That link doesn't mention anything about it being a "bathroom spy camera".
It was sold as a nanny cam which is really a legitimate, if slightly distasteful, function. There is an image of it shown with towels on the hook, but it isn't stated or implied that it should be used to spy on people as they use the bathroom.
I'm a big fan of holding tech companies to the same standards as other industries, but not a big fan of holding them to unreasonably high standards.
Of course they do. There are countless legitimate uses for a hidden camera. The only thing a visible camera is good for is to ensure that nothing bad happens in front of that camera.
And even a towel bar or clothes hanger does not automatically mean bedroom or bathroom either.
Closets and towel bars can and do exist anywhere, like kitchens, laundry rooms, front and rear entrances, mud rooms, workshops, offices, stock rooms, really anywhere.
They are even legitimate IN bedrooms, if it's your own bedroom. It's wrong obviously to peeping-tom on a guest or tenant, but if I want to monitor my own bedroom when I'm not in it, I certainly can, and that means the product can't be automatically invalid to exist.
That one is unsafe since it supports powerline ethernet. Powerlines should not be in a shower. Other than that, it is supposed to be looking after babies. It is unsafe to leave babies in a shower, water or not, camera or not. Also there is no clear usage description, how to mount, how to pair,... I can't believe it passed CE certification.
Gotta throw the babysitter into the description just in case your imagination is so limited that you ACTUALLY think this is about catching thieves taking a shower in your home during a break in.
I mean I also have a morbid curiosity, but is there anything that could have been there that would have made it ok? This isn't lock picks were a lot of people buy them to mess around with and to get back into their own property
Another commenter posted the archive page. No comment on whether this "made it ok," but some of the other photos show the hooks being used in a different context, more like a nanny cam.
This one (https://web.archive.org/web/20231204210803/https://m.media-a...) shows hooks in what looks like a mudroom catching an image of a person in black clothing in a ski-mask, indicating a use case of the hook would be to surreptitiously record a thief.
On the archive, it is advertised as a "Hidden Clothes Hook Camera, Mini Spy Camera HD 1080P, Nanny Cam with Motion Detection, Wireless Security Camera for Home/Office/Pet Monitor, Video Recorder No WiFi Needed, No Audio" with no mention of it being a "bathroom spycam."
Yeah, but I mean I assume the people selling date rape drugs do a bit of wink, wink, nod, nod, thing too. Do you think literally a single person bought this and used it as a nanny cam? I think I can imagine, maybe it got used outside of a bathroom, or got used by people play acting hidden cameras, aka used with everyone's consent, but I don't think it gets much worse than this, except maybe for this other product amazon still sells https://www.amazon.com/Bathroom-Shower-Security-Cameras-Outd...
> Do you think literally a single person bought this and used it as a nanny cam?
There is actually one person who left a review and seems to have bought it with a less nefarious purpose than spying on someone in the bathroom:
> I set this up on my back window to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity in the area behind our house. We share a communal back yard area and people tend to walk through quite often. I love how this camera is disguised and I can place it anywhere!
However, it does appear to be marketed for the nefarious purposes despite the comical "bad guy with ski mask" you need to hide the camera from for some reason.
Absolutely. Making sure the help is not stealing. Spying on a spouse you suspect is cheating in your home. Filming contractors while they work in a room to make sure they’re not cutting corners etc.
In theory, you could use a bathroom spy cam for a non-nefarious purpose, such as checking whether someone is flushing their meds instead of taking them, but it's a fairly contrived scenario.
I mean one of the examples above is a regular hook. Those can go in any room and there are plenty of non contrived scenarios for those, check my comment above.
Like many Olympic sports, I would assume there would be multiple categories:
1. Weight participants, feed them equally. Whomever has the shortest time time from start to end of defecation wins.
2. Highest weight of of single, uninterrupted mass.
3. Best form.
According to Slavoj Žižek, Germans love Hermeneutic stool diagnostics.
>Žižek on toilets. Slavoj Žižek during an architecture congress in Pamplona, Spain.
>The German toilets, the old kind -- now they are disappearing, but you still find them. It's the opposite. The hole is in front, so that when you produce excrement, they are displayed in the back, they don't disappear in water. This is the German ritual, you know? Use it every morning. Sniff, inspect your shits for traces of illness. It's high Hermeneutic. I think the original meaning of Hermeneutic may be this.
>Hermeneutics (/ˌhɜːrməˈnjuːtɪks/)[1] is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretive principles or methods we resort to when immediate comprehension fails. Rather, hermeneutics is the art of understanding and of making oneself understood.
>“In a traditional German toilet, the hole into which shit disappears after we flush is right at the front, so that shit is first laid out for us to sniff and inspect for traces of illness. In the typical French toilet, on the contrary, the hole is at the back, i.e. shit is supposed to disappear as quickly as possible. Finally, the American (Anglo-Saxon) toilet presents a synthesis, a mediation between these opposites: the toilet basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it, visible, but not to be inspected. [...] It is clear that none of these versions can be accounted for in purely utilitarian terms: each involves a certain ideological perception of how the subject should relate to excrement. Hegel was among the first to see in the geographical triad of Germany, France and England an expression of three different existential attitudes: reflective thoroughness (German), revolutionary hastiness (French), utilitarian pragmatism (English). In political terms, this triad can be read as German conservatism, French revolutionary radicalism and English liberalism. [...] The point about toilets is that they enable us not only to discern this triad in the most intimate domain, but also to identify its underlying mechanism in the three different attitudes towards excremental excess: an ambiguous contemplative fascination; a wish to get rid of it as fast as possible; a pragmatic decision to treat it as ordinary and dispose of it in an appropriate way. It is easy for an academic at a round table to claim that we live in a post-ideological universe, but the moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion, he is again knee-deep in ideology.” -Slavoj Žižek
An in-toilet shelf-cam paired with a mobile xitter app would be the shit: a Hermeneutic tool for "the art of understanding and of making oneself understood"!
Kinda wondering what the product actually looks like, and how Amazon allowed it to be presented.
Edit: whoa, @navels how'd you do that?! Thank you, amazing: https://web.archive.org/web/20230527030738/https://www.amazo...
The product reviews are creepy.
--
Rest of my comment for posterity:
There's an image in TFA, though it's only a partial, limited view: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/MS-v-...
Another article from yesterday contains a zoomed in image but no description: https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2023/12/amazon-may-be-...
If we knew the product ID it could be checked for existence on archive.org.
Anyhow, the research link I used is: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22it+wont+attract+attention...