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The more things change…

Do you want to know how rapidly surveillance, both analogue and IP is expanding? Well, you could ask a vendor, or you could pay a fortune for some research and get some interesting numbers, in terms of both cameras installed and the value of the surveillance market. On the other hand, a far more interesting way would be to go to insecam.org.

Insecam was first mentioned in Hi-Tech Security Solutions last year in connection with the iLegal conference. One of the presentations focused on cyber security, including cyber security related to surveillance. At that stage, Insecam only had nine unsecured security cameras from South Africa on its list. Today I saw there are 73.

Insecam is not a hacking site. The purpose of the website is to list all the unsecured cameras connected to the Internet. It is only able to display footage from cameras that have not been at least minimally secured. Once it finds these cameras, it can also use the IP address to provide a general location of the camera (although the site says the locations are “very approximative and have accuracy in hundreds of miles”, and it probably points to the ISP not the camera owner).

It’s probably worth mentioning that my reference to ‘minimally secured’ means setting a password on your cameras. The site actually says people can easily remove their cameras: “The only thing you need to do is to set the password of your camera.”

So you can surf around the site and see what’s happening at a coffee shop in France, a public swimming pool in Eastern Europe (I think it’s public), or a fashion store in Naples, Italy – although it was closed at midday on a Monday. Maybe it’s very exclusive. And, in case you know someone there, it’s snowing at the petrol station in Pitea, Sweden. (I wonder if they play golf at the local club in the snow. How do you find your ball?)

Closer to home you can watch people working in their offices, see what’s happening in what looks like a security control room where three people are meant to be watching their screens. One was, another was having a chat and the third was in and out. Maybe it was lunchtime. If you’re looking for an upmarket house, there’s one on the coast in good condition with cameras all around it; and if it interests you, nobody seems to be home during the day.

There are cameras from various manufacturers on the site, but don’t blame the manufacturers for being there, the installer is to blame for not changing the cameras’ passwords. In fact, most newer cameras force you to choose a new password when installing them – perhaps not the cheapies though – which automatically keeps you off Insecam.

This brings us to the CCTV Handbook 2017, which is out next month. One of the subjects we will be looking at is the security of your surveillance installation. Don’t miss it.

Andrew Seldon

Editor

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