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Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

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Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#91

Post by mv4 »

starky wrote: post #83
mv4 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've done exactly that with our cameras, I feel cameras are a commodity. Our Cameras are built by Uniview but run our firmware. Outside of cameras (which also feel need to be very basic), we do have our own hardware design and manufacturing capabilities: video security hubs, PoE and WiFi relays.

Do you worry about the risks of using a Chinese OEM considering the rulings against Hik and Dahua for NDAA and the FCC? Seems like the smart move if you are using an OEM is to at least use one of the Taiwanese OEMs Consumer grade cameras are definitely commoditized, but the higher end cameras with on camera analytics aren't.

Short answer - yes, and we've already taken steps to remedy that.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#92

Post by mv4 »

ssl-3 wrote: post #77
mv4 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than Home Assistant, do you feel integrating with Apple Home and/or SmartThings ecosystem would be valuable?

I guess that depends on who's asking, and what kind of response they want. At home, I don't use Apple Home or SmartThings. It is unlikely that I ever will. I own an iPad that I use every day and my phone is a Samsung, but I already have already adopted enough ecosystems with Google Home, Alexa, and Home Assistant, and I'm working on minimizing or eliminating two of those because they're clown-based. But I am a geek t…

It sounds like the space is already fragmented (with multiple ecosystems competing for your devices and attention). We will look into Home Assistant compatibility.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#93

Post by mv4 »

beryilma wrote: post #73
mv4 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, most of our early product prototyping was Pi-based. I've experimented with cameras, parallel stream processing, opencv, even voice assistants. It's a great platform. Happy to answer any questions. Also, lots of tutorials (on Medium and YT) for your exact setup.

I looked at some tutorials and videos, but I can't seem to be able to create a smooth stream no matter what I try: different frame rates, different resolutions, etc. RTSP streaming works reliably for me, but the stream is always choppy. Have you had a better experience?

You mentioned VLC playback is choppy on your desktop or phone. Have you tried local playback (VLC on your Raspberry Pi that's doing the capturing), is it smooth there? Also, what does CPU and memory usage look like when you a) play locally, b) stream RTSP over the network to your desktop/phone. These should steps should help narrow this down.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#94

Post by fartfeatures »

dspillett wrote: post #88
hattmall wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of them the stream is just a relay to create a connection between you and the camera via Upnp or something similar. They aren't actually footing a bill for all the bandwidth.

That may be the case for live viewing, but those that record longer term generally do it to a server out there. I have some from a company called Yi that I now refuse to use: they used to support local recording to SD card instead but that broke and the support answer seems to be “use the remote recording”, the remote recording only supports a short time window unless you pay a subscription, and they started flooding…

https://github.com/roleoroleo/yi-hack-MStar

https://github.com/alienatedsec/yi-hack-v5

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#96

Post by janekm »

cameldrv wrote: post #23

These cameras are extremely suspicious -- just follow the money. I bought some cheap Chinese cameras in 2020 that by default send the video stream to a Chinese server, which you can watch with an app on your phone. The cameras were about $40 on Amazon, so my guess is the manufacturer was getting paid maybe $15-20 for them. Bandwidth to and from China is not that cheap, and you could be running this stream 24x7. The s…

Something worth keeping in mind is that Chinese factories that makes things like IP cameras don't typically have their own (significant) R&D departments and instead work from examples provided by the makers of the chipsets. Sometimes there will be another company involved that provide an "IoT ecosystem" (Tuya is a major player here: https://www.tuya.com/solution/hardware/ip-camera ). So it's not necessarily surprising that the backend still works even if the manufacturer (Amazon brands are not typically the factory themselves, for practical reasons frequently changing "brand names" are used) is no longer present.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#97

Post by flanbiscuit »

mv4 wrote: post #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 th…

I use Amazon's Blink camera. Wonder if they could also be accessed by Amazon employees. Probably can if they are using their servers.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#98

Post by soylentcola »

mv4 wrote: post #29
mv4 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness (there are multiple precedents), a US-based provider won't protect your data (from internal employees) either. Any centralized video monitoring system is a ticking time bomb.

Sorry, why the downvotes? Is something here factually incorrect? Didn't AT&T just 'lose' private data from "almost all customers"? The only truly private option is keeping your data on-prem.

Agree completely, and the only times I've used IP cameras, they were separated from the main LAN, had no access from outside, and provided a stream to a NAS running NVR software.

That said, I can see the average user having a better outcome by "outsourcing their security" to Google, Amazon, and the like. Not ideal for exactly the reasons you stated, but seeing as very few people are going to set up or maintain an on-premises solution, I think the odds are still better than "random Chinese IP camera running a web server and viewable via a janky phone app outside the LAN".

The move to doing everything on phones has only made it worse. At least when you were expected to log in via a "proper" browser for initial setup, you could be prompted to set a new password, update firmware, or make changes to settings. The phone-centric ones I've seen are basically "plug in, scan QR/type serial/connect to temporary AP, (confusing techie stuff happens magically here), now you can watch your dog on your iphone from anywhere!"

Ignore the part about how this actually happens and how anyone can just scan port 8000 or whatever and connect with the hidden root login.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#99

Post by pcdoodle »

ww520 wrote: post #46
fusslo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here's a setup that works. Get POE cameras. Get a powered switch with sufficient power to power the cameras. The cameras and the switch form their own subnet. Get a PC with two Ethernet jacks (or an Ethernet and a WIFI). Install NVR software, Blue Iris, iSpy, ZoneMinder, etc, on the PC to record and process the videos from the cameras. These softwares are all good with RTSP and ONVIF, with easy camera detection via p…

This is exactly what we do. Physically imposible for the cameras to access the web. We also recommend blue iris.

Re: Reverse-Engineering an IP Camera (2019)

#100

Post by throwway120385 »

ww520 wrote: post #46
fusslo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here's a setup that works. Get POE cameras. Get a powered switch with sufficient power to power the cameras. The cameras and the switch form their own subnet. Get a PC with two Ethernet jacks (or an Ethernet and a WIFI). Install NVR software, Blue Iris, iSpy, ZoneMinder, etc, on the PC to record and process the videos from the cameras. These softwares are all good with RTSP and ONVIF, with easy camera detection via p…

I do this and have recently switched to Shinobi over Tailscale which works really well.
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