Looking for some perspective on this, interested how y’all think about it and if I’m isolated in my concerns.
I’ve grown to be a bit anxious when I’m out and about in any neighborhood. The wide use of doorbell cameras that connect to the internet and save data on company servers, listen in to your conversations, and could be used for spying on you as an individual gives me a sinking feeling.
I like walking around, I walk my dogs around the neighborhood and I know my neighbors. I’ve started being so aware that it’s changing my habits. I don’t turn my face towards houses while I’m walking if I notice a doorbell camera, and I’ve put my shirt over my face when dropping off something to a neighbor who has one. I probably gave them a fright but I don’t feel like I should’ve expected to be OK with you surviving me in a way that compromises my privacy that expansively. I’m considering keeping a bandana with me to cover my face if I need to go up to a door, but of course that would make people think I’m a bad actor and just a paranoid privacy nut.
I feel a bit like Winston in the 1984 novel, always feeling watched and trying to find an isolated corner where I can’t be seen. How have y’all been feeling on this? Would love to get perspective, thanks
Use a surgical mask instead of a banana. It feels less aggressive.

Is that a banana on your face or are you just excited to see me?
You have valid concerns. It’s an unfortunate shifting landscape. There’s no opt-out for collection devices you don’t own (it’s hard enough already for the ones you do own) so consent has disintegrated completely. The reflexive reaction is threat model focus and adjusting your expectations of privacy. But what’s becoming more complex at that approach is how widely and with whom the data is being shared. If the doorbell server owner was using it to improve the doorbell product only, it wouldn’t be so concerning. But when it becomes a data harvesting tool for law enforcement or any other company willing to pay, relatively trivial data collection becomes much more imposing since it can be combined with other sources.
I am not at shirt-over-my-face level yet, but I would feel much more comfortable with a face mask any time I approach an unknown camera, which is increasingly common these days.
I don’t turn my face towards houses while I’m walking if I notice a doorbell camera
I do that haha… In all seriousness, I’ve recently quit my job as mailman, in part because of this. Year after year I saw the number of doorbell cameras increase, and so grew my discomfort of my job requiring me to expose myself, to these privacy-hostile situations. The worst case scenarios were semi-detached houses: since the doors to the paired addresses are right beside another. Between the entries there’s often (decorative) separation, requiring some acrobatics to shortcut to the next address. If the second address would have a doorbell camera, while requiring me to sidestep between the obstructions, I could either: A) face the door and have my face right up to the camera, or B) turn my back to it and spin back into position. I did the latter, and I HATED having to adapt my seemingly simple job to this extend, just to protect my dignity.
The Netherlands technically requires a sign which indicates camera surveillance, besides having to direct cameras in such a way that they cannot capture the public sphere. But have a guess at how much enforcement there is in this regard…
Find an IR LEd pin broach or sunglasses or this:
https://www.popsci.com/technology/camera-shy-hoodie-privacy/
When you walk and attempt to protect your privacy, are you wearing or carrying any WiFi and/or Bluetooth devices? Ring devices are Amazon Sidewalk devices. They’ll record nearby devices like your phone, whether you want it to or not.
You are not helping!
(But also not wrong)
So Ring can see all the WiFi networks my neighbors and I have?
all IoT devices can if they have any wifi functionality. they can even see the MAC addresses of the devices connecting to these wifi networks. if some of these devices are set to use their original MAC address instead of the randomized address on a network, IoT devices in signal range can see that too.
Any advice to prevent that? Is it easy to randomize a Mac address through shell command? No need for details, just wondering.
I swear to fuck, I can’t address security issues faster than they can enshittify the whole world.
No need for details, just wondering.
oh. well, there are the details anyway! :D
I swear to fuck, I can’t address security issues faster than they can enshittify the whole world.
I often feel the same, too
recent android devices randomize it by default, per network, reusing them later when connected again to the same network.
on linux it’s pretty easy to change the wifi MAC address, because it does not try to prevent you if you have admin rights.
most commonlyip link set dev wlan1 address macaddresshere, details here: https://www.baeldung.com/linux/change-media-access-control-addressbut if your system uses NetworkManager or another comprehensive network management program, it might change your settings. so in that case you should set this through NetworkManager or what have you. It could sound bad but actually often it’s better this way, because NM has clickable GUI integrations for the popular desktops, like KDE, Gnome, and it will also remember your wishes across reconnects and reboots. if you use the kde plasma desktop, it’s straightforward: on the taskbar’s right end open the network icon, expand your network adapter, click configure, and in the window that appears use the wired or wifi tab to change the mac address for that single interface. I think NM does not do mac randomization, but maybe I’m outdated on that, or perhaps there’s already a setting that’s off by default
edit: NM does support it, but you should check what is the current config for you: https://fedoramagazine.org/randomize-mac-address-nm/



