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Ask Slashdot: Video Monitors For Areas That Are Off the Grid?
An anonymous reader writes "I have a cottage at the end of a long dirt road, no electricity nor internet, and recently some (insert expletive here) wads are using the area as a trash dump: countertops, sofas, metal scraps, tvs — all the stuff they don't want to pay to dump at the landfill. I can't block the road because it's a fire access. But I would really like to have a way to catch who is doing this. Are there any a) waterproof, b) self-contained, c) self-powered, and (ideally) d) inexpensive video-recording units out there? Are there any other creative ways to get the guys? I was thinking of something like a device that will cycle, so that the last week of video is recorded. It could take photos or video, and as long as it's small enough that I could camouflage it well, I suspect I'd be able to figure this out soon. And any idea of what my legal rights are to videotape or record?" Hunters have been doing this for years (with film, and now digital) to figure out prey patterns with cameras that are built for concealment; what else would you recommend?
You know you could ask the Govt if their drones are for rent...they have night vision, missiles and everything.
Don't reinvent the wheel, hunters have already done the hard part. Check around for concealed hunter camera gear. Already camouflaged, and able to take stills or video...
America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt, 1936
nope, well it depends on what you call "affordable" $5500.00 is affordable to some people.
But there is a self contained security camera called "silent witness" that lets you place them high up in a tree or on the roof of the cottage. just add a 12AH gel cell battery and a 20 watt solar panel and it will record to the internal SD card for over a month.
http://christy-ind.com/silent_witness/swc40r.php
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Even if it is a dirt road, it's not your property and if you don't have permission to be leaving shit all over the place then you don't do it. Where do you live that you can just legally drive around and say "this looks good, I don't see any signs" and dump shit to rust and rot and look terrible? Am I the only person that is appalled by that?
Nope; I grew up on such a dirt road, and cheap-ass idiots dumping shit because they don't want to pay $10 at the landfill were always the bane of my existence.
Related anecdote: For about 8 months when I was a kid, my dad and I used to see the same damn people dumping bags of trash on our road every week (I assume city folk who refused to pay for trash service). One time, after they drove off, father proceeded to open one of the trash bags and rifle through it (eww, I know) until he found - drum roll please - a piece of mail with the name and address intact. Several mornings later, the people who dumped the trash awakened to find every last fucking piece of it we had collected over the months spread across their own front lawn. Needless to say, that particular group stopped dumping.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Put up the IR deer cams. Hide them because they will steal them.
I've had tremendous success by putting them inside bird houses. No one steals birdhouses, or even thinks twice when they see one 15 feet up a tree.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Nah, you're not thinking. This is Slashdot - the home of the BSD toaster.
So, you get the aforementioned hunter cam, then you open the case, find the signal to that fires the camera, rig a opsoisolated switch to another relay circuit that fires off a couple of M80's and a small amount of thermite. Take the pics, wait a few seconds, fire off the M80's and the thermite. For extra fun, take a few more pics.
Bonus points for rigging explosions down the road on a tripwire or such so that you continue to 'fire' on the miscreants as the run screaming for their lives.
Use some imagination here, folks.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Or go the opposite route... buy a bunch of empty "surveillance camera" big white cases and install them prominently near a big "No Dumping" sign. Probably a lot cheaper.
E pluribus unum
In the US, a general piece of advice given to people who are arming themselves for self defense; When using lethal force (a gun), use it with intent to kill, not wound or disable. Not only is 'only wounding' hard, but it you are less likely to lose or even be hit with a wrongful death civil suite than a personal injury suite. One of my online buddies shotgunned three armed bad guys invading his home, killing two, the only criminal charges were misdemeanor possession of a loaded firearm (illegal, even in his own house, in his jurisdiction) which he got 3 months probation for after pleading no contest. One of the guy's families sued him for wrongful death, and it was dismissed with predjudice the first day. The surviving bad guy successfully sued him for various things (had two fingers amputated because the blast hit him in his gun hand as he was firing at my friend.), however it was overturned on appeal. But his defense has cost him roughly $100k. (and they are appealing the appeal). This is a person who is currently service a life sentence for 2 felony murders (he gets saddled with the guild of his two buddies deaths) and on trial for 6 more home invasions that had happened in the prior month.