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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!

24 of 453 comments (clear)

  1. Run your own surveillance by Brushfireb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is why you should never trust some other company with your own surveillance needs. There are plenty of camera + software combinations that can do TCP/IP stuff and you can tinker with it yourself and set it up on your own apache server.

    I am sure someone will post with OSS software solutions.

    Aside from that, how many people really need web-enabled surveillance? Just record it to HD or have it monitored live in closed-circuit fashion.

    Brushfireb

  2. search keyword - find the most interesting place! by Janek+Kozicki · · Score: 2, Interesting

    one two

    I have clicked some of them, and indded some provide pictures of various random places, like shopping center, bureau, or parking lot. But I've noticed that some of them are asking for a password, or simply refuse to connect. Does it mean that admins had fast response to this issue? :)

    And btw - slashdotting thousands of cameras around the world is really funny. Karma prize for a person that finds the most interesting places!

    --
    #
    #\ @ ? Colonize Mars
    #
  3. Daycares with cams by FerretFrottage · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While looking ofr daycare for my kids, I came across a few that offered web based cam viewing of the kids/classrooms. My wife thought it was a great idea til I suggested that anyone could potentially view the kids....sex offenders, children theft services, etc. Sure the school offered password based access, but any system that is turned on can be compromised. Maybe it's the paranoid dad in me, but while it may be nice to see what my kids and teachers are doing, it scares me that some pediphile may be watching what kids are doing, learning their favorite activites, and their overall daily schedule. The ped could even be a parent that has a kid registered at the school making access even easier. So in the end, I axed schools that has cams (especially wireless ones) and convinced my wife based on the reasons above.

    Perhaps some places have policies where the camera is on only for certain periods of time that vary weekly and IT departments that verify access logs, but I saw no such plans when I checked.

    --
    "Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
    1. Re:Daycares with cams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I agree with the others, you're being too paranoid about pedos. To believe some Americans, for every 5 people there is one pedo, one sex-offender, and 2 terrorists ::rollseyes::. My advice: cut-down on news.

      But there is another reason to avoid daycares with cameras: the teachers will end up acting for the camera instead of doing what's best for the kids. They will only do things that will not offend any of the parents, their behavior will become bland and predictable, and your kids will grow up in an environment lacking any creativity.

      On the other hand, in a daycare with cameras, your kids will get used to being monitored 24/7, and that'll prepare them for the real world outside. :-]

    2. Re:Daycares with cams by mslinux · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Perhaps some places have policies where the camera is on only for certain periods of time that vary weekly and IT departments that verify access logs, but I saw no such plans when I checked.

      You're joking, right? Daycare jobs pay below the poverty level. Their workers are a big percentage of the 'working poor'. You think they have enough money to pay 'IT Departments'... what planet are you from ;)

  4. ooh by Besatt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Holy crap: "women doing laundry".

  5. Welcome to last October by dq5+studios · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Johnny at IHackStuff has a huge list of fun things like this you can get from google.
    Here is the list of searches for network aware stuff: Google Cached since main site is down
    Some search phrases for cameras are: "camera linksys inurl:main.cgi" and
    "powered by webcamXP" "Pro|Broadcast"

    Don't forget that google can limit results to region by using "site:.jp" or similar.

  6. Slashdot effect on webcams? by byteCoder · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is this the first recorded instance of a wide array of small webcam servers getting simultaneously slashdotted?

  7. Re:search keyword - find the most interesting plac by 2MuchC0ffeeMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I win:

    http://63.243.46.98:8081/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi ...

    --
    Runnin' On Empty .... I'm Still Alive
  8. why public IP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Why in the hell do people assign public IPs to camera's directly?

    I know that some maybe public for a reason (news, weather stations, etc...), but I bet the majority don't need to be opened to the public.

    Come on people...get with the program.

  9. robots.txt not obvious by Animaether · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not really obvious.

    If you don't want your webserver to be 'found' then either :
    A. don't put it online. (Right)
    B. security through obscurity: don't link to it, don't save a record of it. No links = no crawling/spidering.
    C. Put it behind a server-wise password

    Because in the end, Google may respect robots.txt but I, for one, don't when creating a local cache of a site using HTTrack .
    And I'd imagine there's search engines which ignore it just as well.

  10. Re:search keyword - find the most interesting plac by loucura! · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I disagree:

    http://webcam.magic.iac.es/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi

    --
    Black and grey are both shades of white.
  11. Speaking of IP cam, why isn't there higher res.... by tcc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you look on axis's site, you see most of them atre ~640x480 resolution, one being 1280x960, toshiba also has one megapixel version but it's astronomically out of price reach for simple applications.

    With all of those sub 100 cameras that are going up to 3mpix these days, how come there aren't "HD"webcams or anything similar in the cheap end of the spectrum? it would be good enough for low-level consumer home security, and I'm sure it would sell like crazy. I know the image quality wouldn't be equal to the top webcam using CCD out there, but some application would require more resolution before perfect color reproduction.

    Anyways just a thought... If anyone could point me to something that already exists, it would be nice, as I am sure a lot of people here would jump on this... :)

    --
    --- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
  12. They still wont know by KhalidBoussouara · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Even eafter this story has been posted and many of the cameras have been slashdotted the admins still wont have a clue.

    These have been known for a while. It's hardly breaking news. I visit the site soetimes. There is a lot more than cameras. There are links for usernames, passwords, databases, etc.

  13. Interesting places by cgenman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    a little car shop

    Not entirely sure what this is

    Japanese fish store

    --
    The ______ Agenda
  14. Re:Guess the Location... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This one's quite good: http://193.231.72.35/view/index.shtml

  15. Airport Security at its finest! by ServeYourWorld · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://lobbycamera2.abia.org/view/index.shtml

  16. most interesting - Casino anyone? by Enabrein · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

  17. Re:The best ones so far by zwei2stein · · Score: 2, Interesting

    some kind of australian lab/research instalation, seems to be meeting room:

    http://130.102.102.252/ViewerFrame?Mode=Motion&L an guage=0

    --
    -- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
  18. Re:The best ones so far by asreal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Austin International Airport Security:

    http://lobbycamera4.abia.org/axis-cgi/mjpg/video .c gi?camera=&resolution=640x480

    --

    What Future?

  19. Good reason to make security cams public.. by slashmojo · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Its not such a bad idea to make security cameras publicly viewable (although allowing the public to conrtol them is another matter) for example it essentially gives you a whole world full of witnesses to whatever events may happen..

    Lets say your local friendly 'protection' dude wanders in to your shop one day asking for money 'or else'.. you can either..

    a) inform him that his every move is being watched by a million slashdotters..

    b) pull your gun out from under the counter and blow his brains out - then tell the police there's plenty of witnesses to interview.. ;)

  20. Google stopped me by future+assassin · · Score: 5, Interesting
    If I use inurl:"webcam/index.php evantually I get this message from Google Thsi only happens with the above text using .php and not inurl:/view/index.shtml With .shtml I can search forever.

    Google Error We're sorry... ... but we can't process your request right now. A computer virus or spyware application is sending us automated requests, and it appears that your computer or network has been infected. We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your computer is free of viruses and other spurious software. We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google.

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  21. Re:But why were they crawled? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    You can use the "link:" search to find pages that link to a specific page. I tried a few, and wasn't able to find any pages that actually linked to the camera pages. Are you sure that google requires a link to the page to exist somewhere before it will index it?

  22. Re:But why were they crawled? by SEE · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But why does Google know about them in the first place?

    Publically-accessible referrer page logs.

    Let's say A.com/index.html links to B.com/index.html, and to A.com/referrerlog.html. B.com has three pages -- B.com/index.html, B.com/webcam.html, and B.com/referrerlog.html -- but B.com/index.html doesn't link to either of them. However, B.com/webcam.html has a link to B.com/index.html

    How does Google wind up with a link chain to B.com/webcam.html?

    Well, OwnerB checked B.com/webcam.html, and then hits the link on that page to B.com/index.html. This creates a referrer entry in B.com/referrerlog.html to the webcam page, since it logs referrers to B.com pages.

    Later on, OwnerB chacks his referrer page, and sees he's been getting hits from A.com/index.html. Interested in what the link is saying about him, he clicks on the address. As he arrives at A.com/index.html, a referrer entry appears in A.com/referrerlog.html pointing to B.com/referrerlog.html.

    Now Google's spider reaches A.com/index.html, and follows the link to A.com/referrerlog.html. There, it finds a link to B.com/referrerlog.html, and follows it. Now, at B.com/referrerlog.html, it finds a link to B.com/webcam.html . . . and indexes it.

    Now, despite OwnerB never having (intentionally) linked to either his referrer log or his webcam site, both have been found and indexed by Google. Oops.