Create a personal surveillance state!

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/16/create-a-personal-surveillance.html

That title tho. Jesus Tits.

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is this camera secure against “Mirai” and the like?

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Please, I BEG you, where it says “Burn That Old Disney VHS Collection Onto Your Computer”, change the word “Burn” to “Rip”. You’re causing a whole new generation of newbies to use the wrong word to describe what they mean. It’s like saying “i wrote a book” when what you mean is “i read a book”.

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I was hoping this was going to be about creating a cult compound where your adoring subjects have no privacy from their self-styled prophet.

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From what I can tell the camera comes bundled with its own proprietary software and cloud service that you may not be able to opt out from. Oco doesn’t appear in the open-source surveillance package ZoneMinder’s list of compatible networked cameras, for example. So the product’s security, not to mention its ongoing function, is tied to the lifespan of Oco and their continued commitment to software and server maintenance.

The money you pay might be better thought of as purchasing a subscription to Oco’s service, rather than buying the camera outright.

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Stop. Pet peave time. Technically “rip” is incorrect too.

“Ripping a file,” in its original state, meant “raster image processing.” For example, you would RIP an EPS file for printing on non-PostScript printers. Way back around 2000, the non-designer set stole the term because it sounded cool; “I’m gunna totally rip this DVD onto my hard drive, dude! It’s gunna be Matrix Reloaded everywhere, man!”

Or am I wrong. Is there another, non-printing, origin to “rip?”

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What’s the difference between ripping and rendering?

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I’m surprised this one didn’t insult me - things are looking up!

Your life is out of control, and you have no idea what goes on in your own apartment. Your teenager hates you, and the dog crapped on your bed. At least, it was probably the dog. And you smell funny. Thank God for this webcam thing, which can solve all your problems, provided you buy one before your teenager does.

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Wow, touché! Well played sir. I was using the term in the sense of “format shifting while reading one media format and saving it to a more modern format to a hard drive” so that sense of the term could actually apply to converting EPS to raster as well.

I have been (possibly incorrectly) using RIP to refer to converting CDs, CD+G, LaserDisc, VideoTape, and even Audio Tape to modern format (eg: mp3 or mp4).

While “rip” may be technically incorrect, it is definitely “more correct” than “burn”, which, if i’m not mistaken yet again, definitely does NOT mean “import”. yes?

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That’s just Apple pandering.

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I would agree. RIp is closer to being correct than Burn.

The term I always used is one you just used yourself — convert. I think “convert” or perhaps “import” are better depending on what was being done.

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https://web.archive.org/web/20090224130914/http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/R/rip.html

  1. To extract the digital representation of a piece of music from an audio CD. Software that does this is often called a CD ripper.
  1. [Amiga hackers] To extract sound or graphics from a program that they have been compiled/assembled into, or which generates them at run-time. In the case of older Amiga games this entails searching through memory shortly after a reboot. This sense has been in use for many years and probably gave rise to the (now more common) sense 1.
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I assumed they were referring to the practice of setting a pile of VHS tapes alight, letting the melting plastic dribble onto the case of a PC. That’s how I do it, anyways - my case mods always involve dead media encrusted onto them.

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BoingBoing has taught me so very much about the security hazards buried in TheInternetOfThings, that now I know, just bacause I see it advertised on BoingBoing, doesnt mean its not crap.

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You mean like when we watch “films” or “dial” a phone?

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something LIKE that, but more like using the word “bad” to mean “good” (where the opposite meaning is transmitted to unwitting listeners), but also NOT like that since their using “bad” to mean “good” is done on purpose and with a sense of irony, rather than out of ignorance, while watching a “film” is an anachronism that actually translates well to mean what you meant to mean :slight_smile:

Just like @frauenfelder complains about in other topics.

I’d go with convert because it includes (implicitly) the whole import-computerdoessomethingtothedata-export thing that is going on.
Pedantry? Language is a precision tool and should be used as such.

Professor Foot: We wouldn’t want to operate with a blunt scalpel, now would we?
Ringo: [shakes head frantically]

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