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Using Webcams as Remote Security? 264

Posted by Cliff from the I-spy-over-the-internet-with-my-little-eye dept.
The_Mama_Cass_Ostrea asks: "Does anyone have experience using a webcam and a cellphone for remote security? I am raising shellfish in a hatchery / nursery on a 51 foot pontoon boat, anchored offshore in Chesepeake Bay. Recently the boat and it's contents were damaged by vandals. Since my day job writing software won't permit me to guard the boat 24/7, I want to set up some sort of webcam / cellphone security monitoring system that would be effective day and night. And since I am doing this on a small scale, without the money for a professional security firm, an inexpensive, open source solution would be preferred. Any suggestions would be appreciated, as would the experieces of anyone who has done anything similar." Cool idea! Has anyone tried this in practice and can pass along a few hints? I was thinking about installing webcams in the home sometime this summer, but the remote security aspect never occured to me.

An anonymous submitted this related tidbit: "I want to have a couple of video cameras and a storage array to capture and store a couple of days worth of both internal and external activity. What (Linux application) software and hardware is available? How does one overlay a running-clock with the video signal? Also would be nice to be able to login via the web and look at live signals and review stored data." This is a bit more complex than setting up a few webcams, but the ideas in here are interesting enough. Would some of these things be possible with consumer grade equipment? The time overlay is a useful idea, however I don't know if many webcams support such features.
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Using Webcams as Remote Security? More

Using Webcams as Remote Security?

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  • Thoughts on the problem and solution: (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Problem: How to protect Vandals/Robbers from attacking Remote,
    Aqueous location.

    Thoughts: Perpetrators are swimming or traveling by boat to the
    site. With respect to swimming, it will be nearly impossible to
    identify them, with the exception if they leave the water and actually
    board the boat. Boats would carry identification markers that would
    be much more suitable for the purpose of tracking them down.

    Traditional security relies on physical barriers: Walls, locks,
    concrete, steel, etc. Followed up with alarms designed to pique the
    interest of the local population and summon the authorities.

    The Aqueous nature suggests no physical barriers are possible.
    The Remote location suggests there is no local population. Consider
    altering the location of the boat to a more populated area.

    Physical harm of the perpetrators is acceptable in many areas of the
    United States, but only if you are physically present, directly
    involved, and willing to tolerate extensive legal troubles. Traps
    that do permanent physical damage are not considered acceptable/legal.

    Electrical stunners or dye-marking paint is a viable option.
    I suggest fluorescent pink for your color scheme, if you go with this
    latter option. Simple expensive sensors: Ultrasonic, light beams,
    Infrared detectors, etc would be appropriate for triggering such
    devices.

    On site surveillance is questionable. The equipment is subject to
    theft or damage. A superior solution might be remote observation from
    a land-based source via an astronomy-grade telescope attached to a
    video camera. Remote controls could be created so as to allow you to
    zoom in, or track, perpetrators during the crime in progress, all via
    an Internet connection.

    Web cameras are suboptimal. They run at a greatly reduced resolution,
    with only a handful of frames per second. [e.g. 160x120x2] This is
    sufficient if you are staring directly at the camera. I doubt your
    perpetrators will be so cooperative.

    For hardware, I would suggest tracking down a Matrox Marvel G400-TV
    video card. This is the best product I've found so far for video
    capture. It supports hardware-based JPEG capture at NTSC [704x480x60]
    under linux. Unfortunately, Matrox has recently stopped producing
    this card, so you will need to move quickly if you wish to acquire
    one.

    Averaging the images over the last minute or so, and checking the
    standard deviation should allow you to detect intruders.

    In terms of long term storage of video data, consider a video cassette
    recorder [VCR]. The data storage requirements are huge for digitized
    video data.

    Alternatively, you could store just the digitized video data relating
    to when interesting things began to happen.

  • I was looking to do a similar thing except for my home.

    I would strongly recommend an Axis 2120 Camera [axis.com]. They have an auto iris lense to prevent it from damage when exposed to sunlight, it can also be hooked up via 10/100 ethernet or standard serial port to a land line or a cellular modem.

    This will provide for much more scalability. It also has built in motion detection and can send pictures via FTP before after and during a break in. It also has a build in web server, and can alert you via email when an alarm is triggered.
  • I'd assume that the phone would be for connectivity for the webcam. Doesn't that make a little more sense to you?

    The biggest problem with such an arrangement is that the airtime costs would end up being astronomical. Even top of the line plans with most carriers don't include nearly enough minutes for 24/7 connectivity. And the overage adds up quickly.

    A Ricochet, as suggested in another post, is a decent idea, but this doesn't sound like the kind of area in which there would be coverage. If you have property line of site with the monitored location, you could possibly do your own wireless network of some sort...
  • Well, that would definitely help with the airtime issue. But if the thief steals the machine the images are saved on, you're worse off than you were before (because you've now lost your hardware in addition to whatever you would have lost otherwise and have gained nothing from the loss).
  • Get yourself a couple of cheap USB camera's ($30 or thereabouts), an old laptop - old Pentium will do - and see if Ricochet wireless modem service is available in your area.

    If so - piece of cake. Hook 'em up, either write some software (Linux-wise) to do regular posts of the images to a web server over radio modem somewhere, or get any one of the countless Windows apps that have been written for just this sort of thing off the 'net...

    The more I think about this, the more I realise it was pretty dumb to waste an "Ask Slashdot" on it ... in about 5 minutes of web searching, you can find solutions pretty easily...

  • Although it probably won't apply to you, I remember a few years back when I worked for SGI and everyone had an Indycam or an O2cam on their desktop there was a package you could install called "securitylight" that basically functioned as a simple security camera. It wasn't very sophisticated (basically taking a picture every 2 seconds and only storing the deltas between frames, complete with timestamps). The software worked really good, and didn't use up too much disk space and kept really nice pictures.

    Rumor has it the software was written originally because an SGI owned warehouse kept getting ripped off overnight even with the security guard on duty. It turns out the security guard was bringing his girlfriend in for sex, and she was swiping supplies on her way out. Of course this anecdote is all fourth or fifth generation information, all accuracy may be coincidental.

    Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
  • If you want it to call only if you're being robbed, you have a very difficult (possibly impossible) software problem on your hands.

    Not really. Been watching freshmeat much? I read it daily, and there's already motion-detection software for linux available.

    Problem solved.

  • So mask all windows or other open spaces; motion detect only on objects fixed with respect to the camera. You might have to modify the camera's location a bit for this to work, but it should function just fine.
  • and I thought cronning the lights to go on and off was cool...


    if ($user =~ m/shaldannon/i) {
    print "\n-- $user :)\n"
    }
  • Actually, we found the lighting controller. It wasn't stolen, just misplaced...

  • Especially given the theft problem (they could only steal half the camera) and the remote location, the X10 remote cameras sound good, but there's no "brightness" control on the CCD's -- it needs extremely good illumination. Most of my interior rooms aren't sufficiently lit to discern objects using the X10 remote cameras -- you have to open curtains, and then you can only see outside.

    Or just do what I did: Remove the IR filter and flood the inside of the boat with IR light. The intruders won't see it but you'll have full view of them. I've done this to catch the neighbour's cat in my garbage and it works wonderfully.

    Cameras vary, but most I've seen follow this basic removal procedure: Screw off the lens. If you can't get the IR filter out from that side you'll have to take the plastic assembly apart to get at the filter. (It's usually a piece of glass with a blue-ish film and it's usually right before the CCD itself, after the lens assembly. I've never seen it a part of the lens assembly.) Anyway take it out and reassemble. The camera will be practically useless during daylight (too much IR flooding the CCD) but it's awesome at night, especially with a good size IR lamp.

    Where to get an IR lamp? Do some web searches or buy lamps which you can fit IR filters over. I've modded the X10 little 1" colour camera, Quickcams and a few USB cams of unknown make.

  • You're right; B&W Cameras will be better but you want LOTS of light... you'll need a pretty serious cluster of IR LEDs, even the high output ones (this all depends, of course, on the size of the area you want to illuminate and whether the surfaces reflect or absorb IR)

  • I think you are placing the cart before the horse. You need to evaluate your real risks and concerns before implementing a solution. It sounds like you have a solution without really considering your problem.

    First, is aquaculture your hobby or business? This is important because it judges the possible financial loss. If this is a business, buy insurance. Pure and simple. Get enough insurance to cover potential losses. If the premiums are too high, find a small insurance agency and start negotiating discounts for security systems, guards, safer marina, locks, etc. No amount of prevention is perfect and insurance is generally the best option for businesses.

    If this is a hobby, then insurance is probably too cost prohibitive. You are on your own. So, first look at your potential enemies. Potential enemies include industrial sabatoge (perhaps a big aquaculture company doesn't like what you're doing), environment groups (if you are doing research involving transgenic fish), vandals, and anyone who hates you. Look for how to protect against these enemies.

    There is nothing you can do to prevent industrial or environment sabatoge if this is your hobby. Forget it. Companies have too much money and destructive environmentalists are operating out of ethics. Nothing will stop them. Luckily, the liklihood of one of these groups targetting you is very slim.

    Vandals commit crimes of opportunity. This act seems to be the act of vandals. A web cam won't prevent them, but a motion activated siren and
    lights might. The idea of a dog is a pretty good one, actually. If the platform is large enough, considering investing in a good watchdog. Make sure they have enough room to run. Get some automated feeders and waterers for the dog and provide plenty of shelter. As long as you visit the dog every few days, this is a very cost effective preventative. Two dogs would give them company and actually reduce behavioral problems.

    Any enemies you have would probably not be detered by the siren/lights combination. They would, however, think twice about murdering a dog or two. That's a pretty serious crime. If they are willing to go that far, however, you probably won't be able to stop them anyway.

    Now, the camera idea would work for acting upon and investigating a crime. Acting upon a crime would require you to be notified when something was occurring. It could page or call you. You could then call the harbor police or coast guard to intercept the crime in progress. Investigation, while helpful to the police, really doesn't help you. You won't get your property back if you figure out who did it. All you may get back is satisfaction. If that is important to you, then go ahead with the cameras.

    Good luck,

    Dave
  • Logitech, who purchased the QuickCam from Connectix, packages some software called Digital Radar which will record when the view changes signficantly. This can be somewhat useful as long as the motion of waves & such doesn't set it off. I believe you can set the threshold for triggering the recording. Of course, this doesn't do anything to really enable you to prevent the theft.

    I'm a little surprised that no one else has brought up this smart alec issue, so I'll do it. Why are you storing valuable stuff in a boat? Boats really aren't a bastion of security. Surely there ought to be a better place to put these things.

  • There are also pre-pay phones available that have no monthly charge or contract. You could just buy 30 minutes worth of calling or something. I'm not sure if the minutes expire, so you may have to buy some each month.
  • You can also try a wireless link to bring the signal to a secure area, and avoid the power drain of an on-board recorder. Most of them work on 12V, same as the camera. Try supercircuits.com for cheap bare-bones analog cameras and wireless links.

    X10.com has a "VCR commander" that triggers a vcr record function when an event is received. I forget, but i think it's wireless in the video and possibly the trigger channel, so you could link the alarm or a motion detector to the thing and get it to trigger a home VCR.

    Maybe you can trigger it from the airbag too, and avoid lengthy litigation after a crash. You'd need an on-board recorder for that, though.
  • It would be very cool to add some speakers nearby so that when someone was there and your web camera caught them you could call the computer up and talk through the phone -> speaker.

    "Hey you kids, get out of there. I just called the cops! You in the red jacket, does your Mom know what your doing? I'm going to send her this image. What's your email address?"

  • Go check out X-10's web site. In addition to the very cool Firecracker that every /.'er should have by now cause it was just about free, they have wireless XCam2's [x10.com] that transmit to a receiver on the 2.4Ghz band. Plus lots of accessories to hook those to websites, wide-angle views, VCR recording, and such.

    Plus, it's always nice to support a company that makes cool hardware and opens up the control protocol for those of us who can write our own drivers.

  • Webcam may not be your answer (Score:4)

    by rho ( 6063 ) on Tuesday April 24, 2001 @05:37PM (#267255) Journal

    First, I like what you're doing -- aquaculture is seriously cool. Keep it up.

    Second, your problem here is not to identify the vandals after they've come and gone. Sure, you might be able to put them in jail (if you're lucky). I wouldn't count on them being able to financially reimburse you.

    You don't want anything like this to happen again. The way to ensure that is to move your boat to a better marina. Find a marina with a resident harbormaster -- if he lives there, he'll make damn sure that it's secure.

    Those kinds of marina slips are expensive, so maybe you can use the info on webcams that people are giving here to barter with the harbormaster -- in return for a discounted slip, you provide a remote camera system for the other tenents. Not much for security, but it makes boat people feel better if they can check on their boat whenever they want. Especially if they're a 40' Hatteras boat person...
    "Beware by whom you are called sane."

  • Let's Slashdot his house! Quick, everyone -- go ring his doorbell!

    --
  • Home Watcher [homewatcher.com] does it prety well, been using for about a year or so. I know, it runs on windows and isn't open source, but it works well.

    matguy
  • Maybe they wouldn't come up with the clams to buy the beer?
    --

  • And have a gourmet shellfish dinner with it, too!

    Oooo, that's very shellfish of you not to invite your friends!!!!


    --


  • Be careful that whatever video hardware you're unsing's audio (if any) isn't recording. If you record both their image and audio, it's illegal (in the US) and the evidence will be stricken. That would suck. Take whatever means you must to keep from recording audio.

    I thought that, in the US, illegal evidence wasn't admissible ONLY when it was collected by a police force. So, the private guy-collected evidence would definitely be admissible...


    --


  • Logitech, who purchased the QuickCam from Connectix, packages some software called Digital Radar which will record when the view changes signficantly. This can be somewhat useful as long as the motion of waves & such doesn't set it off. I believe you can set the threshold for triggering the recording. Of course, this doesn't do anything to really enable you to prevent the theft.

    That helped a friend of mine get even with his landlord. He lives in a downtown hi-rise with a nazi manager. One small clause in the lease is interpreted by the nazi that one can't use a portable washing machine. But my friend does, and gets regular shit from the bitch manager assistant.

    So he said that he's not using the washing machine at all.

    But we had some suspicion that the building management didn't play cool, so I had him buy that very webcam because it had the software and we set it up.

    After a week of daily monitoring, we caught a janitor walking in and having a look around, especially at the washing machine hidden under a blanket (he lifted the blanket to make sure it was the washing machine). He then left, showing he was only looking for that. Bingo!

    We promptly called the nazi in (for good measure, we had a laundry load running at the time), and showed him the movie, and said that if we'd heard any other word about the washing machine, we'd not only turn-in the janitor to the police (we din't do that, cause the kid is really nice and helpful outside the nazi channels), and himself for giving the order, but also file a harassment charge with the rental board (up to $50,000 fine) and ask for a rent rebatement for the diminution of quality of life.

    As you can expect, my friend heard no more about it and didn't get a rent increase...


    --

  • There was a story on here a while ago about a police department posting hundreds of candid pictures of rioters, asking for assistance in identification. Would this not be the exact same scenario?
    ----
  • Why write linux software when you can just use Motion [technolust.cx] ( http://motion.technolust.cx/ )?

    I disagree somewhat with using "cheap" usb cameras. If you can't see what's going on in the picture, what's it worth to you?

    Also, keep in mind that the appearance of surveilance is actually more important than the actual surveilance. That's why you can buy plastic boxes with LEDs on them look like cameras, and one of the reasons why security camera domes are so dark. It wouldn't hurt to make it look like you have several cameras when you really only have one.

    At any rate, the threat of identifying someone as a perpetrator is more important than just having the camera there. What good does it do if they trash it again and you have blurry pictures identifying the perp as a black, asian, native american, or tan caucasian male or female, 17-40 years old?

  • Paranoia (Score:3)

    by FallLine ( 12211 ) on Tuesday April 24, 2001 @04:56PM (#267265)
    No, paranoia is irrational or excessive fear, and that is not necessarily good. You should keep the cost/risk and benefit in mind. Although paranoia might deliver nominally more secure systems, it doesn't necessarily mean you're better off. For instance, you can spend 15k securing a 10k dollar server that have NO valuable data on them. Or you could spend thousands of dollars investing in a fancy alarm system, only to have the employees fail to properly arm it.

    Or for a less obvious example, suppose you're a Fortune 500 company, well you could spend, say, 500 dollars installing alarms on each of the company's 5000 cars, let's even assume it stops all theft. If you know with a high degree of certainty that .5 percent of the cars will be stolen each year and each car costs 20k at purchase. In other words, the company would lose roughly 500k dollars to theft each year whereas if they invested in alarm systems it would cost them 2.5 million dollars upfront. If the cars and the alarm systems only last 5 years and the companies cost of capital is 10%, then they'd actually save, in financial terms, roughly 500k dollars by NOT installing alarms. The reason for this is because it costs the company real money to sink it anywhere; that money could be invested elsewhere in the company (or simply not borrowed) and return them more money.

    Although this example is simplistic, it takes into consideration some of the actual concerns that are at issue for companies and people. Put simply, some money is better off invested elsewhere. Paranoia can cost you time and money.

    Furthermore, I would argue that unbridled paranoia might actually result in worse security, because perspective is lost and the real threats are not properly analyzed and responded to.

  • Be careful that whatever video hardware you're unsing's audio (if any) isn't recording. If you record both their image and audio, it's illegal (in the US) and the evidence will be stricken. That would suck. Take whatever means you must to keep from recording audio.

  • A fellow in Australia caught some pretty good pictures of thieves who came into his house and forgot to steal the webcam.

    http://www.geocities.com/osz/rob2/wanted.htm [geocities.com]

  • Ah, you've found what us shipboard folks lovingly call the CHEESE-WIZ. Darn thing's spozda protect us from incoming missiles and whatnot, knock on wood it'll do the job. Not only is it big and heavy, it takes up a fair amount of deck space that could be used for picnic tables and a bar-b-q.

    ...stuck at the pier cuz of budget cutbacks...
  • gspy [sourceforge.net] looks like it will do what you want.


    retrieves images from a video4linux device and has motion detection algorithms

  • These creatures will attack burglars and spit all over them!

    http://www.chicago.tribune.com/news/nationworld/ ar ticle/0,2669,SAV-0104250280,FF.html
  • Phalanx, I presume?

    While, I imagine the satisfaction of Cuisinarting bad guys (a la "Reason vs. Pirates" in Snow Crash), your neigbours may be a bit annoyed when the depleted uranium slugs tear through their boats as well.

    Better [mitretek.org] solutions [mitretek.org] that can blow away in the wind...(as long as the neighbors aren't around, everything is ok)

  • http://www.phasys.com is based on what you are saying. Inexpensive remote security monitoring.
    Probably not as small scale as you want.. but cool anyway.
  • One slow morning, a long while ago, i hacked a small script that compared recent images from my webcam to the most recent ones, and kept aside the images that were "most interesting" (the most different from the images i already had). It has been up on my webcam since that morning, where it gathers a "top 20 of the day" where i + my friends can watch what happened in the house during the day...

    The script is very small, written in (gasp) perl with the support of a small C program, in just 2-3 hours (meaning: it's ugly, but it does "some" job.). If there's any interest, i could release those few lines of code to open source (just reread the comments to this for any updates - the boss's firewall wont let me download it from here).

    I thinkered with the idea of using it for security purposes the day somebody had played with my car during the night (no harm done). I would have had to boost the number of "interesting" images kept from 20 to a large number to see almost everything that would happen to the car. By chance, I never really had to set up the webcam for that.

    Heck, it works so well so that i knew when our roommate brought visitors home... :-)

    What it does:

    1. Using my regular webcam software + ftp, just upload one image file to a directory on my linux box

    2. Using the small C deamon, start the perl script, which does:

    3. Calculate a value representing the image's parameters, and returns it to the c program

    4. Compare the value to the 20 others, and save the image if the value is sufficiently different from the others. The more "interesting" (i.e. different) the images were in the day, the less chance they had to be thrown away.

    C.
    (meunierc2@nospam.netscape.net, meunierc@mail.com)

  • X10 (Score:1)

    by Mario B ( 22319 )
    There, X10.com, you should be able to get some decent hardware for your "project", motion detectors, camera, IR camera. And most X10 stuff is supported under Linux (and probably other UN*X variances).
  • Rodney Brooks' crew at www.irobot.com [irobot.com] have got a remote "avatar" robot equipped with web cam for exactly this purpose. Highly neat!
  • Say that you could get your webcam thing to launch some script if something funky was going on, eg the image changed cuz people walked in it.

    What that script could do is send an email to your telephone, or page your pager. Since a lot of celphone/pager companies offer this service, it seems like a good way to get this part done.

    As for the first part with the video -- you could write a program that captures some video somehow, and then sees how much different one frame is from one captured, say, a second before (through a sum of the per-pixel difference squared or soemthing).

    All in all it would take some time, but I don't see it as being impossible to accomplish.
  • "Place thumb HERE and run your driver's license through the card reader to unlock the camera."
  • The pre-pay phones work off of cards which expire in 30-60 days. When you buy a card you're basically paying a monthly fee.
  • I would think a single guy in armor wearing a sword should be enough, whether is name is Beowulf or not.
  • Well, if they're going to be flipping switches, have a switch which locks the doors, turns on flashing lights and siren, and drives the boat to just offshore the nearest relevant law enforcement office. Put a plaque above the switch that explains what the switch will do.
  • If the images will be stored on the boat, a film camera in a strong box is the traditional solution.
  • To paraphrase one suggestion in another recent discussion: Put speakers "in the next room" (in the engine room) which plays deterring sounds. A thief might not like hearing things like "Yes, Operator, that's my location and the thieves are in the next room. I'm glad the cutter is so close.", or "I'll use the machete, you cover me with the shotgun.", or "Woof, Woof, Woof!".
  • Yes, I know the advantages of remote storage. I was replying to the local storage comment, because for local storage there are non-computer solutions.

    Although I suppose you could have a film camera in a device which would be ejected overboard and which would propel itself or hide for later pickup. That's not-quite-local storage.

  • Someone else to ask. (Score:3)

    by RomulusNR ( 29439 ) on Wednesday April 25, 2001 @04:25PM (#267284) Homepage
    I know that l0pht tried this very same security mechanism around 1996-98, as suggested by one of my favorite l0pht quotes:

    "If you want to break into our place, you had better take down our net connection."

    Unfortunately, despite @stake.com's front-page claims that "all old l0pht material is available on this site", not everything is.

    They had a video camera pointed at their door, at what looked like a 10-15 foot distance. The picture was clear and fairly good size. I've no idea how often it refreshed. Of course, this setup assumes that all intruders will be barging in through the front castle gate.

    I've considered doing the same thing in my new apartment, since I own two webcams that I can't use at work anymore.

    Seems to me there are lessons to learn from JWZ's experience. One, don't use a crappy teenybopper-vidchat-designed Quickcam for this unless you can get nice sharp pictures from it. Two, go for a higher refresh rate than 30 seconds -- if it takes someone less than 30 seconds to walk from the door to the cam, its not a good idea is it? And three, try not to put it right behind the door and plainly visible.

    --Keith "And four, make sure the audio is muted so they don't hear the fake 'cha-click' sound" Tyler

    --

  • Or just do what I did: Remove the IR filter and flood the inside of the boat with IR light. The intruders won't see it but you'll have full view of them. I've done this to catch the neighbour's cat in my garbage and it works wonderfully.

    ...until they turn the lights on. It'd be best to set something up so, to turn the lights on, they have to go right by the camera.

    It might not be too hard to set it up so that it starts recording when it detects motion. Then it runs for, say, five minutes and then goes back to waiting for motion. Reduces the amount of data stored, lets you get a good frame rate.

    Of course, if you can detect motion, then just hook it up to a klaxon. If someone triggers it and doesn't punch in the right code within 30 seconds, they get an earsplitting howl (and maybe you get paged).

    At this point, though, you're pretty close to a standard security system. Probably cheaper just to buy and install one. Maybe set up the webcam to start recording when the alarm goes off (or just before), so you get good evidence.

  • I live in a college dorm room and last Christmas while away for a few weeks I was concerned about management entering my room and possibily turning off my computer or causing other "damage". Details aside, and not having a web cam, I decided to plug a microphone into my computer and just have it record all sound in my vacant room. I whipped up some code to monitor and track the level of ambiant background noise, and to record any sound above background, convert it to mp3 format, and ssh it to a machine at school I knew I'd have access to. If someone did enter my room and turn off my computer (or even if they didn't turn off the computer), I could retrieve the mp3's of the event from where I was and find out what happened.

    If anyone is interested in this code, you can get it from here [utoronto.ca]. Unfortunately, I don't have time right now to package it up nicely or answer questions about it so just take it for what it's worth.
  • ITEM 8: THE SENTRY GUNS. Large projectile weapons, that do not require someone to operate. Like the Smart Gun, it auto-targets moving enimies thanks to it's built-in computer system and fires. They can be placed virtually anywhere. Ideal for areas of severe attack.

    From the movie Aliens special edition. Pictures are Copyright 1986 20th Century Fox Film Corporation [accesscom.com]

  • I use motion with a 4 port Brooktree-based card and a near-infrared camera to watch my motorcycle. The camera works great in total darkness and I've used the mask capabiltiy to stop the motion detector triggering for every passing car, but only when someone walks onto my property.

    I haven't tweaked motion to get it to watch all four cameras on my property, but I'm working on it. The mpeg capability of mpeg is a nice toy, but not useful in a security situation. In the remote situation, motion would email you if there was motion detected, but I guess that a shellfish farming operation probably has a lot of motion due to waves, wind, etc. Rain can also appear as motion unless some tuning of the motion detection is done.
  • Well for Mac there is a really nice package called Oculus [intlweb.com] that does all what is wanted here.

    But it's not free or open or whatever. Don't go there is these things offend you. I suppose that for transmission of the data, the solutions using HAM packet radios would be perfect. I know nothing about them except that a buddy of mine has one in his Jeep and it works in crazy places!
    BTW: you gotta check this site: the moustaches on the guy on the first page are just unbelieveable!

  • Too bad this weighs 12,000-13,000 pounds.

    I wonder if you can just discard the overengineered search and track radar and put in one of those supermarket door motion sensors...

  • someone should mod this one up
  • Although this isn't exactly going to help in his situation, I have a webcam that looks out my front door. Anytime the doorbell is run, 3 pictures are captured and appended to a log, as well as being sent to a remote server. This is far from a perfect solution and I do plan to update this to reflect any dramatic changes with the internal cameras when I'm not at home.

    Of course, if anyone is aware of the camera, it would be easy to hide from, and there is always a chance that I won't get a good enough picture to do any good legally, but its a start.

    The page that accesses the webcams is at http://alignment.net

    -Restil
  • Then I'm screwed. :)

    -Restil
  • Hmm.. shock sensors on the door to detect knocks..... of course, it'll probably go off everytime I crank the music...

    -Restil
  • If I had any moderator points today, I'd moderate this guy up with a "funny". Classic!

    (This is what I want for spammers!)
  • As you can see they're breaking in right now!
  • look at the images again. in both of them there is a shot of them in profile, facing to our left.

    the blue hat guy has shorter sideburns, and less of a beard. the red hat guy has longer sideburns and a larger beard (i wouldnt really call it a beard, but hey)

    so unless the single robber shaved in the closet, im a bit leery to call them one and the same

  • Rack mount (Score:3)

    by macdaddy ( 38372 ) on Tuesday April 24, 2001 @07:48PM (#267298) Homepage Journal
    I wonder if they make a rack mount version for wiring closets and server farms....

    --

  • Very easy to do - I've set up several of them. I've used a Color Quickcam to dump snapshots to a drive shared with a Linux box via Samba, then set up a web page on the Linux box that points to the images captured by the camera. Very simple.

  • I set up X10 motion sensors and a perl script that acts as an alarm system. The alarm is activated and deactivated via a RF remote, or from the prompt. When the alarm is active and the sensors are tripped, it turns the volume on my stereo up to full, and plays a WAV file of a booming voice saying "MOTION DETECTED IN ZONE TWO" (or zone one, depending on which sensor was triggered). It also pages me with the time and zone, with some heuristics to reduce frequent redundant pages when I set it off myself or the cats set it off.

    It also turns a fan on in the kitchen when zone one is tripped to deter the cats from jumping on the counter. The sensor is positioned so that it doesn't detect them, unless they jump on the counter. (Bad kitty!)

    The next phase of the plan was to add a cheap webcam, but I haven't gotten around to that yet.
  • All good points, but the return in satisfaction of busting some punk-ass mofo scumbag is worth a ton o' cash.

    Consider an employment situation. Some employee steals a $15 mouse, is it worth it to use a $500 camera system to nail them? Not considering that alone. But that same dishonest petty thief is probably ripping you off other places and it is better off for the employer if they are caught and dealt with sooner rather than later (or at all).

    Now consider home security. Someone busts your mailbox. More than likely, it's some neighbor's kid a few doors down from you. Next time they flatten your car tires, and you're late for work and have to deal with the hassle of getting new tires. Now you can't relax, wondering who it is, and what will be next. Finding out who it is, having them busted, sending a message to the other yobs in the neighborhood, it's all worth far more than the value of the property damage and cost of security to bust them.

  • . If someone did enter my room and turn off my computer (or even if they didn't turn off the computer), I could retrieve the mp3's of the event from where I was and find out what happened.

    So assuming the mp3 gets to the target machine before the power is killed, you get a wonderful recording of:

    1) Key in lock
    2) Door opening
    3) Footsteps
    4) *click* of computer being turned off

    And this helps you how?
  • Why couldn't you just store stills or video locally, then call the phone, using it as a modem and downloading or reviewing what you wanted?
  • Remember: When you're talking about security, paranoia is a good thing.
    ------
  • HEY! What do you think you're doing, posting facts on Slashdot like that? ;)
    ------
  • http://www.iomojo.com/demos/ [iomojo.com] for the demos. This is really great: no plugins, no java, just html. Not even "push" technology. Hurry, and you can catch llamasonic at his desk right now!
  • Imagine having a cell phone on for half a day, every day?

    The cell phone wouldn't be constantly connected. The point is to have the computer call the cell phone when it detects an intruder.

    It can get a bit annoying if the motion detection threshold is too low. If it's an outdoor view and you're doing motion detection based on the video image (as opposed to stand alone motion detection devices), then shadows, birds, boats, etc. can set off false alarms. Indoors, pets, changes in lighting conditions, etc can do the same.

    I'd assume that a good system would allow you to view the images over the web or via dial-up connection and change some parameters (target region, change threshold, etc).

  • jwz has a 24/7 webcam running in his nightclub that is being reconstructed. So far people have stolen:

    o The webcam
    o Two amplifiers
    o The controller for the emulator lights

    All he managed to get was a few blurry shots of the guy that stole the webcam.
  • We have a can for our "pop fund" (i.e. we buy the pop with the money we make from selling pop) it contains whatever money was made that day plus the remainder of the float. Last year we started to notice that every morning all the money was gone (sometimes up to $35!) so we decided to take matters into our own hands. We set up 3 security cameras in the ceilings of our kitchen, main entrance and our main work area. We got a duplexer and a crazy little VCR, all neatly tucked away in the ceiling (only took 1 lunch break to wire up).

    We set the cameras up and let them rip that night. Enter the "perp", turns out our cleaning staff has it so bad that they were stealing not only our pop fund but they were sifting through our desktops (rifling through one guys CD rack) and generally doing things that breach their contract as cleaning staff! We took the video straight to the building manager and he was not impressed with what he saw. The next day we took down our cameras and duplexer (they were on loan) and we had new cleaning staff the next week.

    What kind of world is it where you can't trust your own cleaning staff?

    -----

  • Um... (Score:3)

    by rkent ( 73434 ) <rkent@post.ha r v a r d . edu> on Tuesday April 24, 2001 @02:54PM (#267313)
    ... towards what end? So you can see that someone has boarded your pontoon boat, call the cell phone lying on deck, hope that the intruders pick up and ask them to "please leave"?

    I gotta admit, if I was gonna jump on a boat in the middle of nowhere, it would be unsettling to hear a phone ring. But I'd probably just take it.

  • I know of an ISP, DigitalAgent [digitalagent.net] in Atlanta that uses webcams to monitor the server rooms.
  • 1) Do you want to use this to notice if someone is stealing your stuff, or catch pictures of whoever stole your stuff?

    2) Are you planning on remotely watching this all day (or having someone watch it), or do you want it to auto-detect thieves and take action only then?

    3) Can you afford to have your cell phone connected 24/7?

    With regards to 1, it won't be useful for catching anyone. With regards to 2, it will be very difficult (especially in uncontrolled conditions such as on a boat) to detect intruders in software. If you have a closed room you want to monitor, you might get away with it. 3 is related to 2 -- if you want it to transmit the data live, it's gonna cost a bundle. If you want it to call only if you're being robbed, you have a very difficult (possibly impossible) software problem on your hands.

    -Puk

    p.s. You could always put the webcam up on a web page and have people "Click HERE if I'm being robbed!" :)
  • On a similar line, I've been thinking about putting some cameras and audio deterents around the house. Most X10 systems are based in the US but they have ditributors in the UK. Check out: home control [homecontrol.co.uk] and laser [laser.com].

    I think a barking dog / police siren would do the trick. Or maybe the sound of a phone dialing and a computer voice saying "Intruder alert! The police have been called and are on their way..."

  • Its too bad you want a Linux solution. (Score:4)

    by mr ( 88570 ) on Tuesday April 24, 2001 @06:30PM (#267324)
    Because its been done in FreeBSD. Using the Matrox capture card. One that went out of production back in 1999 and cost $600 Using the kernel code from 1995 by Jim Lowe and Mark Tinguely. And once using a $49 card that the interlace is busted (the odd line is in the even slot, and the even is odd), as a time-lapse security camera system. (it just goes with 1/2 a page.) Given the one system is now 5 years old, and was last rebooted 500 days ago (a server move), FreeBSD is a known, working solution.

    At 2 TV stations. Every minute it does a rbg24 and pipes the ppm through ImageMagick.

    To add the date gfont.
    Like gfont -r 640x45 "`date '+Time:%l:%M:%S%p Date:%m-%d-%Y'`"

    Take that result and do the append via ImageMagick.

    Make them animated gifs or a .avi for that time-lapse movie effect.

    A keyboard USB chip is the input from the security sensors, and USB switches which camera is the live feed into the capture card. (Ya have to shield it because USB and 900 mhz phones don't play nice) As a benefit, the security testing is simple keystroke simulations. :-)

  • Actually we had the same probelm this summer doing some stuff with face recognition. Try averageing all the shots for the last minute or so. That way you can filter out natural lighting changes like the sun, cloud cover, ...

    bash-2.04$
  • >Wireless internet? Oh wait, you can't use cellphones for that....

    I'm guessing your just trolling, and fully aware of CDPD and GSM modems.

    Anyway, this X10 thread is about a remote camera. The computer can be land based with a video capture card recieving signals from the boat -- it hopefully wouldn't need wireless internet.

  • what happens if a thief dosen't ring the doorbell?
  • There was a product like this for mac years ago called Radar something or another by Connectix. It was cool, but it was marketed for monitoring your office. It never really took off. The joke among webmasters was that if the crooks manage to get in, they'll grab the computer with the images on it. Hence, no benefit.

  • Web cams are a stop-gap solution. (Score:5)

    by Gorobei ( 127755 ) on Tuesday April 24, 2001 @03:43PM (#267356)
    Add a couple of these. [navy.mil] These have much better multi-spectrum detection and reaction.

  • open source camera server (Score:3)

    by Lucabrasi ( 137017 ) on Tuesday April 24, 2001 @03:12PM (#267364)
    We just released an open source camera server today for download. Since it runs linux, you should be able to get it working with a variety of connections.

    Grab the ISO here [iomojo.com].

    Demo available at the URL in my sig...

  • And THIS is exactly the reason for which i'm going to turn my doorbell into an electronic click-wrap agreement device: instead of my name, I put LOTS of fine print on the plaque, and then by pressing the button (which rings the doorbell, of course), the visitor agrees to be bound by the whole thing. Which talks explicitly about privacy, cameras, beatings, firearms and whatever. Of course a thief cracking my door wouldn't "sign" it, but then he'd put a foot on my huge foot-clickable doormat.... lots o' fine print on that, too, no stupid "Welcome!".
  • There's an excellent camera and server from Axis (http://www.axis.com) that runs Linux. It comes with some basic scripts that are useful and you can also write your own, of course. In my experience, the maximum frame rate you can get is about 15fps. You can also set up 4 triggers to start video capture. There's also PTZ models with presets to scan an entire area.
  • I use a program called SupervisionCam which is available for windows. It has a feature of playing a .wav when motion is detected. You can also set the motion threshold to whatever you want. All you need is a wav of loud sirens, turn the volume all the way up, get amplified speakers, and any teenagers who sneak inside will shit their pants when they hear it! The only problem is if they dont get scared away they can steal your computer and your speakers :(. Also, unless he wants to have a 25/7 internet connection to his shellfish place, he wont be able to upload pictures to catch vandals fast enough to stop them from stealing the computer with all the pictures on it! Kinda defeats the purpose.

  • I work at a mid-sized ISP, and what I've heard is that a couple construction companies here are doing that at work sites: point a camera at the delivery entrance, and stream everything back to the office and save it on disk. Works wonders on keeping sub-contractors honest, apparently; when they say, "Oh yeah, we had that concrete ready at 10am but there was no one there", they just whip out the zip disk or whatever and show the mixer showing up at noon. I understand it's been a big hit, and is letting us sell a few ISDN lines more than we used to...

  • Webcams the best security (Score:3)

    by dark_panda ( 177006 ) on Tuesday April 24, 2001 @05:15PM (#267398)
    Trust me, after this horror story, you'll all be wanting webcams for security.

    Back in my university days (i.e. eight months ago), a friend and I were in the computer lab doing some work. Or something to that effect. My friend had just picked up a webcam and had it streaming to his website for a few days and decided to show me his awesome webcam/HTML hax0ring abilities.

    At the time, he was living in a basement apartment. The family upstairs gave him all the privacy he needed, but on this day (and probably many others), the privacy was nil.

    Upon firing up the webcam site and logining in, we see a picture of his desk and chair sitting peacefully from the glorious vantage point of a monitor-mounted webcam. A few minutes later, things took a turn for the worse.

    Into my friend's room walks the landlord's 14 year old son. "He isn't supposed to be in there," my friend says, a little worried.

    He sits at the computer.

    "He isn't supposed to be in here," my friend repeats.

    The kid types something and fiddles with the mouse.

    "He isn't supp... holy fuck!" The kid had dropped his pants and started flogging the dolphin right there in front of my friend's computer, most likely to Britney Spears or some pr0n site, and in plain view of anyone who happened to be checking out the webcam.

    Needless to say, the bedroom door suddenly acquired a padlock for the short time my friend remained at the place.

    The webcam may not have prevented that spunkfest, but at the very least, further spunkfests were avoided. Now that's security.

    (Yes, it was a Windows box. Shut up.)

    J
  • Wow, that's a story in itself!

    Particularly weird was the Aussie civil liberties organization's reply [nswccl.org.au], of which I was quite incredulous:

    2. The publication of pictures of others without consent, even if photographed in a private home can constitute a breach of the right to privacy. Once the pictures are published or broadcast, as in the Ashfield case, they are no longer private pictures. [...] Consent should be obtained, certainly before publication and ideally before initial photographing of people. Just because you may suspect someone of a robbery as in the Ashfield scenario it shouldn't negate these principles. Two wrong's do not make a right.

    Civil libertarians don't make themselves look good when they defend burglars' supposed right to steal in private! Consent should be obtained, indeed.

  • A company called VitalLink [vitallink.com] offers remote video monitoring via webcam. [vitallink.com] More expensive than DIY but business customers seem to buy it.
  • Buy the best stuff so that when the vandals come by they can pick up some nice hardware at cheap prices.

    And have a gourmet shellfish dinner with it, too!

  • Invest wisely (Score:4)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Tuesday April 24, 2001 @02:41PM (#267447) Journal
    Buy the best stuff so that when the vandals come by they can pick up some nice hardware at cheap prices.

    Dancin Santa

  • Remote View Phone is a tool that is designed to let you See there, be there, from anywhere its a remote digital surveillance camera with built -in technology that sends digital images to your pc. Call the phone number where the camera is located and within seconds you can monitor the area. It can even be set up to call you, sending images at connection. No computer is required in the area being monitored and installation is as easy as plug and play. $749.00 (U.S) @ Spy World

    Need some accoustical jammers, cell phone interceptors, envelope xray'ers, heat scanners, thermal scopes, white light generators, we got all that shit too...

    Got root? [antioffline.com]
  • Yes, it has. And how do you plan on getting your X10 feed from the boat to the land?

  • What is it with the freakin' Yankees hats?

    Are all webcams now required to render people as wearing them, in random colors, like some sort of Yahoo! Games [yahoo.com] avatar?

    Are we sure these are two different guys?

    Is the red-hatted one actually mugging for the camera?

    And why is the blue-hatted one wearing the same sweater I'm wearing right now?

    --Blair

  • Excuse me, but what is the _AIM_ of all this project? I hope, it's either _catch_ the vandals (yourself or with a help of police), or _save_ your *fishes. If you want to catch them, your webcam and cellphone are absolutely irrelevant. What will you do with a lot of best quality pictures of absolutely unknown vandals? Go to police? They have a lot of work even without your *fishery.

    If you want to be there and immediately catch them - you are out of luck. You are one, they are many - and they have enough time to swim away. What are you going to do then? Boat races a-la agent 007?

    So, I advice either: making there a room that is automatically closed and locked when entered so that only you can open it (There is a lot of such tricks in old knight films), or the guard (Including the man with at least a baton or a hungry dog fed with vandals only). I cannot advice leaving somewhere vodka with cyanide since it's extremely dangerous and highly illegal.

    I don't think you are the only *fisher there. Make a treaty with your neighbours about common defense so that everybody seeing vandals informs the others and then you catch them together.

    And, if you are a programmer, and you can attach your *fishery to the Internet, you can simply move your workplace to your boat.
  • Also, keep in mind that the appearance of surveilance is actually more important than the actual surveilance.
    Which is probably a good reason to put a couple old or empty security camera housings on the barge, with wires going into a conduit and anchored somewhere. Then hide the real cameras.
    At any rate, the threat of identifying someone as a perpetrator is more important than just having the camera there.
    This is on a barge in the bay. The perps have to arrive in a boat, which probably has some kind of ID number on it. If you can make out that number you've got at least one of the perps; you don't have to recognize faces if you can get a license plate.
    --
    spam spam spam spam spam spam
    No one expects the Spammish Repetition!
  • There's a guy in my area that sells security systems along the line of your webcam ideas. He's got his own OS and is connecting it to a broadband (cable) connection so it can be viewed remotely. The images are stored on the hard drive, and can be retrieved at any point. Check out his web page at http://www.eagleeyedvr.com/
  • There are 2 very different types of motion detection. One type uses a physical motion sensor and sends an analog alarm signal to the computer. Digital motion detection takes place completely inside the comp - you set up a detection grid and sensitivity levels for each cam, and the soft looks for specific changes in vid data to detect and record motion. This takes more work, but is exponentially more flexible. This is especially helpful for boats - my security system was installed at a Marina, so it was very important to block off the water areas from activity detection. Again hopefully this helps.

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