RE: Building a surveillance system for a house with a do-it-yourself NVR

["Liam Randall" <Liam.Randall () gigaco com>]

Yes, analog cams are going to be way cheaper but you lose the metrics, notification ,etc.  In small office 
environments/home you want proactive notification.

Yes, cams do come w/ logic built in; the MOST important is the ability to do motion detection on the camera itself.  
Most software packages these days will allow you to do motion detection on the camera or pull a feed down all the time 
and do motion detection on the server.  I know synology, sony, and milestone all do this.  The major advantage to this 
is you can drop cams at remote places and know that you're not going to be running a feed 24x7 using up all that 
bandwidth.  Also, motion detection even on a modern cpu is very processor intensive; after 5 or 6 cams you're going to 
see performance issues unless you use beefy (costly & power hungry) hardware.

Even those little axis cams can do motion detection locally and then notify the synology system (for example).  The 
1011-W are reasonably economical; sub $200 and a 4 pack is about $700.  Picture quality is pretty decent to.  For a 
little more ~$250 the M1031-W has two way audio, a pir, and light that can be tripped to illuminate the area.

On the notification, synology can email/sms/ftp; they've got a slick little android app that let's me just see "events" 
and I get an email when ever they are tripped.  

There are 100's of options out there; I'm just sharing what I'm familiar with.

Good luck!

Liam Randall

-----Original Message-----
From: Diamantopoulos Georgios (Security Dept) [mailto:gdiamantop () cosmote gr] 
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 4:51 AM
To: Liam Randall; 'Adrian J Milanoski'; 'Dave Kleiman'
Cc: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Building a surveillance system for a house with a do-it-yourself NVR

Having gone through the investigation of building a home security system recently, I have a couple of points that I 
would like to mention:

- IP cameras with sufficient video quality and night vision are very very expensive. If you haven't bought the cameras 
yet, make sure that the video quality that the cameras provide is sufficient for your specific needs/circumstances. 
Video quality depicted in vendor sites and manuals is far from true.

- Since you will be using a centralized recording, monitoring and management application, you will never actually use 
the software/capabilities that come with the cameras, so you will probably paying for features that you will never use.

- If you go with Synology (I agree with Liam that they have great products), keep in mind that the Surveillance Cam 
application that comes with their systems has license for only 1 camera. If you want to use more cameras, you have to 
buy an extra license pack.


Personally, I ended up buying a DVR system with old-fashioned PAL signal cameras. If you don't want to use coaxial 
cabling, e.g. because you already have UTP cabling in place, you can use special adaptors that convert coaxial to UTP 
(I don't know their prices, but I don't expect them to be very expensive).

In my case the system I built (3 cameras) cost less than 1/5th of the price I would need to pay for IP cameras for the 
same video quality.

Good luck!

George

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce () securityfocus com [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com] On Behalf Of Liam Randall
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 5:40 AM
To: Adrian J Milanoski; Dave Kleiman
Cc: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Building a surveillance system for a house with a do-it-yourself NVR

The axis 1011-w and 1031-w series of cams  support 802.1x and are inexpensive.  They are quite flexible and run a 
stripped down version of linux so you can do some neat things with them.  They also are ac 120 which may be a pro for 
you; the 1054 in that line is poe.

On software, Milestone has a free version of xprotect (Go) that is pretty decent on the windows side.

Sony also offers a free version of their Real Shot Manager product, although it only works with Sony cams.  Sony makes 
incredible cams, however they are aimed and priced towards professional installs.

If you don't want to use a whole PC you may want to look into a synology NAS; they have a pretty full featured camera / 
security application with the new 4.0 DSM (OS).  They suck down  a heck of a lot less power than a full PC and there's 
a pretty full lineup of models to choose from.  They can also double as your media server, webserver, nas, etc.  We 
have a DS1812+ in the office that I love.

Good luck.

Liam Randall

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce () securityfocus com [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com] On Behalf Of Adrian J Milanoski
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 5:10 PM
To: Dave Kleiman
Cc: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: Building a surveillance system for a house with a do-it-yourself NVR

Dave,

I know there are inherit risk with wifi in general however that is why I was specific to say 802.1x authentication 
therefore meaning the use of PSK with WPA/WPA2 are not being used. When you have deployed a
WPA/WPA2 Enterprise Level WLAN the WPA/WPA2 PSKs change frequently therefore making it extremely hard to gain access to 
a Enterprise WLAN network. So with that said are there wireless cams that can do 802.1x authentication? Or are they 
only capable of doing PSK?

Does anyone have any security information associated with Z-Wave?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Wave

Or any security information related to X10?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_Wireless_Technology


-
Adrian


On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 10:08 PM, Dave Kleiman <dave () davekleiman com> wrote:
> Adrian,
>
> There are inherent risks with using WiFi.
>
> Google wep wpa wpa2 cracking  -
> http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=active&q=w
> ep+wpa+wpa2+cracking&oq=wep+wpa+wpa2+cracking
>
> You can read some basics on WifI security here:
>
> http://www.maxi-pedia.com/wireless+wifi+network+security+tutorial+101
>
> http://www.maxi-pedia.com/WPA+WPA2+WiFi+protected+access
>
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Dave Kleiman - http://www.ComputerForensicsLLC.com - 
> http://www.DaveKleiman.com
>
> 4371 Northlake Blvd #314
> Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410
> 561.310.8801
>
>
>
> From: Adrian J M [mailto:amilanoski () gmail com]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2012 00:22
> To: Dave Kleiman; security-basics () securityfocus com
> Subject: RE: Building a surveillance system for a house with a 
> do-it-yourself NVR
>
> Dave and Pranab,
>
> I am thinking about doing this in my house as well however I wanted to set up a hybrid system using a few wireless 
> and wired technologies.
>
> Are there wireless cams that do 802.1.x authentication?
> What is the security like on cams that run on the 'zwave' technology? 
> What about the x10 which is similar? (these are home automation
> technologies)
>
> I read an article that someone can come plug into to your exterior to 
> your house and gain access to these devices. Can anyone make any 
> comments regarding this? I would be very interested
>
>
> Regards,
> Adrian Milanoski
> Sent from my BlackBerryR PlayBook(tm)
> www.blackberry.com
>
> ________________________________________
> From: "Dave Kleiman" <dave () davekleiman com>
> To: "security-basics () securityfocus com" 
> <security-basics () securityfocus com>
> Sent: June 4, 2012 2:56 PM
> Subject: RE: Building a surveillance system for a house with a 
> do-it-yourself NVR
>
> Pranav,
>
> There are some good software based surveillance setups that work with IP and Web cams,  there are even some free ones.
>
> Visec - http://www.visec.ne
>
> Eyeline by NCH - http://www.nchsoftware.com
>
> ISPY has a free version, I am not aware of its capabilities.
>
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Dave Kleiman - http://www.ComputerForensicsLLC.com - 
> http://www.DaveKleiman.com
>
> 4371 Northlake Blvd #314
> Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410
> 561.310.8801
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: listbounce () securityfocus com
> [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com] On Behalf Of Pranav Lal
> Sent: Friday, June 01, 2012 21:18
> To: security-basics () securityfocus com
> Subject: Building a surveillance system for a house with a 
> do-it-yourself NVR
>
> Hi all,
>
> I apologize if this is off topic since I am dealing with a home situation here. I am considering implementing a 
> surveillance system for my house. I plan to use IP cameras. Yes, I already have a network in place and have figured 
> out the placement of the cameras.
>
> The network video recorder is proving to be the most expensive bit of equipment in the whole setup. I was wondering 
> if it is possible to use a desktop pc instead. I would connect the cameras to a switch and have a desktop pc 
> interrogate the cameras and relay the feeds in real-time to a television such that a user can change channels to 
> monitor the different camera feeds. Yes, we get TV tuner cards but do we get software that does something like this? 
> I need non-computer savvy users to be able to monitor the cameras.
>
> Pranav

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Securing Apache Web Server with thawte Digital Certificate In this guide we examine the importance of Apache-SSL and 
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Securing Apache Web Server with thawte Digital Certificate
In this guide we examine the importance of Apache-SSL and who needs an SSL certificate.  We look at how SSL works, how 
it benefits your company and how your customers can tell if a site is secure. You will find out how to test, purchase, 
install and use a thawte Digital Certificate on your Apache web server. Throughout, best practices for set-up are 
highlighted to help you ensure efficient ongoing management of your encryption keys and digital certificates.

http://www.dinclinx.com/Redirect.aspx?36;4175;25;1371;0;5;946;e13b6be442f727d1
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