WEbCams are Watching

Tens of thousands of webcams – positioned in private homes, businesses and elsewhere – are posting private images online, according to a number of reports from technology-based websites such as TechCrunch. “Last week, I sat at my computer and watched a young man from Hong Kong relaxing on his laptop; an Israeli woman tidying the changing room in a clothes store; and an elderly woman in the UK watching TV,” said a commentator at the Motherboard blog recently, “All of these people were completely unaware that I was spying on them, thousands of miles away, through devices that were inadvertently broadcasting their private lives on the Internet.” The images are on a website called Insecam, which uses computer software to troll the Internet for signals from security cameras and the like that are using the pre-programmed security codes that are installed by the manufacturers. And left unchanged by the consumers. That are simple like “admin” or “12345″ and easily can be broken. Techcrunch reports that it investigated the feeds, and found many dead, likely because the owner discovered the online appearance and changed the pass-code. “You can see some live cameras if you move away from the front page and start viewing cameras further afield …” said Techcrunch. At the Tampa Tribune, Tom Jackson reported that he saw “cluttered family rooms and tidy kitchens. Vacant pool decks. A dock looking out on sparkling blue water. Lonely front porches. A blue-and-gold striped tropical fish. Several empty cribs. And one crib containing a blissfully snoozing toddler. “To be clear: What Insecam’s designers have done falls ever so slightly outside the realm of hacking. Instead, its robot is simply coming through an unlocked back door. Keeping it out of our business is up to us.” He continued, “The timing for understanding this could not be better. The season ahead is, of source, rich with traditions, not the least of which is this: In our haste to get gifts assembled and running, we – and I am speaking as a been-there-done-that dad – will skip details in the owner’s manual that seem incidental to the operation of the gizmo at hand.” But that’s bad, he said. “Security and information technology professionals have known forever that manufacturers’ default user names and passwords – that thing you must convert to make your system truly yours – follow simple patterns, often something like admin for the user name and ABC123 for the password,” he continued. “Just change the dang password. And it’s not just because you don’t want Russian thugs watching your teens play video games,” he continued. “There’s lots of stuff you can skip over the holidays, but changing the password on your new DIY surveillance system isn’t one of them. What you do in your hot tub should stay in your hot tub.” Insecam offers choices of cameras from dozens of nations, including Sweden, Singapore, Chile, Denmark, Brazil, Czech Republic, Israel, Greece and even Bulgaria. And dozens more. With many of the cams, it also offers the location on a Google map. In not-entirely fluent English, the site explains: “Sometimes administrator (possible you too) forgets to set the default password on security surveillance system, online camera or DVR. This site now contains access only to cameras without a password and it is fully legal. Such online cameras are available for all Internet users. To browse Cameras just select the country or camera type.” The site continues, “This site has been designed in order to show the importance of the security settings. To remove your public camera from this site and make it private the only thing you need to do is to change your camera default password.” Techcrunch reported there were 73,000 camera feeds available from around the globe. - See more at: http://www.libertynewsonline.com/article_301_36574.php#sthash.9pOsDwYX.dpuf