Live data from Hacker News

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

github.com

61–70 of 180 posts

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

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hikvision and reolink are highly rated onvif ones that support poe, but as long as the camera support ONVIF from there just compare as normal

Aren't HikVision the ones banned by many governments because they have dodgy "call home to China" firmware?

Persoanlly I go with the Eyeball Entities Omnicam with an Omniscient Systems Xcam-REAM control centre [0].

[0] https://cybershow.uk/media/ads/cctv-ads.mp3

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

#62

I've been wishing for a self hosted alternative to cloud cameras. My house was recently robbed and it was incredibly frustrating to know that criminals were literally in my house but not be able to see them due to the general crappiness of modern big tech software. Seems silly to pay to upload all my video of my own house to who knows where and struggle to download it back with absurdly sluggish proprietary software…

I absolutely hate cloud solutions but in this case there's a big benefit in that the robbers can't steal or smash your servers. They can do that to your networking gear though but by then hopefully their image has already made it to the cloud.

In general I wouldn't expect random street criminals to be able to specifically locate and identify and properly disable a nondescript server in a closet in the middle of a break-in. They're frantically looking for cash and jewelry and portable commodity electronics and firearms. Stuff they can pocket and scram and easily use or fence later.

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

#63
post #60

I've been wishing for a self hosted alternative to cloud cameras. My house was recently robbed and it was incredibly frustrating to know that criminals were literally in my house but not be able to see them due to the general crappiness of modern big tech software. Seems silly to pay to upload all my video of my own house to who knows where and struggle to download it back with absurdly sluggish proprietary software…

If you insist on 'secure' firmware, you're fighting uphill and probably going to be disappointed with the ecosystem out there. Tunnel back to your home network to access cams if that worries you. I recommend either Ubiquiti or Reolink cameras, both are power-over-Ethernet. Both offer an app that allows connecting back to your equipment. UI will require their Protect software running on one of their local platforms in…

Unfortunately my house is not wired for Ethernet and it's a rental so I can't install it. Wireless is a must and security is obviously important for wireless. But I think you are correct that I will be disappointed by what's out there.

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

#64
>It guarantees that only the hub and the mobile app have access to unecrypted videos.

Interesting project! As a Rust implementation for Open MLS, secure end-to-end archival, and a TLS vector, having the DIY home camera setup connect to the internet via a Privastead hub eliminates the need for secure tunneling.

I could see this incorporating facial recognition technology and real-time monitoring.

If you've ever seen eigenfaces, they look like early hominids. One method is principal component analysis (PCA) which isolates the major characteristics of a human face in correlating underlying noise to the most essential features of a face.

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

#65
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you insist on 'secure' firmware, you're fighting uphill and probably going to be disappointed with the ecosystem out there. Tunnel back to your home network to access cams if that worries you. I recommend either Ubiquiti or Reolink cameras, both are power-over-Ethernet. Both offer an app that allows connecting back to your equipment. UI will require their Protect software running on one of their local platforms in…

Unfortunately my house is not wired for Ethernet and it's a rental so I can't install it. Wireless is a must and security is obviously important for wireless. But I think you are correct that I will be disappointed by what's out there.

Unfortunate. Reolink even has wireless cameras, but they will require a DC input, so you'd need an outdoor electrical outlet if you can't drill any holes and sneak either a power or UTP Ethernet cable.

Given the strict physical requirements, you might be looking at battery-backed wireless cameras of the type often found on Amazon, but afaik they will never offer the local storage or control you want.

I will say that surprising things can be accomplished with small drilled holes and a fishtape. Your risk tolerance and how nice the rental are obviously very important factors.

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hikvision and reolink are highly rated onvif ones that support poe, but as long as the camera support ONVIF from there just compare as normal

Aren't HikVision the ones banned by many governments because they have dodgy "call home to China" firmware? Persoanlly I go with the Eyeball Entities Omnicam with an Omniscient Systems Xcam-REAM control centre [0]. [0] https://cybershow.uk/media/ads/cctv-ads.mp3

Even if it does have phone-home functions, why does the camera itself need internet access?

IMO, audit the hardware for wireless radios (PoE cameras shouldn't have them), and put them on a camera-only VLAN that can only talk to the video server.

Maybe not suitable for super secure TS locations, but in general should be fine for 99% of situations.

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

#67

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…

A fully isolated setup on a dedicated network can certainly provide good privacy. A key benefit of Privastead is that it can send the videos to your smartphone remotely using a strong (MLS-based) end-to-end encryption. And I share your excitement about Rust. :-)

How is video streamed to the apps? Push notification services are not meant for real time video streaming.

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

#68
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you insist on 'secure' firmware, you're fighting uphill and probably going to be disappointed with the ecosystem out there. Tunnel back to your home network to access cams if that worries you. I recommend either Ubiquiti or Reolink cameras, both are power-over-Ethernet. Both offer an app that allows connecting back to your equipment. UI will require their Protect software running on one of their local platforms in…

Unfortunately my house is not wired for Ethernet and it's a rental so I can't install it. Wireless is a must and security is obviously important for wireless. But I think you are correct that I will be disappointed by what's out there.

I used a Reolink Argus with a battery and Wi-Fi connection. The one I used is probably EOL now, but a quick look at the site shows even solar chargeable options. So, it is possible.

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

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fully isolated setup on a dedicated network can certainly provide good privacy. A key benefit of Privastead is that it can send the videos to your smartphone remotely using a strong (MLS-based) end-to-end encryption. And I share your excitement about Rust. :-)

How is video streamed to the apps? Push notification services are not meant for real time video streaming.

RTSP

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

#70

Having had cameras and a couple of breakin attempts for a while now my biggest must-have for these sort of things is: - reliable human detection (not just motion) - integration via some sort of API or MQTT etc. This project appears to have no "smarts" in terms of human detection nor APIs which is a shame. Just pure motion detection on its own is ok, but you're going to pick up all sorts of things that you don't care…

For me the human detection isn't an issue. I only have cameras indoors anyway, i have one outside but it's equipped with a highly zoomed lens so it can see the faces of the people in front of my door. It won't trigger on animals because they don't get up that high. But in your case I could recommend Frigate, it's got decent detection that can be accelerated with a Google coral TPU. It also integrates really well with…

For me I use Nest cameras with Home Assistant.

I went through various brands of cameras and the Nest ones were the only ones that I could actually rely on. I didn't spend Megabucks but even mid-range local IP cams were very unreliable for RTSP (randomly going offline, super-sketchy partially translated apps for set up/config, frozen streams etc)

I am not concerned about Google's use of my data. I'm not important enough for anyone to want to spy on me specifically. Of all the cloud solutions/providers, I probably trust Google to have the technical know-how but also the public scrutiny pressure to do a general decent job (way more than some random rebadged Tuya service or something "in-house" thing). By that I mean things like e2e encrypted, there won't be employees with just random read access, decent engineering practices, proper security, SREs for uptime, and won't have default passwords/no passwords on some random world-readable S3 bucket etc.

And even if someone did manage infiltrate Google, they'd very likely target someone high-value before me - I doubt anyone would be able to exfiltrate all the data for practical reasons of where to put it but also someone at Google noticing additional exabytes of suddenly outbound data before getting shutdown. I'm working on the (perhaps flawed) assumption that a successful & undetected Google hack would be short-lived. You'd go for someone rich and powerful first, not video clips of me taking the rubbish out.

Post reply on HN