The Dark Knight was released in 2008. In that movie, Batman hijacks citizens' cellphones to track down the Joker, and it's presented as a major moral and ethical dilemma as part of the movie's overall themes. The only way Batman remains a "good guy" in the eyes of the audience is by destroying the entire thing once he's done.

Crazy to think that less than two decades later, an even more powerful surveillance technology is being advertised at the Super Bowl as a great and wonderful thing and you should totally volunteer to upload your Ring footage so it can be analyzed for tracking down the Jok... I mean illegal imm... I mean lost pets.

• cyode

  today at 8:42 PM

  Pulled from IMDB, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox voices the consternation perfectly:

  > Batman: [seeing the wall of monitors for the first time at the Applied Sciences division in Wayne Enterprises] Beautiful, isn't it?

  > Lucius Fox: Beautiful... unethical... dangerous. You've turned every cellphone in Gotham into a microphone.

  > Batman: And a high-frequency generator-receiver.

  > Lucius Fox: You took my sonar concept and applied it to every phone in the city. With half the city feeding you sonar, you can image all of Gotham. This is wrong.

  > Batman: I've gotta find this man, Lucius.

  > Lucius Fox: At what cost?

  > Batman: The database is null-key encrypted. It can only be accessed by one person.

  > Lucius Fox: This is too much power for one person.

  > Batman: That's why I gave it to you. Only you can use it.

  > Lucius Fox: Spying on 30 million people isn't part of my job description.

  • chatmasta

    today at 10:02 PM

    That system is nothing compared to the geolocation databases curated by Apple and Google, with GPS sensors combined with Wi-Fi wardriving, IMEI tracking, cell tower handoffs, and the rest of the insane amount of telemetry they collect collect in real time. And that’s before even considering BLE and the Find My network. Imagine the “God mode” dashboards they could have in Cupertino (or more likely, in Mountain View).

  • culi

    today at 8:59 PM

    Lmao did they really say it's null-key encrypted?

    Unfortunately a very realistic depiction of how many of the brands advertising their security the strongest often have the most ridiculously broken security (flock)

    • StilesCrisis

      today at 9:16 PM

      I rewatched recently. That's what he says all right.

    • rightbyte

      today at 9:49 PM

      I mean it is technobabble but in some way it is also poetic.

    • seg_lol

      today at 9:34 PM

      They should have used base64 encryption.

      • HiPhish

        today at 10:27 PM

        How about ROT13? Ideally applied twice for twice the encryption.

      • CobrastanJorji

        today at 10:09 PM

        There are performance concerns with base64. Hardware-assisted null-key encryption offers security that's a non-strict superset of base64 encryption and with superior performance.

    • reaperducer

      today at 10:00 PM

      Lmao did they really say it's null-key encrypted?

      You know movies aren't real life, don't you?

      • simmerup

        today at 10:26 PM

        Wait until he sees the main character is a super hero

    • padjo

      today at 9:57 PM

      The Nolan Batman movies are absolutely risible in retrospect. It's hard to believe how seriously everyone took them back then.

      • pc86

        today at 10:27 PM

        Not a single person in the world took any of them "seriously."

        They're blockbuster movies about a comic book.

      • simmerup

        today at 10:25 PM

        They’re good entertainment, not a documentary haha

• koolba

  today at 8:14 PM

  > The only way Batman remains a "good guy" in the eyes of the audience is by destroying the entire thing once he's done.

  A key part of that is when he tells Alfred that he did not even trust himself with that level of surveillance and coded it to only grant access to Alfred. Further, Alfred agrees to aid Batman by accessing the data but simultaneously tenders his resignation.

  I doubt Amazon has anyone like Alfred in charge of this thing. Because if they did, the resignation would already have been submitted.

  • foobarian

    today at 10:32 PM

    These kinds of resignations are interesting. The character is such a good protagonist, he resigns rather than do Bad Thing. But that pretty much guarantees the boss will hire someone more pliable. Why not instead swallow the pride and do Bad Thing but with some level of moderation? That would surely be a better outcome overall.

    The argument is that it would destroy the character's honor or whatever. But that is also a kind of sacrifice for the greater good. Maybe a lot of those are in fact happening but just not visible.

    • AnthonyMouse

      today at 10:54 PM

      > Why not instead swallow the pride and do Bad Thing but with some level of moderation?

      A better answer is "refuse to do it without resigning". To begin with it gives you a better chance of preventing it, because maybe they back down, whereas if you do it or leave, someone does it. Then if they fire you, well, that's not really that much worse for you than resigning, but it's worse for them because now they're retaliating against someone for having ethical objections. How does that look in the media or in front of a jury? Which is all the more incentive for them to back down.

      The problem with "well just do it a little bit" is that you can travel arbitrarily far in the wrong direction by taking one step at a time.

    • awakeasleep

      today at 10:45 PM

      Dr John wrote a song about this dilemma, “Such a Night”

  • polar

    today at 8:16 PM

    > Alfred

    Wasn't it Lucius Fox?

    • koolba

      today at 10:36 PM

      Oh you’re night! I had Morgan Freeman’s face in my mind too.

    • loloquwowndueo

      today at 8:52 PM

      It was :) Morgan Freeman not Michael Caine.

      • hdgvhicv

        today at 10:25 PM

        I’d trust Morgan Freeman over Michael Caine any day.

    • dylan604

      today at 8:53 PM

      same difference

• slg

  today at 8:02 PM

  It's hard to not become disillusioned with our industry when most of it is just the manifesting of that Torment Nexus tweet. It's like no one in the tech world actually understands any piece of fiction that they have ever consumed.

  • mlsu

    today at 9:35 PM

    I've had a startling number of conversations exactly like this:

    "Oh, you read as well? What do your read?"

    "[this book], [that book]"

    "Those are all non-fiction, any fiction?"

    "I don't read fiction. If I'm not going to learn anything, it's a waste of time."

    "..."

    • thadt

      today at 9:59 PM

      Oh man, have I gotten to read a lot of history recently.

      And also fiction.

      Frequently at the same time.

  • RankingMember

    today at 8:28 PM

    I knew plenty of people growing up who thought Fight Club was just a fun movie about guys who like to fight and make a club to do so and it gets a little crazy, then cut to credits. They then theorized making their own such club. This to say, yeah, I think sometimes the audience can be overestimated in their ability to understand deeper meaning in art.

    • hydrogen7800

      today at 9:09 PM

      And Scarface was an inspiring rags-to-riches story.

    • pbhjpbhj

      today at 9:32 PM

      It's said that Starship Troopers failed to do as well in USA because people thought it was pro-fascist propaganda ... it doesn't seem possible that could genuinely be the case.

      • mrob

        today at 10:23 PM

        Starship Troopers (the movie) is a terrible example of satire because it fails to show anything substantially bad. When you present a society that's more ethical than real life, nobody's going to care if some people wear uniforms that look a bit like Nazi uniforms.

        There is a genuine existential risk, and it's addressed in the best way possible. Military slavery ("conscription") is more evil than disenfranchisement, especially when citizenship is not required to live a good life. Nobody is tricked or coerced into signing up for military service. Potential recruits are even shown disabled veterans to make the risk more salient. There are no signs of racism or sexism.

        Other objections are not supported by the film. There is no suggestion that the Buenos Aires attack is a false flag. I've seen people claim it's impossible for the bugs to do this, but it's a film featuring faster-than-light travel. The humans are already doing impossible things, so why can't the bugs? I've also heard complaints that there is no attempt at peace negotiations. There is no suggestion that peace is possible. It's possible among humans because most humans have a strong natural aversion to killing other humans. Real life armed forces have to go to great lengths to desensitize their troops to killing to prevent them from intentionally missing. But humans generally have no qualms about killing bugs, and the bugs in the movie never hesitate to kill humans.

        The movie is an inspiring story about people making the right choices in a difficult situation. Some people look at it objectively, and some only react to the aesthetics. Those who look objectively understand it's actually faithful to the spirit of the book despite Verhoeven not intending that.

        • hdgvhicv

          today at 10:28 PM

          The only hung I see about the asteroid was that Carmen’s collision (caused by her showing off) knocked the rock which caused it to hit Earth, where originally it may well have missed.

          Seems reasonable (although clearly not the intent of the story and not a deliberate “false flag”)

    • sandworm101

      today at 8:49 PM

      And some extreemist are using fight clubs to gather followers, emulating the movie in the other direction. So-called "active clubs" are springing up using "fitness" to gather young angry males to the cause. Most join without realizing. Even gym owners are surprised to discover thier facilities have become clubhouses.

      https://www.jfed.net/antisemitismtoolsandresources/neo-nazi-...

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Clubs

  • nektro

    today at 9:43 PM

    its far simpler than that; not caring about what they've built if the check is big enough. because they've taught us that "if i don't build it, they'll just hire someone else. might as well be me that gets the money." but if there was solidarity or more regulation it'd be much less of a guarantee that these things would be built.

  • malfist

    today at 8:28 PM

    Never doubt they understand, there's just too much money to be made making the Torment Nexus

• b00ty4breakfast

  today at 8:27 PM

  This is a bit orthogonal to the article, but Christopher Nolan gives me the willies. Almost all his films have this kind authoritarian apologia in them.

  • dylan604

    today at 8:55 PM

    Is that the same willies as something like 1984 or Black Mirror? All they are doing is taking some idea present now, and just taking it too the darker places of it while society is currently only seeing the rosy side of things. It's stories like this that might be first time someone might actually consider other implications of ideas.

    • steezeburger

      today at 9:18 PM

      I think they take issue with how it was ultimately okay to do to catch the Joker as long as Batman didn't use it and gave power to Luscious who resigned, instead of just calling it out as terrible and not doing it. That's how I read their comment anyway. "apologia"

      • JambalayaJimbo

        today at 10:16 PM

        Batman is a vigilante using brutal violence to pursue his goals outside of any legal system. The whole concept of the comics, movies, etc. is predicated on him being a virtuous guy that you can trust will always do the right thing (mostly, I'm sure he's a villain or anti-hero in some of them). The surveillance system really isn't anything different and it was ridiculous that Luscious had a problem with it in the first place.

      • wat10000

        today at 9:43 PM

        Most (all?) of Batman is based on the idea that sometimes you need a good guy who operates outside of the law. Given that Batman isn't real but the problems he encounters often are real, the natural conclusion is that we should make up for our low Batman levels by letting law enforcement off the chain.

        But this is hardly unique to Nolan. Probably 90% of Hollywood movies that involve crime have this message in some form.

        • izacus

          today at 10:03 PM

          The fact that Batman is an ultra wealthy 1 % which dishes out justice with his expensive toys while hiding from most of the authorities is also quite a message.

          • hdgvhicv

            today at 10:32 PM

            It’s not uncommon. Green Arrow the same.

            The popular ones with extra-human abilities - Flash, Superman, Spiderman, Captain America, etc, have more normal backgrounds.

            Boys with toys though - Batman, Ironman, The Atom, are the 1%. Ant Man I guess is more normal, but he stole his suit (but Hank Pym was reasonably normal too)

      • AlexandrB

        today at 9:52 PM

        There's real media illiteracy in watching a character in a film do a thing and assume that means the filmmaker is endorsing that thing. This has the same vibe as the Hays Code[1] which mandated that the bad guys in film must always get their comeuppance.

        > All criminal action had to be punished, and neither the crime nor the criminal could elicit sympathy from the audience, or the audience must at least be aware that such behavior is wrong, usually through "compensating moral value".

        Modern cinema and cinematic critique has been so flattened by the constant accusations of filmmakers supporting some "-ism" or another by failing to have their characters directly speak out against it. It's ridiculous.

        [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hays_Code

    • b00ty4breakfast

      today at 9:22 PM

      No, it's more like the militarism in a Heinlein novel. It is, at best, an unexamined assumption and, at worst, a celebration, or sometimes a passive acceptance, of violence to enforce the status quo.

      • trevwilson

        today at 9:43 PM

        In the context of the Dark Knight/surveillance example, it comes across to me as more of a recognition that the arguments in favor of these things can easily be made compelling if you evaluate them with no tradeoffs (don't you want to catch the bad guys??).

        Then again, I guess the film ends up doing the same thing by only demonstrating concrete benefits alongside theoretical, but unrealized, harms...

  • awkward

    today at 9:50 PM

    To be fair that's more than a little bit present in most superhero media.

    • izacus

      today at 10:01 PM

      The whole idea about any superhero media is a special dude going on a violent spree because the authorities (in their eyes) can't do their job properly. The whole concept is anti-government and society as a whole.

  • tsunamifury

    today at 9:34 PM

    Do not mistake Nolan's ability to call out the failures of both absolute freedom and absolute control and their interaction with him advocating for any of them.

    Don't get the willies from the warning, learn from it.

    His brother and the writer, Jonathan Nolan, is the greatest prophet of our era.

  • fwip

    today at 8:55 PM

    The Dark Knight Rises (the batman movie with Bane) seemed especially notable in this way - almost directly caricaturing the Occupy Wall St protests that were relevant at the time.

• chrisrogers

  today at 10:02 PM

  My read is that it's immoral because it's a surveillance hijack without the knowledge of the users, as opposed to an opt-in.

  • whattheheckheck

    today at 10:43 PM

    And its not just opt in for the camera owner/licensor it should be explicitly optin for anyone who gets recorded

• bayindirh

  today at 9:33 PM

  In the series Person of Interest, there's a scene where you can see racks of servers which allows to track everyone in a city (New York?).

  When I first saw the scene I said: "This amount of servers is not remotely enough to pull something like this".

  When I think of the scene now: "These amount of servers can do much more than the scene portrays".

  I mean, most of the tech presented in the series is almost standard operations procedure via mundane equipment now.

  Scary.

  • whiskey-one

    today at 9:51 PM

    Subsequently in PoI we see two imperfect super-intelligent AIs let loose in the real world fight each other for domination and their objectives.

    For me, it’s a question of when, not if this happens in real life.

    • ocdtrekkie

      today at 10:16 PM

      Person of Interest is really good. Unfortunately I learned too much about the lead's IRL behavior, and it's on my shelf of shows I'll enjoy once the involved parties aren't collecting royalties anymore.

      It absolutely takes people on a police procedural that drags viewers unwittingly into watching a science fiction show, and I'm totally here for all of it.

  • twostorytower

    today at 10:17 PM

    I believe they also pull this off with a fleet of PS3s, at one point.

• ViktorRay

  today at 7:55 PM

  The Dark Knight was released in the summer of 2008. This was almost 7 years after 9/11.

  Many aspects of that film were deliberately done to explore post 9/11 America. This includes the methods Harvey Dent uses, the things the Joker says, and the surveillance scenes and more.

  These discussions surrounding surveillance have been around long before 2008.

  • mjr00

    today at 8:05 PM

    Of course. The use of mass surveillance in the movie is not-so-subtly referencing the PATRIOT Act. But again, it's presented as a moral dilemma, and multiple protagonists acknowledge that it's far too powerful to exist, and its use is a last resort. It falls into the larger theme of Joker pushing Batman to violate his ethics for the greater good.

    One could argue that because it was successfully used to catch Joker, the movie concludes that mass surveillance is sometimes necessary to stop evil, but it's at least presented as a dilemma. A massive corporation coming out and saying "mass surveillance is awesome because you can find lost pets" is a crazy escalation of the surveillance state.

• Gagarin1917

  today at 8:17 PM

  I mean the message in The Dark Knight is really messy. The characters believe it’s immoral, but they use it anyway, and it saves lives and stops the Joker.

  • mjr00

    today at 8:28 PM

    Yeah, as I say in a sibling comment, it's a fair reading of the movie that it's ultimately pro-surveillance because it shows that despite being immoral, unethical mass surveillance catches the bad guy. But "surveillance is unethical but necessary when battling the forces of evil" is worlds away from "surveillance is totally awesome and everyone should buy a Ring camera."

    • MichaelZuo

      today at 8:55 PM

      That kind of change in morality seems possible for an 18 year timespan? If anything the slope is closer to typical than to the maximum recorded.

      The moral norms of societies, in many aspects, changed even more from 1928 to 1946.

Even more concerning is that Ring is partnering with Flock [1], which has been the subject of quite a bit of controversy recently [2][3][4], with the CEO lashing out at critics with inflammatory language [5][6].

[1] https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-and-ring-partn...

[2] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-roundup

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/10/ice-school-c...

[4] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/effs-investigations-ex...

[5] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-ceo-goes-...

[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46903556

• toephu2

  today at 9:30 PM

  [flagged]

  • whatthe12899

    today at 9:38 PM

    > the reduction in crime is not solely due to Flock, but is has definitely helped.

    what's the theory? murderers see flock cams and decide not to murder? most of the general public doesn't even know what these cameras are (or that they even exist).

    • toephu2

      today at 10:07 PM

      People tend to behave if they know they are being watched. Yeah it's not going to stop crime 100%, but I bet you it will (and it has) help reduce crime by double digit percentages.

      Look at places where there are CCTV cameras all over, there is very little crime there compared to the United States. I won't use China as an example because then you are going to attack me for saying it's an authoritarian state. In that case I will use democratic examples: Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore.

    • toephu2

      today at 10:12 PM

      Lets take the current example of the famous kidnapping of the TV anchor's mother in AZ for example.

      If Arizona was blanketed in CCTVs, do you think this kidnapping would have happened?

      And if it still did happen, I'm 100% sure the suspects would have been caught by now (11th+ day since the disappearance now).

  • wat10000

    today at 9:48 PM

    Of course they do some good. You could improve things even further by implementing a system like Judge Dredd, and we'd save a ton of money as well.

    This is the problem with limits on law enforcement. There are tradeoffs, and people really don't like tradeoffs. Many people prefer to just assume that law enforcement will use their powers for good, rather than have to think about whether any given change will do more harm than good due to enabling bad law enforcement.

  • dyauspitr

    today at 9:42 PM

    That has always been the question. Are you willing to be constantly surveilled for marginally more security?

    • thewebguyd

      today at 10:00 PM

      Me, absolutely not. Unfortunately, my opinion seems to be increasingly in the minority and more and more people will happily be surveilled for even just an illusory promise of safety.

      The harsh truth is that safety/security can never be guaranteed. No amount of surveillance will 100% prevent any individual from being a victim of a crime. Surveillance might help catching the criminal to face justice afterwards, but it will never 100% prevent.

      Because of that, and because of the potential for abuse, it is better to not be under constant surveillance than it is to give up your rights and privacy for no guarantees.

      • toephu2

        today at 10:04 PM

        There is no expectation of privacy in the public setting though. Anyone can record you in public without your permission.

        > No amount of surveillance will 100% prevent any individual from being a victim of a crime.

        No, but if it reduces crime by 99% would you be in favor of it? (See South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore.. examples of democratic countries with CCTVs all over the public space.. and before you say well those are racially homogenous countries.. I say look at Singapore. Singapore is very diverse racially, and yet they have very low rates of crime. This is because they have strict laws against crime and these laws are actually enforced)

        • yibg

          today at 10:49 PM

          South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore all had significantly lower crime rates before CCTVs were all over the public space.

          EDIT: also, most crime happens at home, so if you really want a large reduction put cameras in everyone's home too.

    • toephu2

      today at 10:01 PM

      If it leads to a high-trust society, yes. (e.g., see Singapore)

There would be less backlash to the Ring ad if the ad was honest about how people actually use it. Show us porch pirates, burglars and stupid neighbor who backs into your car being caught on camera.

But instead, they have to come up with something "wholesome" like finding your lost doggo. The wholesomeness is so forced and cringe that it makes you think they have something to hide. It almost feels like the people who wrote this ad and the people who greenlit it knew something was wrong so they have to come up with a cover story. But like a child smiling at you with his biggest smile while anxiously keeping his hands behind his back, it only makes them more suspicious especially in a time when big tech feels more and more like an adversary than a friend.

• HiPhish

  today at 10:46 PM

  > porch pirates

  It absolutely boggles my mind that it's legal in the US for a deliverer to just leave a package out in the open for anyone to pick up and consider it "delivered". Might as well just throw it out of the window of your car, it has the same chance of getting picked up by the recipient. Where I live the package has to be handed over to the recipient. If the recipient is not available it will be handed over to a neighbour and this will be noted on a little card that's placed in the recipient's mail box. If that is not possible it will be taken back to the mail office and the recipient can pick it up in person.

  Adding video surveillance is no solution. OK, so you saw a random stranger pick up your package. Now what? What are you going to do with that information? Are the police going to start a manhunt because of your 50$ Amazon order?

• Atlas667

  today at 10:27 PM

  The infrastructure is still there. It's the infrastructure that's the problem, the marketing is kind of whatever...

  Ring has been a problem and it has only gotten worse now.

• wat10000

  today at 9:50 PM

  Isn't the whole point of the ad that they have a new feature and they want people to know about it? They're not making up the idea of finding lost dogs. They have a new feature where you upload a photo of your lost dog and it automatically looks for the dog in camera feeds.

They don't have a lost-kid feature?

In China, kids are accustomed to face recognition early.[1] The kids are checking into school via fare gates with face recognition. Here's an ad for Hikvision surveillance systems showing the whole system.[2] Hikvision has a whole series of videos presenting their concept of a kindly, gentler Big Brother. This is probably the most amusing.[3]

Amazon's concept is in some ways more powerful. They don't need full coverage. Just sparse, but widespread coverage. Anything that moves around will pass through the view of cameras at some point. Suspicious behavior can be detected in the back end cloud processing, which improves over time.

Flock has the same concept. Flock coverage is sparse in terms of area, but widespread.

"1984" was so last cen.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SMKG8aLTJ38

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnHFJz-u85A

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otAuH6FDhgw

• toephu2

  today at 9:32 PM

  Every technology has pros and cons. Are you insuating Flock is bad and evil (with your reference to 1984?)

  I don't think Flock is this Big EviL coMpaNy you are making them out to be.

  SFPD reported a 125% homicide clearance rate in 2025 (solving more cases than occurred that year), citing license plate readers (read: Flock) and drones as key factors in providing digital evidence.

  • xboxnolifes

    today at 10:15 PM

    Not who you are replying to, but I think mass surveillance is bad and evil, period. So, any person or company contributing toward mass surveillance is bad.

    Most bad things have some good part you can point to. Mass surveillance and all of the other police and government aiding technologies usually point to improved conviction rates or something similar. But making police more efficient at convicting people isn't the only goal of society. That's only one part of what makes up a country and it's society. And, as the saying goes: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

  • nilamo

    today at 10:09 PM

    That's beside the point? Gaining security by losing freedom was always on the table. What's interesting is the cultural shift toward not caring about losing freedom.

    • janalsncm

      today at 10:52 PM

      I think it is the point: there is a balance between freedom and safety.

      For example, it is illegal to carry a loaded handgun onto a plane. Most people would agree that is an acceptable trade of freedom for safety.

      There are places with even less safety and more “freedom” than the US so people who take an absolutist view towards freedom also need to justify why the freedoms that the US does not grant are not valuable.

    • toephu2

      today at 10:14 PM

      Everything I want to do in public I can still do.

      What "freedom" is lost? I gain security and lose no freedoms (unless you are doing something illegal).

      When property crime is up 53%.. plenty of people are willing to lose "freedom" whatever you are referring to, in exchange for safety.

      • warkdarrior

        today at 10:34 PM

        You were recorded smoking marijuana, an illegal drug at the federal level.

        You were recorded walking into an abortion clinic, although face recognition identified as a resident of a state where abortion is illegal.

        • chasd00

          today at 10:50 PM

          Well aren’t both of those things crimes? I’m not a fan of mass surveillance either but maybe pick a different example.

The WeRateDogs guy broke character and put out a video attacking that ad

https://bsky.app/profile/weratedogs.com/post/3mejrtyvkyc2o

• blell

  today at 7:50 PM

  The weratedogs guy has been posting political messages for as long as I can remember. This is completely in character for him.

  • moffkalast

    today at 8:04 PM

    "They aren't good politicians, Bront."

• GaryBluto

  today at 7:33 PM

  [flagged]

  • csours

    today at 8:51 PM

    Objection: facts not in evidence!

    The problem with the current push on "illegal immigrants" is that

        1. It has been incredibly brutal 
        2. Many of the currently "illegal" immigrants were not illegal until their status was revoked by the current president.
        3. The question of your immigration status, under the current system, is decided without proper access to legal representation.
    

    These problems are very much worth drawing a line in the sand over.

    ---

    Some people feel that the current push is solving a real problem in the real world.

    Unfortunately, the real world is actually very complicated, and you can't flatten that complication without violence.

    If that is hard to imagine, replace the ICE acronym with Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Bureau of Land Management, or Internal Revenue Service.

    • swasheck

      today at 9:53 PM

      2a. Many of the "illegal" immigrants are, in fact, legal. 4. immigration status is a civil matter, not a criminal matter.

  • neogodless

    today at 8:24 PM

    I have documentation proving that I am, in fact, the Average American Citizen.

    I am not fine with mass surveillance.

  • _DeadFred_

    today at 8:09 PM

    Because we decided the Constitution doesn't apply to a huge group of people living within the United States, and that seems wrong to those of us raised to believe the Constitution was important and the actual law of the land. It kind of doesn't work at all once we add a government decided 'subjective' layer on top of it. You could argue that already happened but this is the first most obvious in our faces instance.

  • add-sub-mul-div

    today at 7:36 PM

    Because it's them finally becoming aware that abuses of surveillance are real and tangible and not cable news rhetoric.

The Circle (2017) is by no means a perfect movie, based on a 2013 book which I’m told is only marginally better.

But it did do a surprisingly accurate job of depicting pretty much this exact scenario, 9 (13) years in advance.

As in: sleek FAANG holds a grand showcase of mass surveillance using its ubiquitous user-installed smart cameras, under the guise of a good cause.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mro9RCAhvE4

(The fictional story is slightly more blunt about it, the good cause being finding wanted persons, rather than lost dogs).

The situation with the Nancy Guthrie disappearance and Nest camera footage is related, and interesting. It seems that she had a Nest doorbell camera, but didn't pay for the subscription plan ($100/yr?). As a result, the camera records short snippets but doesn't save them to the cloud in a user-accessible way.

After a week, Google finally hunted down/coughed up the footage. I imagine there were some people within Google who realized that if they provided the footage immediately, then it could discourage people from paying for the subscription.

Of course, they must also realize that by not providing the footage sooner, they may have allowed the perp to get away, or the victim to be killed.

Amazon also had the ad about Alexa killing you. Not sure what they were thinking exactly.

• wakamoleguy

  today at 8:43 PM

  It was some attempt at reductio ad absurdum. If you are concerned about letting Alexa into your home, you must be as irrational as Chris Hemsworth. Edit: I'm misusing reductio ad absurdum, but somebody will please tell me what the fallacy here is called.

  • dmoy

    today at 9:09 PM

    Straw man?

• tantalor

  today at 7:53 PM

  That ad was great. I'm not sure how it sells Alexa products, but it was hilarious.

There’s no need to fear the construction of mass surveillance anymore. It’s already here. We built it one convenience at a time [0]. When I see all my friends with Alexa devices at home, ring cameras, and a million food apps on their phones, it feels like it’s already too late.

[0]: https://idiallo.com/blog/we-have-all-we-need-for-mass-survei...

Fears of mass surveillance? It's already mass surveillance

• colechristensen

  today at 7:56 PM

  This nitpick in language adds nothing to the conversation and is fundamentally incorrect. "Fears of" does not imply the thing feared doesn't exist.

  • raised_by_foxes

    today at 9:04 PM

    Fear of bears in the woods? We already had bears.

A mobile phone is the surveillance dictators' wet dream.

What are my subjects doing...tap tap tap...ah there they are. Oh him, he needs to be cancelled, he isn't where I wanted him to be.

that advert is just so horribly manipulative it's borderline evil

how can normal people go to work and produce this output?

(I suppose everyone that is prepared to work at Amazon corporate is... a certain type of person)

• idle_zealot

  today at 8:07 PM

  It's not really about the individual people. They're probably all pretty normal interpersonally. Our systems reward this behavior, so people do it. Surveillance is desired by the politically and economically powerful, and the contravening forces are weak and largely unorganized. Do we punish politicians or businesses for bad behavior? No? Then they'll engage in whatever behavior advances their interests.

  You could purge the world of every single person with evil intentions, and things would maybe get better for a little while, but without fundamentally changing the underlying rules of the system the same thing would play out again with different actors.

  • foobar_______

    today at 9:44 PM

    I like your take. I see this same thing playing out across many parts of the world.

    Dont hate the player hate the game

    It is about incentives and rules of the "game" that drive things. Sure, there are a few evil people but the vast majority of it is normal people responding to broken rules/incentives. Probably you and I both fall in this category :)

  • gorjusborg

    today at 9:14 PM

    > It's not really about the individual people. They're probably all pretty normal interpersonally. Our systems reward this behavior, so people do it.

    Sorry, but people who do things they normally wouldn't because they are rewarded are not good people. They may be 'normal' in a distribution sense, but that doesn't mean the behavior becomes acceptable through it becoming commonplace.

    • pbhjpbhj

      today at 9:49 PM

      The idea is compelling to consider though - I just saw a clip of comedian Romesh Ranganathan saying that a reason he hasn't cheated on his wife is lack of opportunity; another side of the same idea.

      Perhaps we would all be shit-head billionaires if given the opportunity.

      Most of us stay within our ethical lane, but then we don't have the money to afford a private island to abuse people on; we don't have to resist the temptation to incite an insurrection, or to shift gold markets by threatening a war ... perhaps we'd be tempted?

      • AlexandrB

        today at 10:11 PM

        > Perhaps we would all be shit-head billionaires if given the opportunity.

        Statistically, if we were living in WWII Germany, most of us would not become freedom fighters. We'd keep our head down and support the regime. I think most people like to think of themselves as the exception but that's just "cope".

  • AlexandrB

    today at 10:07 PM

    > Surveillance is desired by the politically and economically powerful

    It's also desired by consumers. Parents love tracking their children, spouses track each other. Everyone wants to get a camera to catch porch pirates. Let's not pretend this is something being forced on us by some external evil. The evil is coming from inside the house.

    • blibble

      today at 10:12 PM

      this is entirely misses the point about exactly what makes it dangerous

      there's nothing bad with having a camera to spot porch pirates, as long as the data stays private

      it becomes problematic when everyone's hooked up to one central place (plus the "AI")

      same as the common talking points about CCTV, which always miss the distinction that there's minimal risk if it's only going to some video recorder in the back of the store

      it only becomes dangerous when every shop and house are fed back to one central location

      and the general public do not understand the difference

      • AlexandrB

        today at 10:20 PM

        > there's nothing bad with having a camera to spot porch pirates, as long as the data stays private

        It's still surveillance, and it's subject to subpoena so it can become government data as needed. The centralization makes things worse, sure, but the desire to monitor others often comes from individual actors.

        I can walk down my street and I will be recorded every step of the way by someone. The government didn't mandate this, each homeowner decided they "needed" a camera.

  • blibble

    today at 8:29 PM

    > They're probably all pretty normal interpersonally.

    have you seen the cult like statements they make you emit if you want to pass the interview?

    I had a colleague that interviewed there (and was accepted)

    over the space of that month he completely changed

    (and not for the better)

• themafia

  today at 8:34 PM

  You pay a third party to make something like this for you. They can best be described as nihilists.

Even if it can and will only be used to track dogs, that means if I have a photo of someone's dog I can track it and learn that the owner is (likely) away from their house.

https://archive.is/J7KGU

Archive link posted because in some cases (not all, strange enough) there's a paywall ("subscribe to continue reading")

Did they not realize that it is already a mass surveillance network?

I think Nancy Guthrie and the release of the doorbell video by scouring Google’s caches has done far, far more to make people want video cameras and cloud storage than any ad.

What exactly are the "neighborhood cameras" mentioned in the article?

• jedberg

  today at 7:30 PM

  Everyone's Ring doorbells and cameras.

Are you a dog?? No?? So you do not have anything to worry about!!

So they say.

Yeah in a world where if you post a Ring video of someone taking a crowbar to your mailbox which gets a strike in your neighborhood group and the video down for "hate", yeah, as useful as it is, the mass surveillance stuff is pretty alarming.

Just airtag your dog? Jesus Christ.

• eddyg

  today at 10:20 PM

  Quoting from the press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/01/apple-introduces-new-...

  "Designed exclusively for tracking objects, and not people or pets"

  (emphasis mine)

  • VanTheBrand

    today at 10:25 PM

    That’s just so you don’t sue the over your lost dog

The fears of mass surveillance are some of the funniest things I can think of. Do you think a tree grows a leaf and then says I don’t care what you do leaf.

A country ruled by fear has their "security" systems turned on themselves. We truly live in an Orwellian dystopia

I thought Ring was already sending data to law enforcement agencies (that paid Amazon for it). Also, I thought the EULA included language that basically said, "All your data are belong to us", so they could already do whatever surveillance they want.

That ad gave me a visceral shudder of revulsion, not so much for the specific functionality on display as for the timing, which absolutely could not have been accidental. They might as well have just put 'and we're working on automatic alerts for ICE!' in the ad.

• themafia

  today at 8:34 PM

  "Helping abusive husbands find their escaped wives."

I'm afraid that ship has sailed

• today at 8:13 PM

Know what is super easy to do? Not buy Amazon Ring products.

• mr_machine

  today at 9:34 PM

  Know what is super hard to do? Leave your house without being caught by someone else's Ring camera.

What backlash? "People voiced concerns" turns out to be 9 people if you follow the link. Where exactly is this backlash and why can't I smell it?

• wolvoleo

  today at 7:22 PM

  Ring has experienced backlash before when they allowed police departments to browse the imagery without any kind of oversight or warrant. And has changed their policies as a result (in the most minimal way but ok)

  And these are pretty high profile people whose job it is to represent the people who will also have concerns but don't all contact the verge about it :)

  By the way i use ring cameras too but I've already mitigated them a lot. Installed telephoto lenses that can only see the specific area I want them to see, and I removed the microphones so they can't hear what I'm saying. I got some free with my ring alarm so I didn't really want to waste the hardware either.

• teeray

  today at 8:20 PM

  Everyone I’ve talked to about the Super Bowl ads has mentioned that one and said that it is creepy af. The backlash is mostly word of mouth in my experience.

• egorfine

  today at 8:13 PM

  Exactly. There are certainly more than 9 of us who value privacy and understand where this is going, but in comparison to millions of normies we aren't even a screeching voice of minority[1].

  [1] https://www.howtogeek.com/746588/apple-discusses-screeching-...

• ranger_danger

  today at 7:27 PM

  If you search for this story on other sites, the comments are full of backlash.

• igleria

  today at 7:34 PM

  At what number of people do you consider it a backlash?

  • 1970-01-01

    today at 7:37 PM

    1% of subscribers

    • thesuitonym

      today at 7:40 PM

      What about people who aren't subscribers and do not want their privacy invaded?

      • 1970-01-01

        today at 7:46 PM

        I'm afraid it's GDPR for them

• add-sub-mul-div

  today at 7:34 PM

  The subtext is that idiots are buying these things and should at least become aware that there are reasons for backlash that haven't occurred to them.

• assimpleaspossi

  today at 7:57 PM

  I found out that on Reddit people go there and ask things like this (someone asked recently): "My girlfriend and I are looking for something to do. Are there any protests going on today we can go to?"

  Can you imagine people actually searching things out like that? These "people voicing concerns" are like that. Someone has to find something to be enraged about for the sake of finding something to do.

  • olyjohn

    today at 8:21 PM

    Can you imagine people actually believing a post on Reddit, and then extrapolating that to everybody who is going to a protest?

  • goatlover

    today at 8:02 PM

    Or people are concerned about living in a surveillance state and wish to protest that or some other issue. Why downplay legitimate societal concerns?

  • nutjob2

    today at 8:48 PM

    So instead of drinking or shopping they want to support a cause?

    My god how do they live with themselves.

  • wantlotsofcurry

    today at 8:33 PM

    What an absurd take.

Amazon marketing broke a fundamental rule about consumer tech: Don't remind users about how much Big Tech knows about you.

Your various devices track everywhere you go, who you communicate with, what you search for, what you buy, what audio you listen to, what videos you watch, what games you play, who your family is, all your pictures and video you take, who comes and goes from your house, when you sleep, your health data, and much more.

And as a fundamental part of Big Tech's business they accumulate, aggregate and analyze all that information in various ways to increase profits. They don't keep this a secret, but wisely they normally don't brag about it to the general public.

Consumers have shown that are totally willing to give up privacy for convenience. Just don't remind them of it.

[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46950915

Amazon has a very bad track record in this area. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/amazon-is-wagi...

• Traubenfuchs

  today at 8:33 PM

  > joseffritz

  As an Austrian I have to wonder, is this name a homage to Josef Fritzl, one of the most well known Austrians of modern time?

Bullshit. The only people worried are the ones that were already concerned and never bought a Ring.

I guarantee the vast majority of people LOVE this new feature.

• gorjusborg

  today at 9:18 PM

  Part of the problem here is that people who love it are affecting people who do not. If you want to put cameras to record inside your home, fine, but this is people recording their neighbors without consent. The sales pitch is finding Fido, but I doubt that is the end game here.

• neaden

  today at 9:52 PM

  "I guarantee the vast majority of people LOVE this new feature." And you base this guarantee on?

• i_love_retros

  today at 8:31 PM

  Bullshit to you sir. I have a ring and have cancelled my subscription because of their scummy behavior

  • JoshTriplett

    today at 8:37 PM

    Thank you for that. But please consider taking down the camera, too; it's just as much of a problem without a subscription, because you are the service being sold, not just the customer. Get one that stores and processes video entirely locally instead.

Recording public spaces should be illegal. Public street? Public sidewalk? Not your turf, no cameras, no recording.

• jedberg

  today at 8:51 PM

  I'm not sure you've thought this through. That would mean you can't record law enforcement or any other abuse of power.

  The issue here isn't the recording, it's the packaging it up for sale that's the issue.

• today at 10:40 PM

• Dylan16807

  today at 9:34 PM

  I think that goes too far, but limiting public space recordings to a camera you're operating in person would be a good starting point.

• toephu2

  today at 9:26 PM

  So google maps streetview should be illegal?