# IP Camera Security



## MartinD (May 13, 2015)

Does anyone else run IPCameras for security? Particular with motion detect?

I'm looking to set something up (running of a linux) box that can monitor multiple cameras. It would be good to have motion detect capabilities and, if possible, the ability to send SMS alerts (or at least output to a bash script or similar).

I've worked with iSpy before and I'm aware of zoneminder.

Any other recommendations?


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## KuJoe (May 13, 2015)

Any IP camera + Synology. The built in software automatically does motion detection and e-mail notification (it'll e-mail you a picture when it detects movement and their app lets you watch the camera in realtime or watch the record video).

Personally, I use an RPi with my Synology NAS.


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## MannDude (May 13, 2015)

I'm running (4x) 720p IP cameras around my house right now, though the Zmodo DVR software is pretty poor in my opinion. Motion detection works, but I've come to find that it doesn't always detect motion if say... someone is walking through the backyard slowly or if a car is driving by in the alley even with the sensitivity turned on high it won't always detect motion which concerns me. Image quality is _great_ though. Really can't complain about that. DVR software is meh and the reviews of the phone app are bad enough that I've not even tried it myself yet.

Check out http://blueirissoftware.com/though. If I get around to cobbling together a dedicated solution and ditch the Zmodo DVR I'll probably use BlueIris.


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## JahAGR (May 13, 2015)

Using iSpy myself with four standard-def IP cams. Unfortunately my cameras adjust their iris/shutter/whatever in pretty big steps so I always have false motion detect triggers due to the sun no matter how the sensitivity is set.

One feature of iSpy (and probably others) that I've come to like is that I can have constant 1FPS long-term recording, and then if motion is detected it will start a new file and jump up to 15FPS.

Blue Iris always gets really good reviews


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## William (May 13, 2015)

We have a Dlink camera that has detection built in, works fine.


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## RHServices (May 14, 2015)

We use Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I bullet cameras with Blue Iris, you can pick them up for around $100 on ebay new and Blue Iris runs $60, simple to setup and bulletproof so far. Gave zoneminder a shot, but it's just not as good as BI nor as stable. For the time you will spend setting up zoneminder even though it is free, it will end up costing you much more if your time is worth anything!


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## KuJoe (May 15, 2015)

Just saw a nice hack that will turn my RPi camera into a night vision camera with some IR LEDs, might give it a shot or buy one of the pre-made ones online for $30.


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## MannDude (May 15, 2015)

KuJoe said:


> Just saw a nice hack that will turn my RPi camera into a night vision camera with some IR LEDs, might give it a shot or buy one of the pre-made ones online for $30.


They have a camera for the Pi that is cheap that will pick up IR.

I've got a couple of nice IR illuminators that work great:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AO84FKO/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 this lights up the back yard very nicely. I am very impressed with how well it works.

I also have this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M3MQL9W/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It's a bit more focused and not as wide of an area, but that makes it good for how I am using it.

PM me if you want to see any before/after examples with those products VS the built in IR on the cameras.

I suspect with the Pi you will need to use a pretty good IR light for it to pick it up well.

I've opted for infrared light for security around the house instead of visible light. This way it doesn't bother neighbors, I can still see the night sky when outside, and these use practically no power at all. The big uses like 6.5 watts when it's powered on. I'd imagine a flood light would use more.


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## KuJoe (May 15, 2015)

MannDude said:


> They have a camera for the Pi that is cheap that will pick up IR.
> 
> I've got a couple of nice IR illuminators that work great:
> 
> ...


I was reading a DIY for making your own night camera using the RPi camera that I have, they did a comparison of a $10 IR light and some cheap IR lights off eBay from China and they both performed about the same. The DIY uses 2 IR lights for their setup and it works nicely from the pics I've seen. For about $40 it's a pretty nice HD camera for night.


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## KMyers (May 18, 2015)

I run a few DLink cameras but I have the DLink Cloud Software turned off and do not have the cameras directly exposed to the internet. I need to access them via a VPN to a Raspberry Pi on the same network. This is because many consumer grade cameras view security as an aftersight.

I run a custom software stack on the Raspberry Pi that allows me to do things that the built in software does not do such as store photos and do some other analytics.


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## VPS4LESSDE (May 21, 2015)

I was also running a very cheap chinese WLAN Cam with motion detection.

It worked, but sent me also a lot of "wrong motions" so i turned it off.

So I think you should spend a little more money for this


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## InertiaNetworks-John (May 25, 2015)

I run the Luxriot VMS software, with assorted camera brands. If you are looking for a good first camera, check out:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA7FY2M22634

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6YJ2BK7438

These have amazing picture quality, run over POE and are easy to install.


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## KuJoe (May 25, 2015)

InertiaNetworks-John said:


> I run the Luxriot VMS software, with assorted camera brands. If you are looking for a good first camera, check out:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA7FY2M22634
> 
> ...


Can you post some day and night pictures from the DS-2CD2032-I? I might order a few.


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## InertiaNetworks-John (May 26, 2015)

KuJoe said:


> Can you post some day and night pictures from the DS-2CD2032-I? I might order a few.


Here ya go:


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## PureVoltage (May 26, 2015)

I've seen a demo of https://www.ubnt.com/enterprise

They looked pretty good, hoping to see if they are at hostingcon this year to check out a bit more on them.

thinking about using this for some of our cages.


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## KuJoe (May 26, 2015)

InertiaNetworks-John said:


> Here ya go:


Thanks, placing an order now.


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## MarkTurner (May 26, 2015)

PureVoltage said:


> I've seen a demo of https://www.ubnt.com/enterprise
> 
> They looked pretty good, hoping to see if they are at hostingcon this year to check out a bit more on them.
> 
> thinking about using this for some of our cages.


Be aware that Ubnt's cameras are ALL proprietary, you have to use their NVR software/hardware to make it work.


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## PureVoltage (May 27, 2015)

Thanks good to know this!


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## joepie91 (May 27, 2015)

Friendly advice; put all your IP cameras on an internal, fenced-off network of some sort. Firmware security of IP cameras is notoriously bad.


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## Jonathan (May 27, 2015)

We run 8x 1080p network cameras with BlueIris.  It works absolutely wonderfully.

I couldn't find anything comparable for Linux a few years ago when I set this up.


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## MannDude (May 28, 2015)

joepie91 said:


> Friendly advice; put all your IP cameras on an internal, fenced-off network of some sort. Firmware security of IP cameras is notoriously bad.


Yeah, for this reason I don't even connect my Zmodo stuff to my local network. It's all isolated and I don't use any of the networking or online app / remote viewing stuff.

Mainly because I have read horror stories of folks trying to get those 'features' to work properly and because I have a distrust for a lot of cheap Chinese made network facing devices.


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## KuJoe (May 28, 2015)

I have more subnets on my home network than I have people using my home network.


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## trewq (May 28, 2015)

KuJoe said:


> I have more subnets on my home network than I have people using my home network.


This is a bit off topic but I'm just curious as to why? I mean, I see the possible need for perhaps two but more?


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## KuJoe (May 28, 2015)

trewq said:


> This is a bit off topic but I'm just curious as to why? I mean, I see the possible need for perhaps two but more?


I share my network with my neighbors and I have a 4 year old so I like to keep all of my devices separated and I do a lot of QoS and traffic shaping. I have them broken down like this:

1 subnet - Guest/Neighbors (limited to 20Mbps; DHCP only; different AP)

1 subnet - Family devices (PCs, tablets, etc...; static DHCP only; different AP)

1 subnet - VoIP (high priority QoS; static DHCP only; not accessible from WLANs)

1 subnet - Streaming (limited to 20Mbps; static DHCP only; higher priority QoS than others except VoIP)

1 subnet - High security devices (my work VMs, NAS, network monitoring devices, VPN servers, and the only devices that can manage my network; static DHCP only; not accessible from WLANs)

Basically my guests, neighbors, and family can't reach any of my important devices so any malware/viruses cannot propagate over the network. My guests, neighbors, and any streaming devices can't use up more than 20% of my bandwidth (40% if combining guests/neighbors and streaming). VoIP has priority for bandwidth and streaming devices have more priority than the rest. I also have a few routers with DD-WRT that I've turned into wireless extenders but also APs so they are probably the most vulnerable to exploit so I don't want them having access to anything important. If I wasn't living in an apartment I probably wouldn't have so many but I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to securing my network especially since other people on my network are not technical at all.

Keep in mind that these subnets are only for IPv4, I haven't bothered doing anything for IPv6 since I have that firewalled pretty good.


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## trewq (May 28, 2015)

@KuJoe Thanks for the breakdown. Very easy to understand.


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## ChrisK (May 31, 2015)

PureVoltage said:


> I've seen a demo of https://www.ubnt.com/enterprise
> 
> They looked pretty good, hoping to see if they are at hostingcon this year to check out a bit more on them.
> 
> thinking about using this for some of our cages.


I have a ton of the UVC-domes, about to purchase several UVC-pro's as well.. Big ubiquiti fan here


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