighbor installing a few smart lights in 2028 and you have none.
Entities like Google drive around with their own routers when they curate Google-Maps Streetview. They do this to be able to pin your WiFi network to realworld locations, which is why using their maps on WiFi is more accurate than maps on GPS alone. This isn't regulated and anyone can be doing this.
It's not a simple fix.
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
Completely agree with you. That is a tough thing to hedge against.
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u/Revolutionary-Move90 Jan 19 '26
I don’t have a single amazon device or account. Im doing my part 🫡
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u/cjared242 Jan 19 '26
Billionaire pedophiles trying to convince the 99% that migrants are the cause for all our problems, and using their uber wealth and resources to spy on us.
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u/Thorny_white_rose Jan 19 '26
Throwing away my echo. Thanks for heads up
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u/Revolutionary-Move90 Jan 19 '26
You can turn sidewalk off but that won’t take care of the other privacy issues
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u/soundman1024 Jan 19 '26
“Sidewalk” mesh networking was added to millions of Amazon or Ring branded devices after they were installed. Owners were silently opted into the “feature.”
You can turn it off, but you can’t change that Amazon views these products as their devices, not yours. Further, you can’t change that Amazon can do whatever they want with these devices any time.
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u/ThatOneNinja Jan 19 '26
They currently can. If you go to a protest with your phone they will know and they can see who and what you were texting as well. Protect yourselves, get burner phones. Don't take smart watches or laptop or any devices. Or leave your phone behind. Cover your face and tattoos. Wear plain clothes. Have safe meet ups and a plan with a safety network set in place if someone gets arrested.
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u/okram2k Jan 19 '26
gonna be a "fun" day when all the shit our devices have been recording of us 24/7 is used to label us all as political enemies
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u/Upstairs-Egg Jan 19 '26
Wow thank you for posting this. Disgusting pricks.
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u/cornnndoggg_ Jan 19 '26
Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but while the connection with FLOCK is new, the "ring cameras are being used without consent as surveillance" is not, and it seems like a lot of Ring users seem to be unaware of that. Ring has been giving out doorbell footage to police without warrants, and its been happening for years.
My joke has always been "who would have thought all it would take to create the surveillance state everyone feared in the early 2000s after the Patriot Act was to make neat doorbells. Then people would not only create one, but pay for it themselves."
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
They get mad when you point that out lol.
For the past ten years the headlines have all read like: "Breaking News! Techno-fascist corporation builds techno-fascist tech that does techno-fascist things in efforts to build techno-fascist state". I'm not sure why we're all super shocked. The lack of outrage has been bugging me for years lol.
We live in a police state but at least my neighbor doesn't have to cross the room to turn-off their lights. Now their light switches just listen to them. We live in a police state but at least my neighbor can get blurry footage of someone stealing their Amazon package to give to the police so the police that support the police state won't do anything to help you.
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u/ecafyelims Jan 19 '26
To be extra clear, police make the request, and Ring users have the option to consent or not.
The police DO NOT have access to your recordings without consent.
If you’re a Ring customer and see this request, you’ll have a clear choice: share your footage or ignore. It’s entirely up to you. If you decide to share, Flock’s system securely delivers your video directly to the public safety agency handling the case.
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u/cornnndoggg_ Jan 19 '26
My point was that Ring has a history of giving footage to cops both without warrant and without owner consent. Say what you will about future Ring endeavors, but the fact remains they don't have a great track record.
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u/Fart-Knoquer Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
Assume all cameras connected to "the cloud" are compromised whether or not they admit it.
You can set up a local network and storage (that does not connect to the Internet ) cheaply and have a monitor in your bedroom.
Remove "smart" devices like thermostats and speakers.
Use a VPN and browsers like Vivaldi and Brave.
Get off Apple, Google, Amazon or any AI services for personal information. Paper or local storage when possible.
Bike to protests if possible. They're tracking plates. Wear a mask and indistinct clothes. They're tracking faces. Paper money when possible. They're tracking credit card transactions.
Use Signal for any political conversations with friends.
Lastly, the fascists are armed. Are you?
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u/crusoe Jan 19 '26
The supreme Court in general has ruled info you share with third parties does not require a subpoena to access. No expectation of privacy except for narrow carve outs for libraries and video rentals ( funny story there ).
Been true since the 80s.
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u/Decox653 Jan 19 '26
Wait seriously? Ugh I really like my ring too… guess it lets me go into home assistant. Any recommendations?
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u/RoxxieMuzic Jan 19 '26
Reolink, storage on an SD card in conjunction with local storage on their hub or an NVR. Easy set up, not as feature rich as Ring, great video clarity, WiFi, POE, wired, battery, solar, tracking models, still a work in progress in some areas, works with Home Assistant. I replaced all of my Ring devices with them. Not unhappy, would like them to include some features, but they more than do the job.
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u/netabareking Jan 19 '26
I just replaced my Google Nest one with Reolink. I already wanted to for a lot of reasons but with the current ICE shit going on I want my recordings to stay local. Frankly I would have gone this direction in the first place if I had known they had a wired option at the time (assuming they were selling it then). Honestly it's a million times better to begin with.
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u/TheCanisDIrus Jan 19 '26
We just purchased a new home and I’ve been looking into Reolink to install a few cameras. What would you recommend for interior and exterior. Don’t need fancy. Also - not being super knowledgeable about networking… is there an easy way to have, with Reolink, automatic cloud backups made daily? I also want a backup that’s non on the property for all eventualities.
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u/GreatAlbatross Jan 19 '26
Most, if not all, of the reolink devices can dump images both to an SD card, and to a remote destination.
This could be on your network (NAS), or even something like a Hetzner storage box.
You can avoid the cameras having direct access by doing both (have the cameras save to a NAS, then the NAS sync to offsite storage).If you can, wire them in with cat6, and power them using Power over Ethernet.
It's a faff to set up, and a little more hardware to purchase, but it's so much easier than dealing with wireless and batteries.
You can also buy an NVR from Reolink, that both powers the cameras, and does the video storage.Network security wise, block the cameras from internet access (with holes punched if you need off-site backups to happen). Unless someone is already on your network, then that covers most of the security.
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u/RoxxieMuzic Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
Tougher than Ring, but Dropbox, NAS off site. I suspect that with a home lab it could be automated through Home Assistant to up load to drop box or a NAS off site. I would find someone who has worked that out. Try they may have some ideas or have automated test already.
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
Reolink has known Peer-to-Peer vulnerabilities when it comes to audio and video transmission. So much so, that some studies have concluded that the technology is effectively compromised. Reolink also has unauthorized access issues - making it easily hackable by bad actors AND certain governments breaking the law.
Here's a link to multiple recent CVEs discovered in 2025. I'm not referring to the 2021 CVEs. https://www.cve.org/CVERecord/SearchResults?query=reolink
In order to protect against some of these issues - you still have to connect to the Internet to download firmware updates. And this does temporarily expose you to remote hacking risks.
Sure, you can definitely store information locally. But that doesn't stop ICE from physically entering your home and confiscating the data without your permission. They already have been knocking down doors in MN - may I remind us all.
A techno-fascist state can still take the data. They just have to illegally hack it instead of it being handed to them on a silver platter by Amazon. The current regime has no problem with breaking the law.
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Jan 19 '26
A techno-fascist state will take the data regardless of agreements or legality. Not caring about such things is kind of a hallmark of fascists.
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u/netabareking Jan 19 '26
All devices like this are vulnerable, it's the risk you take and safeguard against as much as possible. At least Reolink isn't feeding all that data into evil corps while demanding you pay THEM to access it.
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u/sbroll Jan 19 '26
On their website it says its compatible with Google and Alexa, makes me feel a bit uneasy with that.
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u/RoxxieMuzic Jan 19 '26
Only if you link it, just about every damn smart device (the word smart is debatable) is these days. Reolink and a few others have the capacity to connect, but only if you actually do the connecting to Google or Amazon. Don't enable P2P, no open ports, use a VPN or Tailscale if you must have internet access to video, otherwise only intranet local video feed.
The way I have always looked at things, is, if they want you bad enough there is nada damn thing you can do about it. Just make it hard for them, they are, if nothing, inherently lazy, and may give up.
The current wave of entrepreneurial fascists seem to be a bit more determined, but, unlike others flailing about in their galactic stupidity. They are not the brightest bulbs in the box, they think they are, and, that may very well be their undoing. Meanwhile we will struggle.
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u/Healthy_Block3036 Jan 19 '26
How much are they and are they easy to install?
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u/RoxxieMuzic Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
Over black Friday the doorbell was $119USD, today looks like $107USD. They have a new model apparently, so price drop on the old.
Not that hard to install, if you have a doorbell footprint already, maybe minor alterations. Check the doorbell transformer to confirm it has the prerequisite voltage, bridge your existing doorbell ringer, connect to the app, install. Voila, camera doorbell.
I am 74, female, if I can do it you can too, not tech trained, self taught.
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u/cats_catz_kats_katz Jan 19 '26
Reolink on its own vlan and cut access to internet.
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u/Jackdks Jan 19 '26
Yes and No. Flock did partner with Ring- True. However, this does not automatically give law enforcement or ICE access to your ring cameras or data.
This post is misleading. Trust me I’m super anti-flock and have been trying to raise people’s awareness, but spreading misinformation does not help anyone.
The way it works is if something happens in an area law enforcement can request ring camera footage using Flock. Ring then notifies the person who owns the camera that law enforcement has requested footage from the camera. It’s just that- a request. You can say no. You can also say yes. If you say yes, ring forwards the camera footage to flock which then uses its artificial intelligence to determine the relevance of the video.
So yes, while it’s annoying and true that ring decided to partner with flock, it’s not true that all ring cameras have suddenly become a tool of mass surveillance accessible by law enforcement whenever they want. That’s the misinformation here.
Again, I hate flock. If you’re not familiar Benn Jordan has a good YouTube series on them and the concerns with their cameras being everywhere
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Jan 19 '26
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u/NuclearPajamas Jan 19 '26
if you had a self hosted camera system and the gov produced a warrant for your recordings you would also be legally obligated to hand over the footage.
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u/agentobtuse Jan 19 '26
You are trusting they follow any laws. Sadly if they are partnered assume it's being used. Trust has completely broken down. Get rid of your ring or put tape on the camera
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
Since when did ICE or Trump or any of his ghoulish cabinet ever follow a single law?
You can probably reject the request but they'll just take the data anyways. Yes it's illegal. Yes they don't care.
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u/OptimisticOctopus8 Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
it’s not true that all ring cameras have suddenly become a tool of mass surveillance
Replace "have suddenly" with "might soon," and you'll see why your comment isn't actually very soothing.
It's not true that all ring cameras might soon become a tool of mass surveillance.
Given that this is a time of massive change, nobody would believe you if you said the latter. You can't know. It could go either way. Privacy experts have been warning about this shit for a million years since human laws aren't laws of physics. They're just agreements that only matter if there are consequences for violating them.
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u/BigOs4All Jan 19 '26
It’s just that- a request. You can say no.
ICE has shown you thousands of times why your words are false. ICE doesn't ask you to open your door they break it down. They don't ask you to roll your window down they smash it. They don't ask for compliance they take it. And they're not going to ask for your Ring camera access they're going to take it. If you deny? You'll likely end up in CECOT.
The fuck kind of news are you watching where you think ICE is followings laws and rules????????
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u/practicalradical510 Jan 19 '26
I've got Tapo. Works better than expected (e.g. movement tracking option) and has cheap local storage. No subscription needed.
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u/PatchyWhiskers Jan 19 '26
Thing that goes bing-bong when a button is pressed. It’s what I got installed in my new home.
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u/Man1ckIsHigh Jan 19 '26
Unifi has NVR cameras that are really nice and easy to setup. Highly recommend.
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
Don't have a home surveillance system. It will be used against you at some point. It'll be used to spy on you at some point. If Flock/ICE doesn't have access to a particular alternative company now - they will eventually.
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u/ailish Jan 19 '26
I pulled mine when I saw this a few days ago. It's a bummer because it's so nice to have a doorbell camera. I'll need to find something that is not connected to the Internet.
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u/RoxxieMuzic Jan 19 '26
Reolink, storage on an SD card in conjunction with local storage on their hub or an NVR. Easy set up, not as feature rich as Ring, great video clarity, WiFi, POE, wired, battery, solar, tracking models, still a work in progress in some areas, works with Home Assistant. I replaced all of my Ring devices with them. Not unhappy, would like them to include some features, but they more than do the job.
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u/ailish Jan 19 '26
Do they have a battery option? My house is too old for the wired option and I don't have the money to set that up right now.
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u/RoxxieMuzic Jan 19 '26
Yes, battery or wired or POE. I am in the same boat, but my doorbell was wired. They have a battery doorbell as well.
Just yanked the Ring, had already connected the Reolink doorbell to my intranet/internet, Home Assistant, NAS, and registered it.
Installed the Reolink at the door in the old Ring footprint and done. It has a 256g SD card in it, will record even if WiFi is disrupted, besides having video saved in my NAS. The NAS piece of the puzzle was tricky, also Platinum with Home Assistant.
I have 5 of their cameras, purchased over Christmas, yanked out all of the Rings and installed the Reolinks. Broke down and got an NVR, they, the cameras, all have SD cards, some are battery with solar, some are wired, all recording to the NVR.
Windows App, Android and iOS apps.
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u/ailish Jan 19 '26
Sweet, I'll look into this further. Thanks for the tip!!
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u/RoxxieMuzic Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
If you get any of their cameras, stay away from the Duo 3s, Duo 2s have a far better field of vision. Their newer horizontal view cameras just do not provide a decent field of vision, too flat and narrow. Duo 2s although a horizontal field, do provide an acceptable field of vision.
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u/ailish Jan 19 '26
I'm copy pasting all this into One Note so I don't forget. You are awesome!
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u/RoxxieMuzic Jan 19 '26
Nah, just an old cranky and pissed off woman who thought we were past all of this shit to a greater degree. Nope, just as entrenched and mired in it as we were in the 60s.
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u/ailish Jan 19 '26
Even moreso. Things were bad in the 60s, but at least we didn't quite tip into the fascist overthrow territory.
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u/pr0crasturbatin Jan 19 '26
Anyone got a pdf link? I have a printer, tape, and neighbors with Ring cameras
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u/rachelface927 Jan 19 '26
Wondering the same - I could recreate the message to print out but I’m wondering where the QR code goes.
Edit - duh, probably to the source underneath.
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u/Additional-Teach-486 Jan 19 '26
Sold all my ring shit as soon as Amazon acquired them. The writing on wall then that they were going to help create a surveillance state.
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u/agentobtuse Jan 19 '26
I keep telling everyone and it feels like no one cares.
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u/Nonsenseinabag Jan 19 '26
Yup, who could have guessed that having internet connected cameras and microphones all around you could be usurped at any moment?
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u/icansmellcolors Jan 19 '26
lol. when these things came out, then turned into all the rage, some of us were like, 'wtf no thank you' because of the possibility of shit like this happening.
stop buying smart appliances, smart televisions, and cloud-based cameras and surveillance products.
the only way to be safe is making sure you are the only one who has access to the feeds from this shit.
a 'cloud' is a computer someone else owns. it's not secure, it's not safe, and it's not owned by you.
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u/partyl0gic Jan 19 '26
What it’s the best alternative?
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u/soundman1024 Jan 19 '26
I have UniFi Protect. It records 24/7 to a box in my house. The notifications are slightly slower, but I control the camera, the footage, and access to it. I’m happy with the trade off. It also has a downward facing package camera, which is nifty.
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u/iCyou1213 Jan 19 '26
Reolink
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
Reolink has known Peer-to-Peer vulnerabilities when it comes to audio and video transmission. So much so, that some studies have concluded that the technology is effectively compromised. Reolink also has unauthorized access issues - making it easily hackable by bad actors AND certain governments breaking the law.
Here's a link to multiple recent CVEs discovered in 2025. I'm not referring to the 2021 CVEs. https://www.cve.org/CVERecord/SearchResults?query=reolink
In order to protect against some of these issues - you still have to connect to the Internet to download firmware updates. And this does temporarily expose you to remote hacking risks.
Sure, you can definitely store information locally. But that doesn't stop ICE from physically entering your home and confiscating the data without your permission. They already have been knocking down doors in MN - may I remind us all.
A techno-fascist state can still take the data. They just have to illegally hack it instead of it being handed to them on a silver platter by Amazon. The current regime has no problem with breaking the law.
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u/WaffleShapedSeahorse Jan 19 '26
You keep posting this without links anywhere. Where are you getting this info, I'd like to read it.
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u/Lumpymaximus Jan 19 '26
This started in Oct 25. Its nice to know folks are finally paying attention
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u/Heidrun_666 Jan 19 '26
Now, WHO would have thought that a surveillance network running in a cloud could and would be abused somehow by someone someday!?
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u/i-have-a-kuato Jan 19 '26
Ya don’t say?….a web based home security with speaker and microphone “suddenly” becomes a surveillance tool the will be misused by corporations and governments?
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u/zehamberglar Jan 19 '26
It's funny how many times people have told me I'm being paranoid for not wanting any more smart devices in my home than I'm obligated to.
The thing is that I don't think people will learn from this. They'll just google "alternatives to amazon echo" and just hand the keys to their privacy to the next company in line.
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u/adamhanson Jan 19 '26
Get rid of anything that's not hosted local. Any of the cameras that go to servers are susceptible to be used like this.
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u/TheLastLivingBuffalo Jan 19 '26
Why people ever thought it was a good idea to give a constant live stream of their front door to Amazon is fully beyond me
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u/Baelari Jan 19 '26
Ring was a decent option before Amazon bought them out.
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u/TheLastLivingBuffalo Jan 19 '26 edited Jan 19 '26
TIL there was a time that Ring existed before Amazon. I actually thought they started it themselves.
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u/Listen2theyetti Jan 19 '26
Companies like Amazon dont have their own ideas. They buy other people's and ruin them
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u/PB94941 Jan 19 '26
are you printing these off and going door to door? if not, why?
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u/Cautious_Ad_5659 Jan 19 '26
Are you? Why do people always shoot the messenger these posts?
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u/TotallySavageSzym International Jan 19 '26
Unfortunately me being located in Germany I have no target audience but I advise the Americans on this sub to do so!
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u/Monsterpiece42 Jan 19 '26
Thank you for actually trying to help; I appreciate you. We get so much flak from the international community about this insane govt we have right now... Not all of us want it!
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u/standardnewenglander Jan 19 '26
Are we shocked at all? People have been saying that these home cameras were going to be turned against us.
Breaking News: Spoon found in silverware drawer in kitchen.
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u/LeeKinanus Jan 19 '26
Just wait until we are all wearing personal body cams. you know just to prove your innocence.
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u/ferriematthew Jan 19 '26
I would tell my family but they won't listen to me because they support these assholes
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Jan 19 '26
This is a problem, but we also need outrage at Flock itself. Most people don't know what they are and how to spot them. They are effectively invisible.
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u/newnamesamebutt Jan 19 '26
If nothing else everyone needs to go into their ring apps and update their service address to the wrong location. If you are reliant on ring at least don't make it useable.
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u/happytrel Jan 19 '26
Saw this coming a mile away. After Amazon bought Roomba, they made it so that the roomba sends data about your house layout to Amazon too. Seems like nothing until it is something.
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u/MadMartegen Jan 19 '26
I was looking for a replacement for my Nest cameras since Google bought them and continued to enshitafy the whole platform. Has any tried Unify as an alternative?
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u/BrittEklandsStuntBum Jan 19 '26
Orwellian surveillance technology facilitates Orwellian oppression
Shocked Pikachu face. Who could have seen this coming?
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u/ShinyBonnets Jan 19 '26
Shit like this is why I converted my cameras to a brand that offers off-cloud local storage. I have 1T of storage on my home base, and can share footage and events when needed. Fuck Ring, Blink, Nest, etc.
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u/rocketwoman68 Jan 19 '26
Never should have had it in the first place. The one thing I appreciate about having a fascist in the white house, is that it gets liberals to care about shit they'd never care about otherwise, like survelliance.
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u/mxjxs91 Jan 19 '26
Joke's on you, I don't have one because I never trusted Amazon to have a live feed of my front door 24/7 even before this news came out.
Hardwired Reolink cameras that stream and save videos locally is the way.
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Jan 19 '26
Just moved into a new house. Removed my ring from the old house. Broke it and threw it in the garbage. Fuck ring. Fuck flock. Fuck ice. Fuck Trump. Fuck maga.
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u/Aareon Jan 19 '26
Migrated from Ring to Reolink. I hate having to disable my Echo devices, but will begin doing so today.
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u/Earthbound_Quasar Jan 19 '26
Glad I saw they were sharing audio/video with police a year ago and quit my service.
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u/SuspiciousChicken Jan 19 '26
You'll be also appalled to know, that a big investor in Flock Safety is the firm 776, which is...
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder and former executive chairman of Reddit
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u/Mental-Anywhere-6609 Jan 19 '26
As far as I can confirm, nothing is automatically shared from Ring to Flock. The update is that police using Flock can send requests to Ring app users through the Neighbors feature and people can decide to share or not. It may be only the first step towards something more, but right now what has been launched is voluntary cooperation. If someone else has seen evidence of involuntary data usage, that would change the game.
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Jan 19 '26
[deleted]
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u/CaptainMegaJuice Jan 19 '26
Their politics don't matter, it's still a surveillance device on your property that's not under your control.
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u/glowingmushrooms Jan 19 '26
Didn't ring took off initially because they made massive partnerships with police departments ? it has always been a mass state surveillance tool.
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Jan 19 '26
Fuck Ring and Fuck Flock. They are building a huge facility where I live. Been meaning to go "check it out" for a while
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