surveillance

DIY home surveillance with a Webcam

We're on the tail end of the summer vacation season, which according to the FBI is one of the peak periods of home burglaries. Chances are good you're about to head out of town, leaving your dwelling to fend for itself against intruders.

Got a house sitter or an alarm system? Good for you. If not, there are a handful of ways to turn a computer into a tool that will alert you if someone's there who shouldn't be.

For the sake of this guide we're keeping things simple and limiting our list to free apps that work on PCs, Macs, or both. A few simply use your browser. Later on we also have a section on specialty hardware that can take you beyond what most Webcams are capable of.

The software

Software can offer a definite piece of mind over browser-based solutions. Most of these apps can run quietly in the background, and can save footage to your hard drive for archiving. High-end Webcams often come with their own security software, so in the spirit of this guide, we're going with generic software that should work with any model:

Yawcam (PC) Yawcam is free and PC-only. It's a complex program but not too complex to set-up. The app lets you set whether you want to capture all of the motion within the frame or just a part of it. I used it to track motion in a specific part of my workplace: CNET colleague Rafe Needleman's office door. Any time he came in or out of his office it took a photo. At home this is more useful if you point it toward something like a door or entry way, which can keep it from picking up one of your pets moving around.

The app does an exceptional job at letting you pick various ways you want to be notified. You can have it upload screen shots to an FTP site or as an e-mail. It can also play any sound on your computer, or start another program (such as a lock-down or keyboard locking application).

I set mine up with Gmail, which was a snap. You just have to have plug in the outgoing settings on Google's help page and it will send a high-quality screen shot of whatever motion it's captured just a few seconds after it happens. Using this with your phone's e-mail address will give you a live alert and a saved copy of all the shots in Gmail's sent folder.

HomeCamera (PC) This software runs a streaming video client that can be accessed from any computer with a browser. You can view either live video or snapshots that can be taken at intervals or on-demand. HomeCamera's secret sauce is… Read more

Tech giants deny helping Iran eavesdrop

A joint venture of Siemens AG and Nokia Corp., two large European technology firms, is denying reports that Iran uses its Web-monitoring technology to censor and spy on its citizens' online activities.

Nokia Siemens Networks said Monday that it has sold telecommunications systems to the Iranian government but that any built-in monitoring technology was for voice communications and not the Internet.

"The lawful intercept capability is purely for local voice calls," spokesman Ben Roome said in an interview. "We don't know who may have provided other Internet technologies to Iran."

The company's denial comes … Read more

Judge halts suits over NSA wiretapping

A federal judge in San Francisco has tossed out a slew of lawsuits filed against AT&T and other telecommunications companies alleged to have illegally opened their networks to the National Security Agency.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker on Wednesday ruled that, thanks to a 2008 federal law retroactively immunizing those companies, approximately 46 lawsuits brought by civil liberties groups and class action lawyers will be dismissed.

Congress has created a "'focused immunity' for private entities who assisted the government with activities that allegedly violated plaintiffs' constitutional rights," Walker wrote in a 46-page opinion. That has … Read more

Silent Sentinel UAV to use solar power

An unmanned aerial vehicle that's intended to use a combination of solar power and stored electricity is being developed by Ascent Solar Technologies and Bye Aerospace, both companies announced Tuesday.

Ascent Solar will be supplying flexible thin-film photovoltaic modules designed for Bye's drone, the Silent Sentinel.

Bye will be using a Williams International FJ33 turbofan engine that will draw power from stored electrical power in a lithium-ion battery and the photovoltaic panels on the plane.

The result will be a quiet, low-emission hybrid UAV with added endurance, according to Bye.

The Silent Sentinel is intended for military surveillance … Read more

U.K. police swamped by surveillance TV data

The police cannot deal with the amount of information generated by surveillance cameras, according to the U.K.'s Association of Chief Police Officers.

Ian Readhead, director of information for the ACPO Criminal Records Office, said this week that police are overwhelmed by the volume of such data and that one of his major concerns is that police don't have the capability to track a car in real time using the Automatic Number Plate Recognition System, which is part of the surveillance cameras' functions.

"The problem is the amount of data," said Readhead, speaking at a data … Read more

Report: NSA tried to eavesdrop on Congress member

The National Security Agency tried to wiretap a member of the U.S. Congress without a warrant, and has engaged in "significant and systemic" illegal surveillance activities in the last few months including e-mail and telephone call interceptions, according to a report this week.

The article in Wednesday's New York Times said the Obama administration acknowledged there had been abuses but said they had been resolved. The attempted eavesdropping on a congressman came about because he or she was part of a delegation to the Middle East in 2005 or 2006, and was ultimately blocked.

The NSA … Read more

ISPs worry that Net safety bills would outlaw e-mail

Two new federal proposals that Republican supporters claim will protect children have alarmed Internet companies, who say the measures could make it a crime to provide e-mail.

The bills, each named the Internet Safety Act and announced at a press conference on Thursday, have mostly attracted attention for a sweeping requirement saying broadband providers and Wi-Fi access points must keep records on users for two years.

Another section of the legislation, however, is numbered 1960B. It says anyone employed at a provider who "knowingly engages in any conduct the provider knows or has reason to believe facilitates access to, … Read more

Data retention bills to benefit copyright holders

If a new federal proposal announced this week requiring Internet providers and Wi-Fi access points to keep records on users for two years becomes law, police would not be the only ones to benefit.

So would individuals and companies bringing civil lawsuits, including the Recording Industry Association of America and other large copyright holders, many of which have lobbied for similar data retention laws in other countries.

When filing lawsuits over suspected online piracy, lawyers for the RIAA and other plaintiffs typically have an Internet Protocol address they hope to link with someone's identity. But if the network operator … Read more

Bill proposes ISPs, Wi-Fi keep logs for police

Republican politicians on Thursday called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points, even hotels, local coffee shops, and home users, to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations.

The legislation, which echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago, would impose unprecedented data retention requirements on a broad swath of Internet access providers and is certain to draw fire from businesses and privacy advocates.

"While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate … Read more

U.K. Lords: Too much spying on Brit citizens

New powers are needed to combat a culture of "pervasive" surveillance that has seen the U.K. become the most spied-upon country in the world, the Lords said Friday.

The U.K. is now watched by more about 4 million CCTV cameras and details of 7 percent of the population is held in the National DNA Database (NDNAD)--more than any other country, according to chairman of the House of Lords Constitution Committee, Lord Goodlad.

At the same time national databases designed to hold personal information on nearly every U.K. citizen are being set up across Whitehall, … Read more