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Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)

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Re: Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)

#11

Post by LoganDark »

ranger_danger wrote: post #4
KetoManx64 wrote: post #2

Wow!! Very cool project. The reasons you mentioned above are the exact reason that I have not setup security cameras at my house, but this makes me reconsider. Combined with the OSS firmware: https://github.com/openmiko/openmiko this would make a killer combo for privacy conscious individuals.

The best time to have security cameras is yesterday. Same for a dash cam. Please protect yourself and your loved ones.

I got hit by a truck a few months ago and a dash cam (well, really, scooter cam) could have shown beyond a doubt whose fault it was. I wish I didn't have to be hit by a truck in order to realize this. If something ever happens you're going to want to have had a recording of it.

Re: Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)

#12

Post by VTimofeenko »

I've been a happy user of frigate (https://frigate.video) with fully local isolated setup: multiple poe cameras on a dedicated network, coral to supplement on-camera recognition, HA+Prometheus for alerts and smarts.

Excited to see another project, especially in Rust(not for the memes; python env management has bit me a few times when hacking).

One major gripe with frigate that I have is the way it treats detection events as pointers to video files. This makes replicating events off site a major pain.

Re: Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)

#14

Post by arrdalan »

globalnode wrote: post #7

You are a champion, thank you for this. Will have a look at it when time permits. I've had an irrational and random dislike for anything Rust for some reason... probably because big business seems to like it, but will have to choke on that for this project :)

The reason I chose Rust is that it eliminates memory safety vulnerabilities, which have been a major headache is software systems. Using Rust provides higher security assurance for the hub and the native library used in the Android app. Besides, OpenMLS is implemented in Rust, making it easy to integrate it with Privastead.

Re: Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)

#15

Post by StayTrue »

My DIY setup uses cameras on an isolated VLAN that prohibits outbound internet access, RTSP data collected by Frigate[0] with Coral TPU recognition, and alerts via Pushover[1] notifications. My push notifications include an unencrypted thumbnail with a link to Frigate that only works via VPN connection.

Seems like this project offers a lot of what I had to cobble together. Nice work. I like that it offers encrypted notifications although I don’t use Android so not ready for me yet. I don’t like the Google dependency.

[0] https://frigate.video/

[1] https://pushover.net/

Re: Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)

#16

Post by arrdalan »

scotty79 wrote: post #9

Does the hub possess ability to delete recording from the server? I understand that hub being compromised is not a part of your threat model but I'm curious if you can preserve the recordings in case it was taken over.

The hub keeps a video until it is received by the app. The hub has a component called the delivery monitor, which processes acks from the app and keeps track of the delivery status of each video. It resends the videos when needed to ensure delivery. Once the app acks receipt of a video, the hub deletes it. The app then keeps all the videos until the user explicitly deletes them. (I've been thinking of a feature that automatically deletes all videos in the app that are older than a threshold, but haven't implemented it yet.)

The server is untrusted and does not have access to the plaintext of videos. It only receives the ciphertext (encrypted video) and notifies the app to download them. When the app fetches a video, the server deletes the ciphertext (in order to be memory efficient).

Yes, the hub is part of the Trusted Computing Base (TCB). That means that we trust it. If the attacker compromises it and takes full control of the hub, then the attacker has unfettered access to the IP camera.

That being said, if the attacker only manages to take a snapshot of the keys used by the hub for encryption (and nothing more), then the forward secrecy and post-compromise security aspects of MLS comes to our rescue. They ensure that the attacker can only decrypt some of the messages (at most a full video depending on what keys are compromised), but nothing before and after that.

Re: Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)

#17

Post by arrdalan »

dylan604 wrote: post #13

"Privastead uses the Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)" I'm am totally unfamiliar with this, but what level of concern that theGoogs pulls the plug on this service about the time you gain traction?

I'm not too concerned with that. As far as I know, almost all Android apps that need to send notifications to the device use FCM. If Google pulls the plug on it, many apps will stop working as intended.

Re: Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)

#18

Post by stevenpetryk »

VTimofeenko wrote: post #12

I've been a happy user of frigate ( https://frigate.video ) with fully local isolated setup: multiple poe cameras on a dedicated network, coral to supplement on-camera recognition, HA+Prometheus for alerts and smarts. Excited to see another project, especially in Rust(not for the memes; python env management has bit me a few times when hacking). One major gripe with frigate that I have is the way it treats detection…

Have you found cameras you’re happy with? That’s the main thing holding me back is not knowing a good PoE camera to use.

Re: Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)

#19

Post by amluto »

EthicalSimilar wrote: post #3

Did you look into Scrypted? It is OSS. With HomeKit (which is how I use it) it is also E2EE. I’m not sure if their app is E2EE though, I only use HomeKit. It’s pretty good and has an extensive ecosystem. The dev can be a bit… feisty though. It’s very performant and easy to setup. I don’t use the NVR features as I already have an NVR, I essentially just use it for HomeKit integration of my cameras + doorbell. https://…

> It is OSS.

Barely. A lot of functionality is gated behind the NVR plugin, which is closed-source and fairly expensive.

> easy to setup

In my experience, it’s easy to set up. But it’s extremely configurable in all the wrong ways and quite difficult to configure in the ways that one might actually want to configure. And the front end is not fantastic IMO: event filtering is extremely weak and scrubbing is bizarre.

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