A money bounty is daring hackers to cease Ring cameras from sharing information with Amazon

[ad_1] The Fulu Basis is providing a money bounty to anybody who can break Ring cameras free from Amazon’s information ecosystem. The objective isn’t breaking into units for misuse or surveillance.

It's about giving homeowners management over units already put in of their houses, with out forcing these cameras to continuously ship information again to Amazon.

The @Ring Tremendous Bowl Advert highlighted the inescapable actuality that true privateness requires possession.

Customers ought to have the ability to modify their @Ring units to take care of that privateness, which is why our latest bounty works to make sure client management over Ring cameras and to permit…

— FULU (@FuluFoundation) February 20, 2026

The bounty targets Ring’s video doorbell cameras, that are deeply tied to Amazon’s cloud providers. Members are being requested to discover a strategy to forestall these units from sending information to Amazon servers, with out disabling the cameras themselves.

For a lot of concerned, the venture is a response to rising discomfort with how Ring units can be utilized past easy residence safety.

Contained in the bounty and what hackers are being requested to do

The bounty is being supplied by Fulu, which is a privacy-focused non-profit group. Fulu cofounder Kevin O’Reilly informed Wired, “Individuals who set up safety cameras are in search of extra safety, not much less. On the finish of the day, management is on the coronary heart of safety. If we don’t management our information, we don’t management our units.”

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The problem pays not less than $10,000, with extra pledged, to anybody who can modify a Ring digital camera so it really works domestically, blocks Amazon information sharing, and retains options like movement detection and night time imaginative and prescient intact.

The answer should depend on available and cheap instruments, and the steps should be clear sufficient {that a} reasonably technical person might full the modification in underneath an hour. The winner won't be required to publish their strategies.

Doing so might expose them to authorized danger underneath Part 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which restricts the circumvention of digital locks. O’Reilly says that, as with different Fulu bounties, the choice to publish or maintain the work non-public will probably be left to the winner.

Why Ring cameras are underneath scrutiny

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Concern has intensified after Ring expanded its Search Celebration function, which lets anybody utilizing the Neighbors app assist find misplaced pets and gadgets by means of close by cameras. Nevertheless, critics argue that private units are quietly changing into a part of a surveillance community.

That unease has solely grown as Ring’s ambitions have turn into clearer. CEO Jamie Siminoff has spoken about utilizing Ring’s huge digital camera community to “zero out crime,” positioning the platform as a software for large-scale crime prevention fairly than simply private security.

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These considerations exist towards an extended backdrop of skepticism towards Amazon’s dealing with of person information. A earlier Wired investigation revealed inside warnings about weak information safeguards, deepening public concern over potential information misuse.

Latest studies have added to these considerations, together with findings that Ring’s Android app permits undisclosed third events to trace customers and the way your subsequent stroll previous a Ring digital camera might flip right into a biometric scan.

Whether or not the bounty succeeds or not, it highlights a rising demand for transparency and autonomy in related residence units. In the meantime, in case you are not thinking about sharing information, Ring does permit customers to decide out, and right here’s the right way to disable the Search Celebration function.