January 26, 2011

Unsecured IP security cameras

Mark Coleran noted Peep show: inside the world of unsecured IP security cameras by Tom Conno at Ars Technica (photo from William Lamson).

Live cams are almost as old as the Internet, so there's an active microculture and even live screensavers(eg, SurveillanceSaver for Mac OS and iPhone). It's not quite this era's found footage because of poor quality, but more hi-res frames could be tweened with After Effects. For related tutorials see Motion estimated morphing time-remapping on stills and More slow motion from pictures using Pixel Motion.

Here's an excerpt from Ars Technica's Peep Show and a video from digitalfxcube:
"Using the same basic technology that your computer uses, IP cameras take their own IP addresses and stream video directly onto a network without connecting to a DVR or control platform. Larger systems can integrate multiple IP cameras together using an NVR (network video recorder) that connects to and records multiple cameras at the same time. This capability can cut installation cost by literally thousands of dollars on sites where analog cameras would require long or complex cable runs.

Additionally, IP cameras frequently offer the additional benefits of higher resolution (with some models capable of 10 megapixels or more) and a more familiar platform for users to work with, meaning that they are also frequent favorites for smaller installations, too. Many forward-looking government, commercial, and even residential users are already standardizing their security on an entirely IP-based system, and most surveillance industry insiders feel this trend will continue into the foreseeable future."

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