This is the reason that all of mine are hardwired (literally) through the roof. Obviously more timeconsuming to do but the signal is way more responsive than wifi (esp. when my wifi bandwidth drops due to giant periodic cloud backups or multi-gigabyte PS5 update file downloads) and I wanted to make sure that all of the video is shunted to cloud and local secure storage in whatever seconds it might take for an attacker to physically disable the camera. Dozen cables down and into my router and switch in the mancave but it is what it is.
On top of that, having a bunch of cameras on wifi is a good way to flood the spectrum and make it useless for normal wireless devices. Rule of thumb for network devices: Unless it is really used as mobile, wire it.
Can’t you do both so that a physical cut don’t stop the cam?
Does anyone have another link? The site isn’t loading for me
Probably burglars jamming your wifi
Another reason to buy PoE cameras.
As a gamer, I can only wonder what Path of Exile has to do with this. What does PoE stand for here?
Power-over-Ethernet
Internet-of-Thieves devices.
And that’s why hardlining is still by far the best option available.
- Hardlined cameras need to be physically accessed and the cables snipped in order to disrupt them, and most cameras offering hardlining now feed Ethernet through their bases, providing additional protection.
- Most sub-20 camera systems can run for up to an hour or two on a 500VA UPS, and up to a week or more with PowerWall backups, defeating intentional power outages.
- A fully airgapped system can defeat any sort of direct Internet intrusion.
- Shielded Ethernet can help protect from crosstalk attacks provided they are correctly grounded with the appropriate switches.
- Hardware auth between cameras and the DVR can help defend against direct attacks via an unplugged cable or an open wall jack, in that only approved hardware can make the needed connections with either end.
- Encrypted communications between cameras and DVR can enhance the security of data across the wire.
- A brace of identical dummy cameras - similarly powered, if they have external indicators - alongside real ones will waste the time and effort of attackers who conduct physical attacks, while keeping recording-infrastructure needs to a minimum.
- Bonus if identical but “dark” Ethernet is similarly spoofed throughout the building, as not only will it confuse physical attackers, but it’ll also be already in-place for future communications-infrastructure improvements.
- DVR needs to be in a secured location, ideally fireproof. In combination with № 7 and № 8, a dummy DVR (with live screens showing actual content) can exist elsewhere to distract any physical attackers.
Sure, this list isn’t 100% coverage, but it gets you nearly there with a minimum of effort.
You have some interesting ideas about what a minimum of effort looks like
If you are in the middle of a frame-off gut of a home, as I currently am, much of this is trivial to implement.
Even my parent’s 1978 home, with it’s drop ceiling in the basement, would not make most of this all that much more difficult.
If you are in the middle of a frame-off gut of a home, as I currently am, much of this is trivial to implement.
A notoriously low-effort endeavor in itself.
“It’s doable with a minimum of effort as long as you have your house gutted down to the foundations” isn’t exactly the shining defense of “a minimum of effort” that I expected to read
Go in your attic for 20 minutes. Throw some Ethernet around. You don’t even have to plug all of it in lol
Not all attics are that accessible. Mine is basically an above-house crawlspace full of insulation such that you need a mask.
It’s 2024, do you not have a mask
Requires a different type of mask, but yes, I have many masks of different types.
No, I’ve used them all up in the last 3 years
I had to buy almost $500 of mdf to get around my attic well enough to pull cable for backhaul. It’s not as easy as you make it sound in a lot of cases.
You only need 2 pieces and some creativity.
minimum of effort
yeah, nah, they can just have my stuff.
So this is for wifi enable devices, can they still do those on wired ones?
Not with radio jamming, but with an EMP you can disable wired devices too .
Thanks for replying. I am going to install some wired cameras.
Well, an emp is so.ething to be worried, nor usual but it could happen. Maybe a Faraday cage could help minimize the impact.
There is shielded cable available. The U in UTP cable stands for unshielded for example.
It’s been echod several times in this thread already but:
Wireless and security are oil and water. They do not mix. This goes byond wifi. If your security system has wireless sensors (door, window, motion) - you aren’t secure. Please do not buy smart locks.
Wireless cameras are not security - they are a convenience. A convenience for checking on the kids in the back or seeing if that package got delivered.
If it’s not wired and powered it is at best a scarecrow and at worse an indicator that you have money and you feel secure.
That is a true statement. You can’t have both securtiy and wireless (convenience).
Every wirelessly transmitted signal, whether it is your network signal or bluetooth, can be intercepted from afar. It is even possible to encrypt the accoustic signal emitted from a needle printer and determine what has been printed because every letter/word emits a specific sound pattern. Sound travels wirelessly. This link from 2009 refers to that. Unfortenately it is written in German and I didn’t find anything in English, but you could translate it.
Edit: typos 2 nd Edit: Addition: Needle printers are still in use - at least in Germany - for printing prescriptions at doctor’s offices, among other things. The paper used for that provides a (physical) carbon copy.
if they have a wifi jammer they have spray paint
Low tech solution sure - you need to walk up to the camera and would need the location of any cameras that would potentially catch you as you scooter around tagging the cameras. Advantage is you are 100 sure the cam can’t see you.
Deauth attacks work very well and don’t require you to nuke all of the wireless space.
There’s a variety of different attacks. Admittedly destroying the camera is more or less a sure thing hah.
Many cameras record to a SD card, deauth won’t do much.
Sure there may be a hard copy but that will only have value after the crime is committed. Deauth / jamming will prevent the more meaningful things like proximity alerts and notifications from informing the user (or security system) which could lead to intervention.
I’ve always viewed camera storage as a fallback in the event something fails. Don’t get me wrong I think redundancy is great and it’s a fine feature. It has value - just less so in this particular case.
You could set up an alert for “hey, all my security cameras just misteriously disconnected”…
Not advocating for wireless security solutions, just saying it’s not so hopeless.
That would definitely be a good approach if you were stuck with the wireless option. Im sure some software may address those disconnections in just the way you describe.
My responses have been looking at the technology broadly - in the way I might if someone asked me for my opinion prior to investing in gear. People frequently overestimate the effort required to achieve a bypass of a security device. So my goal was to provide some core knowledge.
I do like the suggestion though- it may help somone improve their own existing setup 👍
Here in belgium it is illegal to have hidden security cameras. You also have to put up a visible sign if you have them.
Location of the cameras here is easy lol
There is an advantage to advertising their existence: the sign itself may act as a deterrent and may motivate a thief to pick a softer target.
This of course is assuming you don’t need a sign for each camera with an arrow pointing to it… at that point perhaps just a big dog would be a better choice hah.
Smart locks are fine. Your door isn’t particularly secure with a regular lock. If they want in enough to bring tech, they are coming in anyway.
I don’t disagree with that. If someone wants in they’re coming in. 100% agreed. The trick is making your self less of an easy target and cutting down on easy ins.
My statement was pretty generic as there is a lot of nuance to locks and security. My concern lies mostly with the fact that you rarely have a suitable blending of the two technologies. Either a lock company buying a kit or an electronics company buying bulk locks. Or a company that does neither and is looking for another thing to peddle on Amazon.
Some of these locks have very poorly positioned relays. You can unlock them with a magnet. Others can be actuated using a simple emf generator. Ones with passcodes can be read with consumer grade ir sensors or determined by wear and fingerprints.
Reducing attack vectors is always preferred. But it is absolutely up to the end user where their balance between convenience and security lies.
A good deadbolt and key while average is still superior as it is only 3ish attack vectors: pick or impression, destruction of door/lock, and the trusty rock:
Most doors have poorly placed windows with standard glass in or next to them.
Most smartlocks have a bypass lock for power cuts etc. that is shockingly easy to pick.
Those are just dumb.
I have a smart lock that is just on the inside, there is nothing outside to indicate a smart lock.
Yes, someone could hack into my home assistant and open the door, but with that level of skill they would be earning 6 figures in a red team somewhere, not stealing my raspberry Pis and IKEA furniture…
Regardless of how easy they are you pick, every house has giant holes cut in the walls with nothing but a couple panes of glass separating the inside from the outside.
Do you mean windows?
Time to put linux in my walls
Most regular door locks are easy to pick.
isn’t that the equivalent to having an unlock button on your front door.
They busted the door off the hinges when they broke into my house once. One of your doors is an open in door… those are kick in doors as the guy was telling me when he replaced mine.
This is one thing I don’t understand- I was looking at getting a door replaced and they looked at me like I had two heads when I asked about reinforcement to make it difficult to kick in.
I’ve read the weak point is generally the jamb and of course it’s only thin wood. Steel reinforcement behind the jamb could make a huge difference, so why isn’t it common?
I’m not paranoid enough to do this with existing doors and of course don’t want the ugliness of a visible lock plate, but when I’m replacing a door, I want the option of one that is more difficult to kick in, rather than just a cheap cookie cutter install
Over here (UK) it’s pretty common for doors to be multi point locking, so you shut the door and lift the handle which engages a series of extra bolts between the door and frame, most commonly one at the handle then one at the top and bottom of the frame. The early PVC doors that introduced multi point locking did have an issue (poor construction) where people could kick out the middle panel leaving the frame in place, newer ones have improved it, and there are more expensive doors which are made of different materials, but will almost always feature multi point locking.
That’s a great idea too.
I’ve seen that in moves but never in real life, nor have I seen hardware for it at any home center I’ve been to
Our exterior doors are usually steel or more expensive are a heavy fiberglass, antique are wood, but always heavy duty. I guess I’ve seen flimsy doors in cottages or apartment conversions but I can’t imagine that passing building code for any permitted construction
Because the average consumer is an idiot and does not think about the various technicalities associated with their purchases.
we went with a fiberglass type that was suppose to have have bounce to it, so more force would return then be absorbed. It also had to open outwards and that made it weird for a long time.
Just put 4" screws through the hinges and the strike plates.
That’s the standard: cheap and easy. Every lock I’ve bought since I’ve owned a house has had this. Done.
But not enough. One of my doors was clearly kicked in for a previous owner, yet I saw long screws into the frame. That doesn’t guarantee they were there at the time but they might have.
Regardless, the jamb is thin wood not really supported by anything. Screwing the strike plate into the framing helps, but that doesn’t keep the jamb from buckling and breaking until the door is no longer held by the strike plate. Reinforcing that jamb can make a huge difference against a standard burglar.
How about a 60” steel reinforcement?
Or here are some good ideas - residential doors already have some of these covered by opening inward, rather than out
Smart locks are worse. They have all the insecurity of a regular lock, plus more methods of insecurity, plus more failure modes that will shut you out of your house.
Ehh, they sell models with no keyhole now. At least youre trading risks at that point.
Or in my case, the entire front door is made of glass…
Here in belgium our doors sacrifice everything in the name of marginally more security: fire safety, failure modes & maintainability, convenience, and protection from user error.
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Each modern door has 2+ deadbolts + hooks, many times a strike plate that is a bit bit more crowbar resistant, etc… but the mechanism is all tied to the handle so you can’t lock the door if the handle sticks because of lack of maintenance or -10C weather. This also is about 1500€ to replace if you break it trying to lock your door when it is sticking.
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Many doors have no front handle, so if you leave your keys inside (even if you are just running to get the mail), you are locked out. If someone leaves the keys on the inside of the eurocylinder, you can’t unlock it from the outside unless you bump the keys out which isn’t too easy for someone who only has a key.
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Finally, almost no doors nowadays have a deadbolt dials on the inside, so you have to lock it from inside with keys. This means that both someone who steals a key can lock you inside (see point 2) and also it is a huge fire hazard because you can’t open the door from the inside without a key. You either have to hope that you aren’t too blind and dazed from smoke during a fire to find the keys, get them in the lock, and get outside, or leave the keys in the lock and completely negate the security benefit of having no deadbolt dial + the added inconvenience of another person living there unable to get inside if they come home later.
Then, on my door and many other modern doors here the security that they sacrifice so much functionality for is negated in any case because there is a 60x180cm double glass pane that they can simply break through. It is literally the worst system I have ever come across lol
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there was show hosted by reformed burglars. One of the things they look for was expensive things in the front yards, being in planned community with few roads going into or out of. To get past home camera they wore hats and kept looking down, and just showed up in a lawn care or pool cleaning van.
And if you look at police report and court cases, do these camera make catching thieves more likely? No they don’t
Was it It Takes A Thief? I remember that show; it was actually pretty interesting
I don’t love somewhere where people dress up as Scooby Doo villains to break into houses, I live in a place where people go house to house at 1 am and try door handles on cars and garages. A motion light and a camera does more to stop those people than anything else.
If someone wants to stage an organized heist, then yea, my camera isn’t doing shit, but neither are my door locks, or a bolted down safe. At that point it is just an insurance game.
You could just add a small nonvolatile buffer to each camera if it’s not wired, such that if it loses connection with your home assistant server it will start recording. With 720p video and a 64gb flash storage you could, depending on encoding, store well over a day of footage. (Napkin math so could be wrong)
Many cameras only save recordings based off of motion triggers, so 64 gb goes a long way if most of the time there’s no movement.
This goes without saying but obviously the most secure will be analog. Unfortunately that is neither accessible or worth the time and trouble for the average consumer.
You know digital can be wired right? And analog doesnt mean secure, you can listen in and disable analog signals just as easy as digital ones.
These people are just using signal jammers you can buy on AliExpress. They can jam analog and digital it’s just about what frequencies it blocks. However using them in North America is illegal.
Huh? If anything it would probably be even easier to jam.
Not if it’s wired. But the same could probably be said for wired ip cameras
IP anything is generally far more difficult to jam thanks to TCP/IP checking for acknowledgment the data arrived and trying again - at a slower speed which can handle more noise.
Our cameras at work use wifi and Ethernet and have an internal SD card - plus a built in coin cell battery that can run for a little while. Obviously not cheap though.
Looks like my expensive ass setup was worth it after all now doesn’t it?
The picture shows a bullet cam, and PoE is readily available.
Wired network doorbell cameras are much harder to find, and they are double the cost
The Flipper has become prolific in the crime world, apparently.
Isn’t this easily detectable?
The camera sends a ping every 30sec to the host. Missing ping: sound silent alarm with possible tampering. Missing 4 pings, let all hell break loose alarm sound.
That is how my sensors work. They work on 433/868mhz, this is open band and easy to flood. If the hub misses a ping from a sensor, the tamper protection alarm goes of.
I mean if you really care about security you’re not using wifi… you’re going hard wired. Wifi can be messed up by your neighbors unintentionally and then there goes your tampering alarm. Tampering alarms are good when the system isn’t fragile.
No security installer is going to suggest wifi if someone’s genuinely concerned about security.
I feel like that would cause false positives
Then again, not that many people mess with their router
If I got an alarm every time a 433 sensor didn’t check in for 10 minutes, I’d never get any sleep!
*Starts microwave open*
Someone said jamming?
A couple of well trained dogs are better than cameras if you’re serious about security.
They serve different purposes.
Dogs are a deterrent. Cameras are (in most residential use cases) for catching someone after the fact.
And the cameras don’t do much for catching either now that most criminals hide thier face. And even when you do catch a face, doesn’t do any good unless you recognize them.
Dog treats. Works every time
GEESE
Yeah, just have those asshole dogs wake the neighbours baby whenever they see a cat/possum/cloud.
