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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)

#111

Post by [deleted] »

arrdalan wrote: post #102
0points wrote: post #77

Certainly interesting project, but I do encourage people to do more thorough research before starting a new project and claiming they needed to fill a void. > However, I could not find one that I could trust due to privacy concerns. > Many of them upload the plaintext of videos to their servers and none is fully open-source as far as I know. There's Frigate [1] which is off-cloud, opensource and self-hosted and it do…

Thanks for the pointers. Frigate, Home Assistant, and HomeKit were mentioned in other comments and we had some discussions there. They're certainly good setups. A key design decision for me was using a strong end-to-end encryption scheme between the camera/hub and the app. MLS fit this need perfectly and therefore I came up with the design that is now Privastead. I was also less concerned with supporting many cameras…

[deleted]

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

#112

Post by cvwright »

arrdalan wrote: post #21
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://…

I'm not familiar with Scrypted unfortunately. But thanks for the pointer. I'll have to study it to understand its security and privacy implications. I skimmed the docs very quickly but couldn't find info on their use of encryption. About HomeKit: yes, HomeKit uses iCloud end-to-end encryption ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651 ) and is certainly superior to those systems that don't use encryption at all or just…

I’m not sure that 1) is such a win for MLS here.

If I lose my phone, I want to get all my security footage back by entering my passphrase etc on my new phone.

In other words, I want the “encrypted cloud storage” security model from [1], not the encrypted messaging security model from Signal etc.

[1] https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/989

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

#114

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

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.

Dashcams (including bikecams and helmetcams) are a great idea and AFAIK there's not much of a privacy concern with them as they record to local storage and usually in a common video standard (e.g. mp4).

Hopefully as more people use them, there should be more chance of video footage being available from other vehicles if you're involved in a RTC and don't have one yourself. There's also the protective effect of people uploading bad driving to the police where the police are interested in road crime - hopefully providing the police with a very cheap way of having visibility in lots of places.

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

#115

Post by euroderf »

arrdalan wrote: post #25
nzeid wrote: post #5

I'm deeply interested in this and it just so happens I only need one hardened IP camera for my home. Can you point out how your project provides a better security layout than say, Home Assistant? It does appear that there is little concern for encryption between cameras and local networking hubs, but the assumption seems to be that if the device is over a wire it's isolated to the local network, and if it's Wi-Fi it'…

If you use Home Assistant in an isolated local network with no Internet access, you will have good privacy. However, I needed to be able to use my camera remotely from my phone. That's when using strong end-to-end encryption becomes critical. Home Assistant seems to provide two options for remote access: https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/configuration/securing/ One option is to expose your instance to the Internet a…

No mention of Tailscale ? It's dead simple.

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

#116

Post by bobbob1921 »

mattlondon wrote: post #44

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…

The best human detection for cctv cameras (in contrast to motion only detection) is an open source project called frigate. You should definitely look it up. It does this better than any paid or free solution I’ve ever come across.

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

#117

Post by tills13 »

If you're like me and you want something that Just Works -- ubiquiti's offering is fully local and has all the features you'd want including alerts, ml detection (on some first party cameras), app, timeline, etc. They recently started allowing third party cameras, too, so all you need is a Cloud Gateway (USG Ultra is $150) and you're good to go.

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

#118

Post by bobbob1921 »

StayTrue wrote: post #15

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 n…

Excellent set up, and in fact exactly what I’m using / how I’m set up. In addition for a few IOT type sensors and things like thermostats around my house, I have another vlan as well as a dedicated SSID tagged for that vlan, that only allows Internet access and everything else is dropped for that vlan. (Ie a firewall rule on the forward chain that drops anything in on that IOT vlan, that has a destination address of the private ip ranges: ie dst= 10.x or 192.168.x or 172…. anything locally that needs to access those sensors does so through the cloud/Internet, and for the one or two device devices that need to access them locally I have a fw rule allowing just that devices IP

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

#119

Post by nonrandomstring »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #66
nonrandomstring wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think if you've got total control over them, not a problem compartmentalising. Problem is, they're like loitering munitions, next person comes along and connectes them up to a router or misconfigures a firewall... Much as I hate e-waste sadly best place is in the bin. They're cheap but, easy come easy go.

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

#120

Post by tuchsen »

tills13 wrote: post #117

If you're like me and you want something that Just Works -- ubiquiti's offering is fully local and has all the features you'd want including alerts, ml detection (on some first party cameras), app, timeline, etc. They recently started allowing third party cameras, too, so all you need is a Cloud Gateway (USG Ultra is $150) and you're good to go.

The last time I upgraded my networking setup (just as the pandemic started) I went with Ubiquiti, shortly after (before?) they started default forcing you to sign up for their cloud service to use the router, you can switch it to a locally operated mode after you sign up but they bury it in the options. Their networking equipment works great, don't get me wrong, but they don't open source anything. I keep waiting for the full rug pull when sales start to slow because everything they release is rock solid and everything I have is "good enough." I don't feel the need to upgrade for as long as the rug pull doesn't happen.

I am super grateful people are starting to work on open source solutions to this stuff :).

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