FBI documents warned that owners of Amazon’s Ring and similar video doorbells can use the systems — which collect video footage sometimes used to investigate crimes — in order to watch police instead. The Verge reports: The Intercept spotted the files in the BlueLeaks data trove aggregated from law enforcement agencies. One 2019 analysis describes numerous ways police and the FBI could use Ring surveillance footage, but it also cites “new challenges” involving sensor- and camera-equipped smart home devices. Specifically, they can offer an early warning when officers are approaching a house to search it; give away officer locations in a standoff; or let the owner capture pictures of law enforcement, “presenting a risk to their present and future safety.”

These are partly hypothetical concerns. The standoff issue, for instance, was noted in a report about motion-activated panoramic cameras. But the FBI points to a 2017 incident where agents approached the home of someone with a video doorbell, seeking to search the premises. The resident wasn’t home but saw them approach by watching a remote video feed, then preemptively contacted his neighbor and landlord about the FBI’s approach. He may also have “been able to covertly monitor law enforcement activity” with the camera. This isn’t necessarily more information than a security camera would capture. But doorbells like the Ring or Google Nest Hello are pitched as more mainstream devices, and they’ve also created controversy around police use of the footage.

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Source: Slashdot – FBI Worried Ring and Other Doorbell Cameras Could Tip Owners Off To Police Searches

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: AT&T is once again looking to sell its DirecTV unit, a business that has lost billions of dollars in value since the wireless carrier acquired it in 2015. The sooner it waves goodbye, the better. The question is, who wants it? DirecTV has faded into the background at AT&T, a company now entirely focused on competing in 5G wireless connectivity and online television. Any DirecTV user can attest to how the service has been neglected in recent years, and the business might be forgotten by investors if it weren’t for the headline-grabbing subscriber losses it’s mounted each quarter.

AT&T, which also owns the U-Verse brand, has lost about 6 million traditional pay-TV customers overall in just the last two years. The Covid-19 pandemic is causing cord-cutting to accelerate as consumers look to save money by switching to streaming-video services such as Netflix and AT&T’s own HBO Max. So while AT&T paid $49 billion when it bought DirecTV, it’d be lucky to fetch even half that now. One analyst, John Butler of Bloomberg Intelligence, estimates a potential sale price of just $20 billion. Some may be wondering, what on earth would any buyer want with a satellite-TV business anyway? The answer is cash. DirecTV still throws off quite a bit of it, which explains why private equity firms including Apollo Global Management Inc. and Platinum Equity are said to be taking a look. Financial suitors want businesses that generate lots of cash because they can support dividends and the debt load needed to take them private — although DirecTV’s ability to do so is certainly diminishing.

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Source: Slashdot – AT&T, Ready For Your Billion DirecTV Haircut?