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Airbnb Guest Found Hidden Surveillance Camera By Scanning Wi-Fi Network (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A New Zealand family that booked an Airbnb in Ireland recently discovered an undisclosed camera in the living room, and the family says that Airbnb initially cleared the host of any wrongdoing before finally banning the offender from its platform. "Once the family had unpacked, Andrew Barker, who works in IT security, scanned the house's Wi-Fi network," CNN reported today. "The scan unearthed a camera and subsequently a live feed. From the angle of the video, the family tracked down the camera, concealed in what appeared to be a smoke alarm or carbon monoxide detector." Nealie Barker posted an image on Facebook showing the location of the camera in the living room and a shot of the family from the sneaky video feed.
Based on the photo, the video of the Barkers seems to have been taken on March 3 and was viewable on the local Wi-Fi network at 192.168.0.4/video/livemb.asp. The family relocated to a hotel and contacted both Airbnb and the property host. The host initially hung up but later called back and told them, "The camera in the living room was the only one in the house," CNN wrote. It's not clear whether the host was recording the video, whether he was capturing audio, whether he was monitoring it remotely in real time, or whether he was using it for anything more than monitoring guests. [...] Airbnb temporarily suspended the listing and promised to investigate, CNN wrote. But when Barker contacted Airbnb again two weeks later, "the company told her that the host had been 'exonerated,' and the listing reinstated." Airbnb finally banned the host after Nealie Barker posted about the disturbing incident on Facebook on Monday this week. Barker's Facebook post said that Airbnb's "investigation which didn't include any follow-up with us exonerated the host, no explanation provided," and that "the listing (with hidden camera not mentioned) is still on Airbnb." Airbnb said in a statement to Ars Technica: "Our original handling of this incident did not meet the high standards we set for ourselves, and we have apologized to the family and fully refunded their stay."
Airbnb's policy states that hosts must disclose "any type of surveillance device" in listings, "even if it's not turned on or hooked up." Cameras are allowed in certain spaces if they are disclosed, but Airbnb "prohibit[s] any surveillance devices that are in or that observe the interior of certain private spaces (such as bedrooms and bathrooms) regardless of whether they've been disclosed. [...] If a host discloses the device after booking, Airbnb will allow the guest to cancel the reservation and receive a refund. Host cancellation penalties may apply."
Based on the photo, the video of the Barkers seems to have been taken on March 3 and was viewable on the local Wi-Fi network at 192.168.0.4/video/livemb.asp. The family relocated to a hotel and contacted both Airbnb and the property host. The host initially hung up but later called back and told them, "The camera in the living room was the only one in the house," CNN wrote. It's not clear whether the host was recording the video, whether he was capturing audio, whether he was monitoring it remotely in real time, or whether he was using it for anything more than monitoring guests. [...] Airbnb temporarily suspended the listing and promised to investigate, CNN wrote. But when Barker contacted Airbnb again two weeks later, "the company told her that the host had been 'exonerated,' and the listing reinstated." Airbnb finally banned the host after Nealie Barker posted about the disturbing incident on Facebook on Monday this week. Barker's Facebook post said that Airbnb's "investigation which didn't include any follow-up with us exonerated the host, no explanation provided," and that "the listing (with hidden camera not mentioned) is still on Airbnb." Airbnb said in a statement to Ars Technica: "Our original handling of this incident did not meet the high standards we set for ourselves, and we have apologized to the family and fully refunded their stay."
Airbnb's policy states that hosts must disclose "any type of surveillance device" in listings, "even if it's not turned on or hooked up." Cameras are allowed in certain spaces if they are disclosed, but Airbnb "prohibit[s] any surveillance devices that are in or that observe the interior of certain private spaces (such as bedrooms and bathrooms) regardless of whether they've been disclosed. [...] If a host discloses the device after booking, Airbnb will allow the guest to cancel the reservation and receive a refund. Host cancellation penalties may apply."
When "hosts" leave a bunch of valuable stuff around for their "guests" it's little wonder they care more about protecting their crap than the privacy of the guests.
Stop renting out space that has your stuff in it.
Nothing of value should be in the property, everything should be documented and have proper insurance.
Work Safe Porn
Homeowners probably read this article or any number of equally disturbing disaster rentals.
Googling "AirBnB renters trash house" gets similar results as typing in "Florida Man" and a random date.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Homeowners naturally would like to keep tabs on who does what in their home-for-let. Apparently, it's fine so long as they follow some rules. The homeowner did not, maybe didn't know the rules or misunderstood the requirement. So the handling was probably okay. A rules violation.
Further, I don't see that camera being "sneaky". That's a real CC camera, they are all over the place in buildings and public places. Doesn't look like anything except exactly what it is.
However we hear reports out of Korea where they have hidden cameras in lavatories looking like soap dispensers, and there is apparently a cottage industry of providers of hidden camera streams and up-skirt videos. That is obviously shady, no two ways about it. The current case, not so much.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Step 1: Disconnect router "accidentally" while plugging phone in.
Step 2: Superglue on the camera's lense.
Not like the owners can really bitch about damage, since the camera is either against AirBnB's ToS or outright illegal. Possibly both.
It's probably worth the risk for a homeowner to conceal a camera in the main area of a home to have at least some evidence in case something happens to the property. After all, the risk is "Airbbnb no longer lets you rent your property through them" which is probably an acceptable liability for having some evidence for use in legal proceedings. The "legality" of having a camera in a private residence, in a "public" space like a living room or kitchen is probably pretty sound. This is purely an Airbnb requirement that it be disclosed.
A couple more comments on this specific case... It's blatantly obvious to me that the camera shown in the FB picture is a camera or security device and not a smoke detector, as there is a detector three feet away from it. If someone would ask me what I thought that was, I would say a camera or part of a security system. So I don't think this was a *hidden* camera, but more specifically an *undisclosed* camera.
Second thought is it would be trivial to place the camera on ethernet, since it is already requiring wiring for power anyway. Then it wouldn't be as easy to sniff if. I'm surprised the homeowner didn't use a dual zone router in the first place, with a public zone for guests and the private, non-broadcast, secure zone for the various devices in the house. An Airbnb in the past I stayed at functioned in this way. The owner supposedly couldn't remember the credentials to the public router space, so I bought my own router / access point and hooked it up to an ethernet port to give us Wifi access for our stay.
Better known as 318230.
This happened in Ireland, not the US, BTW.
How Does It Work? When the power button is “pressed” on side of unit, and you look through the viewfinder, it activates six special bright-red LED strobe lights designed to bounce off the smallest of camera lenses. The tiny camera lens will appear to blink back at you as a reflection off camera lens itself , instantly giving away its location as you scan the area around you. It doesn’t matter if the camera is turned on or off, recording or not...even if its a non-working camera, the blinking effect will clearly show you the presence of a camera lens which is almost impossible to detect with the naked eye. Knowing where the camera is located will allow you to take immediate action to prevent unauthorized recording of activity. In addition, there are 3 LED intensity levels which helps hone in on camera lenses which could be hidden behind different surfaces. A flat wall 30 feet away could use the highest LED intensity, while a semi reflective shiny surface 5 feet away would use the lowest intensity. This prevents false reflections, maximizing the ability to find a hidden camera lens in any room environment.
Yup, very sad. I also blame things like the mod system. I don't quite understand why I can't mod if I post.
They should give some of us (who want to be positive and contribute) a great deal of mod power / points to quickly clean up the site.
Keep track of who mods who and what and block abusers; but otherwise clean up this site.
The creepy part is that the camera is hidden. If you want.to put it out in the open and let all your guests know you might be watching them 24x7 and you can get people to stay by all means, but if you feel you are in the right then why hide it.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I don't quite understand why I can't mod if I post.
That is quite why enough.
I'm with you.. I've been stopping here every day for a long time. Remember when it had great stories, and relevant comments? When a link on slashdot generated so much traffic sites woud post they had the 'slashdot effect'?
Now it is just full of trolls and morons who waste so much of their own time entering the captcha just to post useless crap.
Slashdot has always been a hotbed for trolls, mostly because of the lack of comment deletion. The site is actually far more restrictive about comments now since a lot of trolling actually does get deleted. That was unthinkable when CmdrTaco ran this site. There have always been really vile comments like the stuff Ralph JewHater Nader posted. Discussions were filled with disruptive comments, both logged-in and anonymous ones.
The problem isn't that there are more low quality comments; if anything, there are fewer. The low quality comment sections are due to the fact that users who post quality comments have left Slashdot disproportionately compared to disruptive users. Low quality comments can be filtered with comment thresholds and, if anything, there are more comment filters and restrictions now than ever before.
There are far more discussion sites now than 20 years ago, so Slashdot isn't nearly as unique. Slashdot has also changed the type of stories it posts. As someone who's interested in programming and open source, the stories just aren't that interesting. Slashdot has become more of a generic tech site and less news for nerds, stuff that matters. The current crop of editors is pretty bad; just look how BeauHD misuses the DEC logo.
When whipslash said he had long-admired Slashdot, it wasn't as a reader. He didn't have an account until he bought the site. No, he admired the site because he wanted it in his portfolio. The site meant something personally to Rob Malda and the other early editors, but not really to the current owners and editors. They're not personally invested, and everything just feels half-assed because of that. The result is so low quality that there just isn't a lot interesting to post about any longer.
Just to prove my point, I had to seriously edit this comment just to get it past the lameness filter.
I don't quite understand why I can't mod if I post.
That is quite why enough.
That makes no sense. Care to explain?
On a certain red site I can post and mod same story.
Awesome post. Absolutely agree on all points. Wish I could mod you up. Maybe it's time to start yet another similar site, unless you know of a good one somewhere. And I mean good science and tech with occasional political / other really pertinent news.
"lameness filter"? I wasn't aware there was one. I'll have to learn about it.
If I were to start a site, how would you feel about _limited_ advertising? No moving things ever. No overlays, popups, nothing intrusive ever. Just nice simple static ads in side columns.
Rectal property, at a minimum, would seem to imply the sale of the Back Forty.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Lots more, but you probably get the idea. People suck at making rational decisions when it comes to rare events.
My family runs a commercial building. Despite it being our building, we're not even allowed to enter the units we rent out to our tenants unless the tenant invite us in first. When we evict someone, we have to file paperwork with the city and allow the tenant time to respond (whole process takes about 6 months). And when everything is in order, we're only allowed into our own building with a police escort.
I have security cameras around the outside for the tenants' protection since we've had a few robberies. But no way in hell would I ever get away with putting security cameras in their units, even if I first disclosed it to them. I know it's the same for hotels, and I imagine it's the same for apartment rentals. Why do homeowners running Airbnb rentals get held to a different standard?
Actually AirBnB's investigation followed the exact standard they set for themselves. AirBnB's own policy says that it will only ban a host if a hidden camera is in the bedroom, bathroom, or single room rental.
If AirBnB wants to sound apologetic then can change their standard rather than spin bullshit.
I don't quite understand why I can't mod if I post.
That is quite why enough.
That makes no sense. Care to explain?
On a certain red site I can post and mod same story.
One (possible) reason: modding-only forces you to step back and not be involved in the conversation. Once someone start commenting, they tend to take a side, and will probably reinforce any posts that agree with them.
Modding-only encourages (in theory) a more neutral outlook since you don't have a dog in the fight. Of course everyone has biases, and they tend to vote for/against certain outlooks, but hopefully a random number of people, the mod points will be spread across varying personalities.
Run an nmap against any network to which you are connected? I know I do.
Hacker News is very active - I suspect a lot of geeks are there. What does slashdot offer that is truly unique any more (not counting anon coward shenanigans)?
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
Like reffing a game you are a player in.
So yet another story confirms that a VC capital funded IT startup has no credibility. Buyer beware. Use at your own risk. Don't expect any kind of ethical behaviour from them.
I wonder what they're like as employers?
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
Thank you for an uncommonly interesting, informative, and useful answer. I'm in NO WAY attacking you or your answer, even though I know people will interpret it that way, and insist I'm attacking. Sigh. Anyway, I understand what you're saying, but I've been observing for years that people seem to think their philosophical imaginations are more real than actual reality. How often I've heard someone say "that shouldn't happen". Turns out reality is different than what many people theorize it should be.
The correct statement should be: reality is different than what I imagined it to be. And then learn, hopefully.
Again, on a certain RED site, you can comment AND mod the same story, and it's working very well, so I think the mutual exclusivity here doesn't make sense. And for the very reason that if I have interest in a topic, I do want to discuss and contribute, as well as mod. If I have no interest in a story, I feel I have no business modding, and I do take this seriously. Some people here are brilliant, and contribute greatly. I'd like to engage in a discussion and weed out the trolls, and mod up the really good stuff.
Sigh, I think I need to start my own site! Been thinking about it for a few years... I have the server space...
That's a great way to look at it- I wish I could mod you up. But I'm not asking to referee myself. As I commented above, if I'm interested in a story, I'm interested in both modding and commenting. If I'm not interested, neither. And I take modding seriously and I don't toss mod points around, so if I'm not interested in a topic, I have no business modding- certainly little interest or motivation. Gotta think about it some more, but on RED site you can do both (and I do). Thanks and cheers!
Thank you! I've avoided most "social media" for, well, 25 years, but it's getting better in some ways and places, the discussions and people here are getting better, and here is now better (IMHO) than the RED site. I'll check out HN. Might just start a site...
I don't travel much and when I do I stay in hotels. I've had two airBnBs so far, and both of them were pretty extreme cases of let the Buyer beware.
#1 - billed as private room & bath in the host's house. Host mentioned "two beautiful, clean cats" but no other occupants. Day 1, host says her friend was staying in the room i was supposed to get and "would I mind" staying in this other room (so two separate rental rooms in the same house) the first night while she cleaned up. Already a little suspicious, I agree. Then as I expected there is more bullshit the next day... oh if you like it you can just stay there. I point out that I booked the room because it had its own private bath and the alternative room doesn't, so I'm sharing with other house members. Turns out host's son and son's wife both live in this house... and they have two utterly filthy cats who reek like shit, in addition to the two clean ones.
#2 - me and 2 friends rent a small house. Walk in the door and there is literally a binderful of "rules." Don't open the windows - they're fragile. Don't flush anything other than TP - the pipes are centuries old. Kitchen is infested with ants... over the next two days, we realize there are ants in the bathroom and laundry as well. Obvious they didn't just magically show up. Heat stops working at one point. Seems like someone bought up a shitty old house and is slowly fixing it up with AirBnB money, probably while living in the separate accessory unit.
These two experiences have convinced me that AirBnB is a sloppy mess, where semi-functional hosts do the bare minimum they can and use the threat of mutual bad ratings (since renter ratings matter) to avoid word getting out. I am not surprised at all that some hosts are possessive and distrusting or just plain creepy and have cameras. I would never, ever rent a place that had disclosed cameras, and if I found undisclosed cameras spying on me I would do far worse than complain to AirBnB.
Sorry- my above post was meant for you. My MS mouse has a wonky scroll wheel that occasionally skips up or down, and must have done its dirty work as I was clicking on "reply" and I didn't realize it.
Anyway, I appreciate your reply but it's really not the same thing. All I can say it it's working well on another site. And I have some different ideas for a site like this. Someday...
No worries.
I once tried running a web forum with no moderation at all. It did not work out well.
Cheers