Author Topic: They're watching  (Read 796 times)

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Offline AlanS

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They're watching
« on: November 07, 2014, 06:26:17 PM »
But it ain't Big Brother.

Quote
It shouldn't be so easy to peer into a stranger's bedroom, much less hundreds of strangers' bedrooms. But a website has collected the streaming footage from over 73,000 IP cameras whose owners haven't changed their default passwords. Is this about highlighting an important security problem, or profiting off creepy voyeurism—or both?

Insecam claims to feature feeds from IP cameras all over the world, including 11,000 in the U.S. alone. A quick browse will pull up parking lots and stores but also living rooms and bedrooms. "This site has been designed in order to show the importance of the security settings," the site's about page says. But it's also clearly running and profiting off ads.

To be sure, the streaming feeds aren't anything a determined person couldn't already find through Google or Shodan, the latter of which lets you look for connected devices like IP cameras. But the website puts all those streams into one easily and creepily accessible place. A lawyer tells Motherboard that the site "a stunningly clear violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act" in the U.S since it involve hacking into someone's password-protected account, even if it's a default password-protected account. It's unclear who exactly is behind the site, though the domain is registered with GoDaddy with a IP address linked to Moscow.

At least there is an easy fix to get your private camera off of Insecam, which is just putting in a new password. But that's assuming people know about the site's existence at all. [Network World, Motherboard]

I use an IP cam as a baby monitor, and something like this is my worst fear. I have it set behind my firewall, no port forwarding so it's not accessible outside my own home network, and complex password for both router and cam. Pretty sure that's all I can do to make it secure, but crap like this, some creepo staring at my kid while sleeping, still scares me.

Watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8DjTcANBx0

and then realize that changing the default password may not even keep you safe.

"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem."

Thomas Jefferson

Offline Libertas

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Re: They're watching
« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2014, 09:44:49 AM »
You ever see clips of bears in the wild scratching their behinds against a tree?

I think I am safe enough....

 ;D
We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.