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Google Exposes Web Surveillance Cams

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the pick-a-password-people dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Blogs and message forums buzzed this week with the discovery that a pair of simple Google searches permits access to well over 1,000 unprotected surveillance cameras around the world - apparently without their owners' knowledge." Apparently many of the cams are even aimable. Oops!

26 of 453 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The question is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    inurl:/view/index.shtml

  2. The URL I use by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use http://www.google.ca/search?q=inurl%3A%22axis-cgi% 2Fmjpg%22&btnG=Google to find them. It works great.

  3. a search string for the lazy/stupid among us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&c2 coff=1&q=inurl%3A%22MultiCameraFrame%3FMode%3D%22

  4. some cameras by cat.os.mandros · · Score: 4, Informative

    For the curious, here there is an article (in spanish, sorry) with some links to cams and what terms to search to find more, happy watching :)

    http://sindominio.net/suburbia/article.php3?id_art icle=146

  5. The best ones so far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I got a jump on this from the Boing Boing post a couple days ago. I use inurl:"axis-cgi/mjpg".
    This one seems to show every page printed off of some printer. http://81.72.76.218/view/index.shtml. Right now it's some photo.
    This one http://217.148.2.106/view/index.shtml shows somes bar (German?) that seems very active.
    This one http://24.173.235.172:8001/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi ?camera=&showlength=1&resolution=640x480 Shows animals under the knife, I've yet to catch a surgery yet.

    Anybody find any other cool ones?

    1. Re:The best ones so far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      security cam for Nasa JPL office for Stardust program.

    2. Re:The best ones so far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Imperial Palace, Las Vegas?

      http://24.234.255.102/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi?ca me ra=4&resolution=352x240

      It's a panning camera - I just kept hitting reload.

    3. Re:The best ones so far by Sir+Tandeth · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, this is the x-ray scanning stations. Also, there are lobby cameras 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 http://lobbycamera1.abia.org/ http://lobbycamera2.abia.org/ http://lobbycamera3.abia.org/ http://lobbycamera4.abia.org/

    4. Re:The best ones so far by gerdemb · · Score: 2, Informative

      Isn't this the same views that you can get from the public web page? I don't think this one is supposed to be a secret...

      http://www.abia.org/c2g/curb2gate.htm

  6. Re:Run your own surveillance by marcello_dl · · Score: 2, Informative

    Never tested it, but Zone minder seems promising.

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    ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
  7. The search queries are... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Use Google and search for the following:
    inurl:"ViewerFrame?Mode="
    or:
    inurl:"MultiCameraFrame?Mode="

  8. interesting by mr_tommy · · Score: 4, Informative

    On pages with non-enlish text (E.G. this one http://aquashop-es.miemasu.net/MultiCameraFrame?Mo de=Motion&Language=1)

    change language=1 to language=0 to get english text.

  9. detailed links by pollock · · Score: 3, Informative

    graffe.com suggests searching for inurl:"ViewerFrame?Mode=".

    You can do slightly bettter by searching for inurl:"MultiCameraFrame?Mode=", as mentioned on Metafilter.

    1. Re:detailed links by mastervisi · · Score: 2, Informative

      Another fun keyword search is inurl:"/remote6/".
      Tracker Cam's use this in their urls. These cam's are they type that can be move around and seem to be one of the favs for "in the bedroom" used cam's.

  10. Root Password by nodnoL · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is also a known vulnerability with the root password

    http://cert.uni-stuttgart.de/archive/bugtraq/2001/ 12/msg00067.html

  11. Google Links to Web cams by Numeric · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google - home" Requires installation of activeX plug-in. Great video feeds.
    Google - inurl:"ViewerFrame?Mode=Motion"
    Google - inurl:LvAppl intitle:liveapplet
    Google - intitle:"Live View / - AXIS"
    Google - "Powered by webcamXP"
    Google - inurl:indexFrame.shtml "Axis Video Server"
    Google - "MOBOTIX M1" and "open menu"
    Google - intitle:flexwatch intext:"Copyright by Seyeon TECH Co"
    Google - intitle:"WJ-NT104 Main"

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    -- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
    1. Re:Google Links to Web cams by Eminence · · Score: 2, Informative
      > Google - home" Requires installation of activeX plug-in. Great video feeds.

      No, it doesn't - if you use homeJ.html links, there is a Java viewer that works on all platforms. Like in this search. Some of them have even working controls, although most show boring construction sites.

  12. Re:The question is by AstroDrabb · · Score: 4, Informative
    Here is the webcam search URL:
    inurl:"view/index.shtml"
    Here is a list of others
    --
    If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
    it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
  13. Re:Security vs. Stupidity by JPriest · · Score: 4, Informative

    These are not peoples personal webcams, these are $500 - $2000 buisness cameras most of them are watching traffic and empty offices, and seem to be intended for public access.

    --
    Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
  14. Re:Simple solution-THAT FAILS by way2trivial · · Score: 2, Informative
    owning a veo webcam, which can be searched for in similar fashion (I did, before I bought mine) I can tell you, I can't do JACK to the mini-server built into the camera. I can but give the camera a firmware update..

    further, if security is the issue, there are indexes that IGNORE robots.txt file, (and I'm sure there are some that actively look for robots.txt that are exclusionary) not everyone lives by the motto "do no evil"

    a spider reading the robots.txt is a nice, perfect world, internet convention, much like SMTP- and we all know how well that ended up.

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    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
  15. A fresh batch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Since the first round of cameras are getting slashdotted... :-)

    Type this into Google:

    "toshiba network camera" login

  16. This is not new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    This not is a new issue. In my work I have been used these search types to test our Camera applications. Various are publics, other not.

    These are various samples:

    Convision-> inurl:"/fullsize.jpg?camera="
    Axis-> inurl:"/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi"
    Canon -> inurl:"/-wvhttp-01-/GetOneShot"
    Pixord -> inurl:"/images<camera_id>sif"
    Panasonic -> inurl:"/SnapshotJPEG?Resolution=320x240&Quality=Mo tion"
    D-Link -> inurl:"/IMAGE.JPG"
    JVC -> inurl:"/still.jpg"
    IQinVision (Video-Server) -> inurl:"/cgi-bin/cgi-image?camid="
    IQinVision (Camera) -> inurl:"/now.jpg"

  17. Re:robots.txt not obvious by jkovach · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes.

    Opera (the unregistered version with the ads) also uses Google to provide advertising, so anybody who browses to your site using Opera will make Google aware of your site. I had a page on my website that was linked to only from my IM profile, and I was looking through the logs and noticed someone use Opera to view my site, followed one second later by a bunch of hits from Google (probably trying to figure out what sort of ad to show.) Not linking to a page doesn't keep it secret in today's world - you need a password, period.

  18. Re:The question is by ffunch · · Score: 5, Informative

    I did a page at http://www.opentopia.com/hiddencam.php that picks up a few hundred of the cameras found in google with inurl:"axis-cgi/mjpg", scans them every couple of hours, grabs the first picture from the Motion JPEG stream, geocodes them with their general location, and shows them in one page for easy access. Saves a bit of the trouble.

  19. Re:But why were they crawled? by NuclearDog · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes it does crawl it.

    But, as the parent said, it will never find a site _unless_ there is a link to it.

    Google does not just make up URLs and domains and try brute-forcing them, it follows links on already known-of pages. Therefore we can assume that somewhere, someone has linked to these cameras. Linking to your webcam on the internet kind of implies that it is open to the public, does it not?

    ND

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    This statement is forty-five characters long.
  20. Re:Speaking of IP cam, why isn't there higher res. by appleLaserWriter · · Score: 2, Informative

    Bandwidth is the answer. A camera at 640x480 at 30fps has to have compression turned *way* up to make it out the typical home user's 256k or 512k of upstream bandwidth.

    Next, the phillips TriMedia chip and competitors support real-time compression at 640x480 and are available in volume. Chips that can suport compression at higher resolutions aren't made in volume, so are much more expensive.

    Finally, if you need high resolution, just switch to a telephoto lens. If you need to look at several areas of detail, use several cameras.