Doorbell camera video of a masked person outside Nancy Guthrie's home has emerged as "the most significant public development" in the case, reports NBC News—and the fact that it emerged at all is somewhat remarkable. NBC notes the internet-connected Google Nest camera was taken offline, and Guthrie reportedly didn't pay for the cloud storage that would have preserved the footage. And yet it was recovered via "backend systems," says FBI Director Kash Patel.
How, exactly, the FBI got the footage remains murky. Former FBI agent Timothy Gallagher tells NBC, "The data is being transmitted to the cloud, but even if it had not gotten there, there are many stops in between where data will reside, and the FBI prides itself on being able to tear into these data streams and pull out bits and pieces of data and piece together an image like we see here today."
EJ Hilbert, also a former FBI agent, describes the scope of the challenge: "Nest/Google deletes billions of data points every hour. To find this data set means that they are finding a single needle in a 10K ft by 10Kft haystack." The footage's existence is spurring privacy questions that Ring founder Jamie Siminoff addressed Tuesday on Fox Business' The Bottom Line, saying that as far as his company goes, no recordings are stored if you don't have a subscription. "I know that because I built the systems with my team."
The AP, which couldn't get a comment from Google, notes the company's privacy policy states videos can still be captured when a device is offline. "That means you may not see a visual indicator when your camera is sending the video footage to our servers," it reads.
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