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Joe Barr Gives ZoneMinder A Thumbs-Up
I've been interested in the Free software home-security software called ZoneMinder for a while, but strictly as a lurker, checking out the project's site whenever I noticed it crawl down the Freshmeat home page. Joe Barr of NewsForge, though, recently had reason to install the software, which manages one or more home security cameras (which can be any Linux compatible camera -- he used some common D-Link wireless ones), watches for movement (generating alarms based on user configuration), and lets the camera output be streamed elsewhere, so a thief can't usefully just rip out the recording system. (NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.)
ZoneMinder is a collection of Perl, PHP, and C++ modules which work together to deliver a highly functional video security package. It can handle multiple cameras, either locally attached, like a USB Webcam, or remote Internet cameras. Also required are MySQL and an HTTP server like Apache. That can mean a lot of installation time, and perhaps a few frustrations along the way, but it's worth it.
This project might be out of reach for folks without the technical ability of the geniuses that populate slashdot. Anyone know how much a professional installation like this would cost for comparison?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
I think it is important to remember that even if the web access is secure anyone can intercept RF link warless cameras. Rather than supplying extra security, you may be letting thieves case your home or business. They'll be able to see what you have, if you are home, and where your security cameras are pointed.
Plus, the privacy implications are also bad, you are letting anyone with a receiver to spy on you 24 hours a day.
Looking at the tutorial for the camera, it doesn't appear that there's anything to stop anyone in wifi range from intercepting the video stream. Seems to be an odd oversight in something intended to provide security.
I guess that might be acceptable if the cameras only looked outside, but your neighbors might have other ideas...
The cameras use Wifi to transmit their images.. Think of the fun you could have if you cracked the WEP key or whatever they use, and transmitted your own footage.
That's true, kudos for the guys at Motion. A cool feature I like on it is that it can make use of masks to ignore motion detection on some regions of the screen. Other interesting thing I've seen on their mailing list was a hack to enable the use of the 4 entries on BTTV cards to capture video from 4 different sources simultaneously (this card is theorically capable of capturing from one source at a time only).
Of course it also means that the edjumicated thief can easily disable your cameras while still being relatively far from the premises. Jamming 802.11 is not terribly hard. (unfortunately my phone is the ultimate proof; it destroys any 802.11 connection while it's in use, regardless of channel)
Although the article poster used wireless cameras for their security system, by default ZoneMinder uses basic composite bttv-style cameras. At my home, I use a 4 port capture card (made by X-Guard) and small bullet CCD cameras with cables running everywhere. I've got 6 cameras running at the moment and ZoneMinder is handling the load pretty well.