Sunday, November 9, 2014

Unsecured cameras around the World

A creepy website has collected streaming footage from more than 73,000 cameras around the globe that are connected to the internet, because the owners haven't changed their default passwords, making them accessible to virtually anyone.
 
Insecam claims to feature feeds from IP cameras all over the world with more than 11,000 in the U.S. and 2,400 in the UK alone. 
 
Some of the shots are harmless with fly-on-the-wall views of stores, offices and parking lots, but there are also far more personal areas covered by the cameras, with living rooms and bedrooms featured prominently. Many of the cameras are being used as baby cams which will alert many parents.  
 
One lawyer noted that looking at someone's camera would be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in the United States as it involves hacking into someone's password-protected account - even if that password is the default setting.It is easy to have your private camera taken off the Insecam site, simply by setting a new password removes it from view. 

There are 40,746 pages of unsecured cameras just in the first 10 country listings: 11,046 in the U.S.; 6,536 in South Korea; 4,770 in China; 3,359 in Mexico; 3,285 in France; 2,870 in Italy; 2,422 in the U.K.; 2,268 in the Netherlands; 2,220 in Columbia; and 1,970 in India. 
 
The site states, 'you can see into bedrooms of all countries of the world.'
 
Further details are also listed with the site displaying information including the camera manufacturer, default login and password, time zone, city and state. The approximate location is also pinpointed on Google Maps giving any potential peeping Tom a very real insight into your supposedly private world.Internet protocol cameras, or IP cameras, are the ones being streamed on the website and they are seen as a cheaper option than CCTV camera systems.
 
The picture is one of the many pages of unsecured cameras in Kuwait. The website is www.insecam.com. I wonder how many FB pages are going to copy this post like they have done so many times without giving credit, you know who you are.

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