Latest / InSight Out / Could Your Security Camera Be the Security Risk? | The InSight Out Show | Ep. 144

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Could Your Security Camera Be the Security Risk? | The InSight Out Show | Ep. 144 · InSight Out

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The InSight Outshow.
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Faith that changes how you live
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Welcome to the InSight Out show.
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I am Devin Almonte, and together we are learning to see the world
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through God's eyes and doing our best to live that out in our every day.
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On Thursdays here, we take a look at three stories that are shaping our
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world: the funny, the feel-good, the frustrating, and the faith-enhancing.
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It's a bit of faith, culture, real life, all delivered with warmth,
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clarity, and a bit of humor.
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Before we begin today's episode, we'd love to invite you to partner
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with InSight Out Media, the Christian nonprofit behind our show.
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Even $5 a month is tax-deductible support that directly funds new
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content, supports our contributors, and powers our community initiatives.
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Visit insightoutmedia.org to see our mission in action and to make a donation.
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Thank you for listening and watching and making this work possible.
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All right, well, coming up, millions of us put smart cameras in our
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homes to keep danger out, but what happens when the intruder is
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hacking through the camera itself?
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Then a horrifying new reality for parents, how everyday family vacation photos are
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being scraped from social media and turned into AI-generated child abuse images.
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And finally, with millions already casting midterm ballots, why is the fine print
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at the bottom of the ballot so confusing?
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Could it be costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars
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without us even realizing it?
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Let's get into today's three stories.
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Ring just came out with a new lineup of cameras.
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One records inside your house in 4K.
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Another turns 360 degrees and follows movement around the room.
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So now we can watch the dog from just about every possible angle and
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talk to the guy stealing our car and sound an alarm if Grandma's not
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being careful in her living room.
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According to safehome.org's 2026 survey, 61% of American households
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have at least one security camera.
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That is nearly 75 million homes, up from 52% just two years ago.
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Ring originally focused on reducing crime in communities.
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That was their whole mission, their whole intent.
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But today, the cameras are also about keeping an eye on the people, pets,
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and things that matter most to us.
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So we check whether the kids got home,
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if
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Amazon delivered our package, what the nanny might be doing, but we still
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want to see who is at our door and if that person is supposed to be there.
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And I think these cameras can definitely help with crime too.
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According to the FBI, burglaries fell almost 16% in 2025.
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I'm not saying the cameras are totally responsible for that decline,
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but they might help deter some criminals and help police gather some
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evidence, so that's a good thing.
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However, recording a crime isn't the same as stopping one.
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So also according to FBI data, only 17% of reported burglaries were cleared in 2025.
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So sometimes that camera that we have on our porch really just gives us
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peace of mind so that you can see, "Oh, that's the guy who stole my
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bike. That is good to know." And off he goes, and we do nothing about it.
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But here is where I think we get our idea of safety, what safety means,
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and I think we get it mixed up today.
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Because we are watching the porch, the
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driveway the backyard, now even inside our homes,
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All in trying to keep danger away
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I think the greater threat to our home is the person who could
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be hacking into our cameras.
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A 2025 report from Bitdefender and Netgear found the average connected home had
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about 22 internet-connected devices and faced 29 attempted cyber attacks a day.
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That is triple what it was the previous year.
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So many of these are automated attempts to look for weak passwords
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and vulnerable devices, that kind of thing, but they're hackers that are
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trying to get in the door of our home.
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In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission brought a case against Ring over
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serious privacy and security failures.
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The FTC said hackers compromised about 55,000 US customer accounts.
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Some of them accessed live feeds, even used the camera speakers to
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harass people, including children.
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Here is a report from TODAY highlighting the extent of some
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of those security breaches:
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settlement has been reached in a privacy case involving
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those Ring security cameras.
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The Federal Trade Commission is sending more than $5.6 million in refunds
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to consumers as part of a settlement with the Amazon-owned company.
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The agency says Ring allegedly used customers' private video footage to
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train algorithms without their consent.
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The company was also charged with failing to implement key security protections,
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which enabled hackers to take control of accounts, cameras, and videos.
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In a separate lawsuit, there was an 87-year-old woman in assisted
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living, said somebody hacked into the Ring camera that her family used
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to check on her, and this person threatened her, sexually harassed her.
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She was so scared, she moved back in with her family.
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So this camera that was meant to help her family help protect her ended up being
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the very thing that made her feel unsafe.
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The FTC also found that employees and contractors had excessive
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access to these private recordings.
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One employee had watched thousands of videos from customers' homes.
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Now, these are older cases.
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Ring has made a lot of these changes and I believe has gotten a lot better at this.
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And this goes well beyond Ring, and it reminds me of a book I read
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probably about a year ago now.
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Jonathan Haidt's, you've probably heard of it, it's called The Anxious Generation.
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And he talks about how much we do to protect children in the physical world.
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We're afraid they're gonna get kidnapped from the bus stop or the grocery
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store, we're doing all these things to protect them in these spaces, but then
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we leave them completely exposed online.
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So there our kids on the couch with their device and we assume they're safe.
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But we're essentially letting them hang out with people we would never
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allow them to hang out with, strangers, pedophiles, the worst of the worst.
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So are we making that same mistake with our homes?
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I do think we need to take the digital side of home security a lot more
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seriously, especially today with AI and everything going on, we're
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spending so much time worrying about the burglar that's at our front door
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that we are forgetting about the one that's coming through the camera.
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29 attempted cyber attacks a day coming into the average connected home.
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Those are break-ins, and they are coming from all our devices.
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That is what is coming into our homes.
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Criminals aren't necessarily after our TV anymore, at least the sophisticated ones.
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They're after our financial information, our identities, our personal data.
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And with cameras, there is the additional risk of exposing, our, our
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life, our private moments, our kids.
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Some sicko wants to see God knows what, and they wanna learn somebody's
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routine or figure out how to scam grandma out of her savings.
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Not good.
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Proverbs 27:12, "A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions.
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The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." I think
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that applies just as much to our digital lives as it does to our physical homes.
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We lock our front doors for a reason.
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I think we should be just as thoughtful about technology
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that we are bringing inside.
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A little common sense and a few precautions can go a long way.
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So let me give us a few things that we can be doing.
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First figure out whether this is a need or a novelty if you are going
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to purchase one of these cameras.
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Before buying one, ask yourself, what problem are we actually trying to solve?
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Do we need it for security, to check on an aging parent, or because it's the
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latest gadget and it's got really cool features and, we'd just like to have it.
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Every connected device comes with some level of risk, so make
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sure the benefit is worth it.
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Second, think carefully about where you are putting these cameras.
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An outdoor camera monitoring your driveway is one thing.
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A camera recording everything happening in your living room or your bathroom or
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your bedroom is a whole other ballgame because if you are choosing to install
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cameras inside your home, uh, just make sure you have a specific reason for
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each one and consider whether there are better ways to accomplish whatever
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it is that you are trying to do.
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Third, and I'm not so great at this one, however, I think it's extremely
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important and a lot of us miss this, and this is making sure that we secure
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these things before we start using them.
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We like to just get started.
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We get the bike, we just wanna go.
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But know how to ride it, know how it works.
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Make sure you have a strong password for your camera account.
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Make sure you turn on two-factor authentication.
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Keep the camera's apps and your home router updated.
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Know who has access to your footage, and if you are sharing this with family
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members, make sure you know exactly who's on that list and how they're using
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it, how long recordings are stored.
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Most of us never bother to look at any of this stuff.
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And like a fire alarm, periodically check on this to make sure it's working
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maybe once a month, once a quarter.
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These are not optional extras anymore.
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They should be part of setting up the device.
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And fourth, I would say especially if you're using cameras to look on aging
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parents, make sure that their account is protected, that they understand
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who's watching, and that the technology isn't creating another vulnerability.
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I think we've gotten way too comfortable with the idea that being able to see
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everything somehow makes us safer.
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Technology can be a wonderful tool.
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I use it, I'm grateful for it, but it doesn't replace good judgment
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or personal responsibility.
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So hopefully those tips help you, to be a little bit safer with these
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cameras, not to scare you, but for us to use wisdom and discernment.
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Finding ways to be more prudent and careful.
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All right, moving on into our next story.
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Last December, a Pennsylvania man was sentenced to 28 months to 10
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years in prison for using artificial intelligence to create sexually
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explicit images of children.
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And so he became the first person convicted and sentenced under
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Pennsylvania's new law addressing AI-generated child sex abuse material.
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Here's what NBC 10 Philadelphia had to say about it:
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A Lehigh County man was sentenced to prison after using artificial intelligence
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to create child sexual abuse materials.
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The Lehigh County District Attorney says Adam Erdman ran photos of young children
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he knew through AI photo editing software.
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The technology manipulated the images, making it appear as
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though the children were naked.
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Erdman saved those images to his computer until they were discovered
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and reported by his estranged wife.
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These are not kids sending inappropriate pictures and having them get lost online.
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We are talking about ordinary photos taken on vacation that somebody
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else out there chose to exploit.
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The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received about 4,700
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reports involving generative AI in 2023.
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In 2025, that number jumped to 400,000 reports.
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That's 85 times as many reports in just two years.
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Thorn is a nonprofit focused on protecting children online.
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They surveyed young people and found that one in 25 teenagers reported having a
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fake nude image made of them using AI.
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One in 25.
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And the tools out there now to create this are so easy to find.
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Just this week, the Tech Transparency Project reported finding 135 apps capable
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of creating fake nude or sexually explicit images that could be accessed through
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Apple and Google's app stores using test accounts to set up for 13-year-olds.
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Some were even accessible even with the parental controls turned on, and both
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companies have taken steps against,
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these apps
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this is what's happening.
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Somebody doesn't need an inappropriate photograph of your child.
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In some cases, an ordinary photograph is enough.
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In May, Texas investigators arrested a man they said used pictures from
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a public school-related website to create AI-generated sexual images.
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Investigators found more than 900 images and videos and
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identified 30 children affected.
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Their photos have been publicly accessible on school websites.
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And I totally understand why we share.
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We like to share the first day of school, birthdays, sports, graduations,
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that family vacation that you took.
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It feels nice.
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You, you wanna share it.
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But we're doing that in ways that are way beyond our control.
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We spend years teaching our children, "Don't share your personal information.
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Be careful what you post.
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Once it's out there, you can't do anything about it.
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Meanwhile, many of us parents have been publicly posting these
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pictures since our kids were babies.
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It's not that we're at fault for this.
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I don't want you to feel bad.
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"What have I done? It's too late." I mean, who could have seen all of this coming?
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But we know now, and so I think we need to reconsider some of our habits.
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So here's our challenge.
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For the next 30 days, don't publicly post pictures of your kids or grandkids.
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Send any photos that you'd like to send directly to family and friends instead.
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Public doesn't need to see it.
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See if you actually miss the public part of it.
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And then while we're at it, ask ourselves, why are we posting
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these publicly in the first place?
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Is it to keep family updated?
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Is it to get likes and followers.
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There are a lot of parents that are monetizing off their kids.
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Can't say I'm a fan of that.
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It doesn't mean every reason for wanting to post publicly is a bad reason.
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Sometimes there are real reasons for it, but it's trying to figure out, what is the
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benefit we're getting while our children are the ones taking on all that risk?
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This also goes beyond our homes.
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Find out what your children's schools are doing, and churches, and sport teams.
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What are they sharing publicly?
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Ask about their photo policies and, and who has access to those pictures.
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And talk to your kids about these AI-generated images.
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Make sure they understand what's really going on and what can happen,
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and that even if they thought it was funny, because kids are kids,
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to do this with one of a classmate's images, it's not just a harmless joke.
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And if somebody ever does this to them, uh, that can be really embarrassing.
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They need to know that they can come to you without fear or embarrassment.
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I'm not suggesting that we stop taking pictures or celebrating
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our kids and our families.
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Those memories matter, and we're doing it in a very modern way today.
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But our children are growing up in a world where there's a lot of evil
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that is looking to, , use these images in ways that we could not
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even have imagined a few years ago
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Maybe that's reason enough to be a little more careful about what we share
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because we can be proud of our children without making their childhood so public.
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All right, what's next?
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We are headed to Florida.
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This does affect the entire country, though.
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Nearly 1.4 million Floridians have already voted in the November 3rd midterms,
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more than a million by mail and roughly 360,000 early in-person voting according
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to state figures Wednesday morning.
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That was October 20th.
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But I do wonder how many, I was looking at a sample ballot, how many reach the
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bottom of this ballot and think, "Wait a minute, uh, what are all these questions?
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What am I voting for?" And you get to these amendments and referendums
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and bond proposals, and sometimes figuring out what they are asking
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you to vote on is the challenge.
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How, how do we figure this out?
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Take Florida's Amendment 3.
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Okay, this is the big one for Florida.
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It deals with property taxes, and it was in August a judge ordered that
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its title and summary for the ballot be rewritten because the originals,
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they felt, were a little misleading.
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The original title was "Save Our Homes from Excessive Property
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Taxes," and that makes sense to me, although they felt it was biased.
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Okay.
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So the replacement: increased homestead exemption, lower cap on increases in
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non-homestead property assessments.
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Well, there you go.
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Now things are certainly crystal clear for everybody.
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But sometimes it's not the wording, as messy as that is.
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In 2018, Florida's Amendment 9 bundled a ban on offshore drilling with a
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ban on vaping in indoor workplaces.
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What does somebody vaping in an office have to do with drilling for oil?, Nothing
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that should technically require me to cast one vote on both of those issues.
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But that is exactly what happened.
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The Florida Supreme Court allowed it on the ballot, and it passed
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with almost 69% of the vote.
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I'd much rather see those decisions listed separately on the ballot.
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Now here in Palm Beach County, voters are being asked to authorize 280 million
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in bonds for parks and recreation.
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Some of us also have 175 million library bond There's a separate
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school property tax renewal as well.
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And they're real decisions involving real money.
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So I started reading through these proposals, general obligation bonds,
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maturity dates, ad valorem taxes.
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Okay, but what does all of this mean for the average homeowners?
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What parks are we improving?
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What libraries need work?
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How much, uh, extra is this going to cost me?
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How are these things gonna be maintained in the future?
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How much money is in the budget currently?
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A lot of this information is out there somewhere.
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You can find budgets, project plans, estimates, what these proposals could
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cost taxpayers, but it is not fun.
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I spent a lot of time trying to find this information.
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It is all across different websites and documents and audio clips, and
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all of these things that you're trying to piece together, and the really
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painful meetings, that you try to listen to with the local governments
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that are very painful to listen to.
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With all of that, it's still not easy to understand what exactly
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we're being asked to approve, And that is my issue with this, and
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this is not just a Florida thing.
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This is a national thing.
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We are an Apple family.
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Phones, laptops, watches, all of it.
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Apple figured out how to make complicated technology intuitive and accessible
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and easy to use for somebody like me.
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With all of the modern technology that we have now, why can't local
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government figure out how to do the
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same and cheaper?
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Do they want to?
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Probably not.
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Imagine being able to type in your address and you see a clear dashboard.
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Here's what your taxes fund.
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Here's what the school spend per student is, how students are actually doing.
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Here's what libraries cost, how many people are using them.
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Here's the last bond that voters approved and what was promised and
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whether the work finished on budget.
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We get a whole snapshot, real-time Wouldn't that be awesome?
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And if officials wanted another 175 million for projects, show me the
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buildings, show me what's wrong with them, show me the plan, show me the estimated
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impact on my taxes, when and for how long.
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J- just this, nice, easy, very modern technology-friendly
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dashboard that I can use.
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Good parks, good schools, great libraries all strengthen communities.
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, But so does responsible spending.
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We shouldn't have to choose between caring about public services and asking hard
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questions about the costs and the price tag and where our money actually goes.
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I think sometimes our government officials prefer it that way,
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that things are more confusing.
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I also think they assume people just don't care, maybe more people would
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get involved if it weren't so difficult to figure out what's going on and
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how these decisions affect them.
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So before November 3rd, which is coming up, try this.
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Give yourself 30 minutes.
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Don't spend hours on this like I did just going down the rabbit hole with this.
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But pull up the sample ballot wherever you are.
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Pick one question that maybe you partially understand, but really pull it apart and
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take 30 minutes to really understand it.
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Find out what a yes means, find out what a no means, what it costs, and
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who's making the case on each side.
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And if you still have questions, call your local government office and ask them.
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Have somebody walk you through it.
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Make them do the work.
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That's what they're there for.
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We shouldn't be afraid to ask questions about how our money is being spent.
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That's part of holding our government And if you are here in Palm Beach County,
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you can go to pbc.gov, find your county commissioner, send them a message.
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You can even email all seven commissioners at once.
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Ask them for clearer explanations of these proposals.
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And wherever you are listening or watching, I encourage you to do
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the same with your local government because our elected officials
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have a responsibility here, too.
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If we're asking taxpayers to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in
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spending, make it easy for us to understand what we're paying for, why it's
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needed, and what we're getting in return.
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We shouldn't have to work this hard to get answers about decisions
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that affect our own communities.
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But if we want things to change, we gotta speak up.
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And with that, we're putting a wrap on today's news.
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If this show brought you some clarity, warmth, or helped you look at something
19:10
a little bit differently this week, the best compliment you can give is sharing
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this with somebody that you care about.
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Don't forget, please follow and subscribe wherever you are listening or watching.
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Leave a comment.
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I do read them.
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My prayer is that this conversation helps all of us think more deeply, see
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more clearly, and live more faithfully.
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I'm Devin Almonte.
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Thanks for listening.
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Now let's live InSight Out.