There’s a very good reason my cameras stay internal only and are blocked 100% from the internet. I can access them via the NVR with a Wireguard tunnel when I’m away from home if need be.
Same here; LAN only with a VPN to get into the LAN. There is no reason to send my camera feeds to another party. All that can come from that is trouble.
Currently using BlueIris to read/record streams from Ubiquiti IP cameras* set to run in standalone mode. I chose that software since it is a one-time purchase rather than something monthly; and chose the cameras as they were fairly inexpensive when I bought them (5ish years ago) and they supported power over ethernet, which makes running cables to them so much easier (just have to run a single ethernet cable to them, don’t need to run a separate power cable).
I’ll probably be redoing my setup in the future. Most notably swapping out BlueIris (Windows) for something Linux based as my trust in Microsoft has steadily declined.
*I do enjoy the irony of these being mentioned given the thread we are in. I at least have them banned from talking to the internet.
Thing is, Ubiquiti cameras aren’t cloud based. At least not to the same extent. The authentication system is cloud based, but the controller and storage is local.
You can pay for several years of a cloud subscription for the cost of either a NAS or a Ubiquity storage server.
Reolink has always been a good choice. Very good hardware for the price and they support onvif on most devices, which you can then use however you like.
Reolink, Ubiquiti, Dahua, Amcrest, and Wyze. Nice thing about a third-party NVR is you can mix and match whatever is cheapest or best for a given spot. I’m currently using iSpy Agent for the NVR as it’s runs nicely in docker. Then I layer Codeproject.AI over top for person detection rather than just generic motion alerts. I’m using a 2090 Ti GPU (which is WAY overkill but I got it for free) to make the AI detection very fast.
If you want cheap and good cameras: Some Annke cameras like the C800 are rebranded Hikvision models. Add a NVR like Frigate and you have a cheap and powerful local surveillance system.
In this case however, the device hosting your VPN, NVR and blocking the camera could be the very router someone unknown has admin access to. It could be trivial to unblock, port forward, and find the IP with that access. It comes down to the authentication security of the camera as last resort.
There’s a very good reason my cameras stay internal only and are blocked 100% from the internet. I can access them via the NVR with a Wireguard tunnel when I’m away from home if need be.
Same here; LAN only with a VPN to get into the LAN. There is no reason to send my camera feeds to another party. All that can come from that is trouble.
What cameras/setup do you use (or just recommend)?
Currently using BlueIris to read/record streams from Ubiquiti IP cameras* set to run in standalone mode. I chose that software since it is a one-time purchase rather than something monthly; and chose the cameras as they were fairly inexpensive when I bought them (5ish years ago) and they supported power over ethernet, which makes running cables to them so much easier (just have to run a single ethernet cable to them, don’t need to run a separate power cable).
I’ll probably be redoing my setup in the future. Most notably swapping out BlueIris (Windows) for something Linux based as my trust in Microsoft has steadily declined.
*I do enjoy the irony of these being mentioned given the thread we are in. I at least have them banned from talking to the internet.
I never ran BlueIris as I couldn’t bear to install windows. For Linux try Frigate NVR.
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I am still shocked that so many people are okay with cloud-based camera systems. It just seems like a security and privacy nightmare.
Granted, setting up a DIY NAS to host a server and store footage is a whole technical challenge for most people, but still…
Thing is, Ubiquiti cameras aren’t cloud based. At least not to the same extent. The authentication system is cloud based, but the controller and storage is local.
You can pay for several years of a cloud subscription for the cost of either a NAS or a Ubiquity storage server.
Ditto. “The Cloud” is just another name for somebody else’s computer which you don’t control
As always, relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/908/
What cameras/setup do you use (or just recommend)?
Reolink has always been a good choice. Very good hardware for the price and they support onvif on most devices, which you can then use however you like.
Reolink, Ubiquiti, Dahua, Amcrest, and Wyze. Nice thing about a third-party NVR is you can mix and match whatever is cheapest or best for a given spot. I’m currently using iSpy Agent for the NVR as it’s runs nicely in docker. Then I layer Codeproject.AI over top for person detection rather than just generic motion alerts. I’m using a 2090 Ti GPU (which is WAY overkill but I got it for free) to make the AI detection very fast.
If you want cheap and good cameras: Some Annke cameras like the C800 are rebranded Hikvision models. Add a NVR like Frigate and you have a cheap and powerful local surveillance system.
In this case however, the device hosting your VPN, NVR and blocking the camera could be the very router someone unknown has admin access to. It could be trivial to unblock, port forward, and find the IP with that access. It comes down to the authentication security of the camera as last resort.