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Home Surveillance System (Part 2)

Panasonic BB-HGW700A Network Camera Router (Home Surveillance System – Part 1)

The good thing about Linksys router is that it still shows all the reserved IPs, even without the actual name of the device. So with only two unnamed devices (somehow iPhone didn’t get a name on the connected devices list) it was pretty easy to figure out what is what. Overall process of setting up three cameras for camera portal was pretty easy, but I stumbled on getting to view cameras from Internet. The default setting that is being picked up by the camera is that of the network you are setting the whole system up. Which basically means – your local network. So whenever I was trying to access the camera from outside I was still being thrown to 192.168.1.something address.

With some additional tweaking (your settings could be different, so I am not posting mine here) I was able to get everything to work together. Because of firewall restrictions at work I was not able to utilize Camera Portal to its full extent. Instead, I keep accessing all three cameras individually, at the same address with different port numbers. Initially, the ActiveX component wasn’t favoring Internet Explorer 7 (no problems with IE 6 though, strange), but it seem to be working alright lately. For Firefox/Opera browsers the Java applet used instead. I had mixed results with it as it could work and fail on a same computer at different times.

So the whole set up is now consists of:

Cameras transmit video in up to 640×480 resolution, but 320×240 is preferred. Camera’s also have built-in microphone, so mind the bandwidth if you go with higher quality settings for both video and audio. The quality is on par with or a little below regular cell phone camera, but you didn’t expect to make movies with these cameras, didn’t you?

Two of the cameras are set up on the tabletop tripod with mini ball head – I got the cheapest they had. Just make sure the camera stands firmly on it. Third camera doesn’t have any stand and just sits on the shelf. Thanks to the large dip in the back, wires don’t get in a way.

Overall I am very happy with my system. There are some glitches, though. Sometimes the video just freezes completely, although sound is coming though. Panning or zoom don’t work altogether, so you have to reload the page to get video right.

Panasonic also has a recording software that works with their cameras, but since I didn’t really need it yet – I can’t justify the cost of buying it.

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technology

Home Surveillance System (Part 1)

Panasonic BL-C131A Couple of months after moving into new apartment I realized I need a better view of the inside when I’m at work. Maybe I am a little paranoid, but it never hurts to watch your house when you’re not there. So after some research I got a single Panasonic wireless camera (Panasonic BL-C131A Network Camera Wireless 802.11 if you want it from Amazon).

Camera easily hooked up to my existing wireless connection with WEP, successfully restarted into wireless mode in another room and was overall fun to use. Especially when I told my girlfriend I was going to watch her working in my office because she wasn’t familiar with my model of printer. Aside from this being total fun and all, the camera provided to be a really valuable tool in remote management and teaching. I could see all the controls pretty clear and could pinpoint controls that needed attention. Accessing a single camera from the web was not an issue as well. I opened single port on my router and that was about all I needed to do.

After having all this enjoyment I went back to Amazon. They had the lowest price on this equipment at the moment – and I think they still do. Next stop – I purchased one more of BL-C131A Wireless camera, one Panasonic BL-C111A Network Camera Wired and Panasonic BB-HGW700A Network Camera Router. The reason for latter was that I wanted to tie all cameras into the single router that was wired into my brand new Linksys 802.11n router with WPA.

After meticulous updating all three units firmware, connecting and setting up cameras with the Panasonic router there were still some kinks to work out. The preferred way of connecting camera router to base router is via UPnP. The problem is that the Linksys router doesn’t tell you which IP address is being used by UPnP device.

(Part 2)

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technology

Why Trusted Platform Module won’t protect you

Trusted Platform Module Recently I was asked a very good question on Trusted Platform Module. Question stated that once the hard drive is removed from the system, there is nothing that prevents attacker to break decryption (even brute force it) and obtain data no matter how secure it is.

Pretty much all the protection applied in contemporary systems is built upon the thesis that any data is decipherable either by using LOTS of computer power or LOTS of time which makes data either too expensive to obtain in such a way or obsolete by the time it is deciphered.

Obtaining data from any hard drive is very expensive and time-consuming process. Unless you keep a little too much information on it – no one gives a damn. Basically, targeted attacks only make sense if attacker has enough reasons to believe that certain laptop possesses certain value. In all other cases – it’s cheaper to get “stuff” through other means.

That’s the primary reason for spam and phishing attacks – because it is cheaper and more productive to attack the weakest link in security chain. Such link happens to be a human, since most successful attacks use social engineering rather than brute forcing your password. Why break if you can ask and get it?

Generally speaking, most of security rules in place are impenetrable enough that fraudsters avert their efforts from brute force and other types of high-tech attacks and pursue scamming and phishing. Penetrating current security measures requires very high levels of knowledge and intelligence as well as knowing insides and outs of particular system one plans to attack. However, crafting fake bank web site and sending zillions of fake notifications to “update your account info” requires way less time, knowledge and costs almost nothing. The financial outcomes, however, are significant enough to make such attacks more feasible and more numerous.