Have you ever wanted to see what was going on on the other side of the world? With the following information, you can not only see through the eyes of Big Brother, but sometimes you can even zoom, pan, tilt, capture and save images. This is made possible by CCTV cameras that allow people to access cameras from anywhere in the world through the Internet.[1] If the connection isn't password protected, the camera can be accessed by anyone! It's not as sneaky as it seems, though. You'll probably find that most of the footage is intended to be publicly transmitted, but it's still fascinating to peek into various corners of the world from your computer.
STEPS:
- Open up your web browser.
- Go to a search engine of your choice, and input any of the search queries listed below.
- After you Google one of these queries, you will see some search results, click on any one of them. Then you will either see a whole bunch of images of a security camera, or the screen of a single camera.
- Depending on the type of camera that you have access to, you may be able to zoom, pan, and tilt the camera to see what you want to. If you cannot pan the camera, check the top of the control panel. If it displays "Locked" the motion controls for the camera have been disabled by the device's administrator.
- Do not repeatedly maintain long or continuous connections to the feed (30 minutes is a good limit). Access logs for the devices can be created, and may be monitored by administrators. Many administrators will disregard brief attempts to access low importance devices when no harmful use is found. However, long periods of monitoring will likely attract suspicion and may cause the accessing IP address to be reported to authorities.
Tips
- You can take a screenshot or use a screen recording program do record the video stream, although most people would consider it rather obsessive and creepy.
Warnings
- This does not fall within most school's or office's computer use guidelines/restrictions.
- If you have to break through an existing login system, it's most likely illegal.
- As said before, do not use a camera for longer than half an hour
