People need to secure their home webcams

[citiesofbismuth]

This is scary. I'm on a site where you can see live webcam feeds. Most of them are boring surveillance views, but one or two are of people's houses. Kids playing in a lounge.

CV10 8** secure your webcam if you happen to be on mn.

This is a legal site btw, nothing dodgy.

How do you secure it?!

That's scary! I always refused to have a home webcam for this reason. My dad showed me how easy it was to view others home cams, simple as inputting an IP address into the search bar, but the fact there's a whole website dedicated to this is really scary.
I mean, do they even know it's on there? Are they aware people are randomly watching them?

I don't know the technicalities of securing them, but it's a routine thing to do. A lot of people don't bother though.

I highly doubt they know that their lounge is viewable by the whole planet.

There was a warning about this a while ago on TV - I can't remember which programme. It was quite shocking, especially because it also showed children in their bedrooms playing and sleeping - I also assume getting changed in some cases. These websites are viewed around the world.

Bloody hell that postcode is v near me!

Surely you’d have to link your cam to the site for it to be shown- if the site wasn’t dodgy or illegal? Maybe they know? What is the site?

Is there not a way to report it?

I keep masking tape over mine. Not because I am worried about surveillance but because I once switched it on whilst doing a conf call in my pjs. 🤣

But if anyone is worried it's a simple solution.

I don't think you link your cam to the site. The site can easily access unsecured cams then display their feeds. You can see people's drive ways, industrial sites, horses, barber shops and even some tortoises in a small compound. An aquarium too.

It displays the longitude and latitude and postcode of the cam.

These aren't computer cams, they're cctv cams.

Can this happen on mobile phones to?

The programme managed to contact some of the people. They had no idea and were horrified. The main concern was about paedophiles viewing children of course, but I seem to remember a link to burglary too. They can be secured, and certainly should be, but most people don't realise or don't bother.

I don't know how you'd let the people know other than in writing. I have the street name but not the house number. Perhaps the L and L will let me find that out.

I don't think it can happen on mobiles, these are just cctv feeds.

Oh no, now I'm paranoid. Please can someone tell me how to make sure mine is absolutely secure? It's passworded I think.

How can I find the website, I don't have a camera but a couple of my neighbours do and I'm pretty sure they cover my front door and drive.

I'd like to check that they have there's properly secured

I haven't got one, I don't know how to secure them, but I think it's by password.

Perhaps you could share the website as I assume it's public anyway. Then people can check to see if their cameras are showing or not.

I don't want to cause a problem for these people by posting the website. I don't know what to do.

The Facebook dude, Zuckerberg, is known for putting a plaster over the camera eye on his computer. I do it now. Unless I’m FaceTiming or Skyping someone there’s no need for your camera to be on

This is one reason why I refuse to have one of those at home CCTV system things (and alexa or google home or whatever). Besides the fact that the whole thing seems creepy and very 1984, there's the possibility of it being hacked, without you ever knowing, and open to abuse.