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Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

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Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#11
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to avoid the risk of someone wardriving your neighborhood and hacking into your camera, it's better to...send all the data to China and trust them to protect it?

Sorry...was talking more about the ones I've run across that are directly accessible via WAN for remote viewing.

Ah, yeah. The "you didn't know you were an exhibitionist, did you?" specials.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#12
I am using an Amcrest camera to watch my feral cat Bob B when I am not there. (I am working on him getting enough trust to walk around in the floor when I am there but it is still something he does every other day)

I was amazed at how easy it is, especially the software experience. The mobile app is easy, the web app is easy, RTSP is easy. If I want to add more camers and set up a server to record (like ZoneMinder) that looks easy too.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#13
Since someone mentioned 'declouding' here, my startup (well, scaleup now) makes a few privacy-first, autonomous (no cloud) video security products - on-prem video security hub, relays for automation, cameras.

I was also getting sick of cloud-based 'smart' cameras that ping random servers in China, so we made our own 'dumb' cameras that are fast (Uniview hardware with our firmware inside).

If anyone here is interested, I will happily share more info. Always interested in product feedback.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#14
post #13

Since someone mentioned 'declouding' here, my startup (well, scaleup now) makes a few privacy-first, autonomous (no cloud) video security products - on-prem video security hub, relays for automation, cameras. I was also getting sick of cloud-based 'smart' cameras that ping random servers in China, so we made our own 'dumb' cameras that are fast (Uniview hardware with our firmware inside). If anyone here is interested…

This is exactly what I've been looking for. There's plenty of cheap RTSP and ONVIF compliant cameras coming out of china, but I trust them exactly 0%. I also don't trust us-based companies with remote access via their services. So I'm learning how to partition my home network to not allow the cameras on a vlan to not access the outside world.

But then I need to figure out how to access the video streams.. from the network my computer is on that does have access to the outside world.

I'm a firmware engineer, so I haven't touched networking since my IT job in college.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#17
post #14
post #13

Since someone mentioned 'declouding' here, my startup (well, scaleup now) makes a few privacy-first, autonomous (no cloud) video security products - on-prem video security hub, relays for automation, cameras. I was also getting sick of cloud-based 'smart' cameras that ping random servers in China, so we made our own 'dumb' cameras that are fast (Uniview hardware with our firmware inside). If anyone here is interested…

This is exactly what I've been looking for. There's plenty of cheap RTSP and ONVIF compliant cameras coming out of china, but I trust them exactly 0%. I also don't trust us-based companies with remote access via their services. So I'm learning how to partition my home network to not allow the cameras on a vlan to not access the outside world. But then I need to figure out how to access the video streams.. from the ne…

Mine are ONVIF-discoverable and will expose RTSP (H264 and H265) URLs and a snapshot URL. As I mentioned, they are 'dumb' (video and snapshots are their main purpose), and it's the security hub that makes them smart. No cloud-based remote access, your data stays on your device.

If you decide to check it out, and feel free to ping me (email in profile). I am proud of these things, for the reasons you mentioned :)

https://monitoreal.com/pro/monitoreal-camera/ https://monitoreal.com/pro/security-assistant-spartan-i/ https://monitoreal.com/pro/monitoreal-relay/

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#18
One thing I have setup on my computer is a custom DNS server that routes traffic by default to 8.8.8.8 (Google) but allows me to route certain domains (ex. ones you want to sniff) to your own webserver. Half the time there isn't even proper SSL protocols in place, making it very easy to see what these devices are sending over.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#19

I am using an Amcrest camera to watch my feral cat Bob B when I am not there. (I am working on him getting enough trust to walk around in the floor when I am there but it is still something he does every other day) I was amazed at how easy it is, especially the software experience. The mobile app is easy, the web app is easy, RTSP is easy. If I want to add more camers and set up a server to record (like ZoneMinder) t…

Is this motion-detection based, or does that camera have cat detection?

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#20
This may come as a surprise, but it's not just hackers (or China) that you need to worry about. I've worked at a couple of FAANGs (risk, privacy, compliance) and was shocked by the lack of internal guardrails. Here's Amazon Ring settling with the FTC - company's own employees were watching customer video feeds for entertainment:

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds/ring-refunds

Tesla's been caught doing similar things. The list goes on.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sens...

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