Cold TAKE: Amazon's New Encryption Method Still Doesn't Deliver Real Privacy

Amazon recently debuted a new feature for its Ring cameras that the company is calling Throw Away the Key Encryption (TAKE). The idea is to cut back on the amount of video content available to the company, and thus potentially available to law enforcement. But while it might technically add a speed bump to accessing full video content, it doesn’t deliver nearly the level of privacy we should be demanding from video doorbells and other security cameras. TAKE introduces a new way for Ring to manage encryption keys, where the user’s device has its key, then the company holds encryption keys temporarily within its own cloud infrastructure. Ring’s servers receive the keys temporarily so it can offer a variety of the features it says it can’t offer when a user chooses to use end-to-end encryption, like video descriptions, smart alerts, video search, and more, then deletes the key after 24 hours. This differs from how it works now, where footage is encrypted in transit and at rest, then decry