Re: Video Surveillance Requirements

[Joel Rosenblatt <joel () COLUMBIA EDU>]

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Nanny-Cam May Leave a Home Exposed

Nanny-Cam May Leave a Home Exposed Sat Apr 13, 2:55 PM ET By JOHN SCHWARTZ The New York Times

Thousands of people who have installed a popular wireless video camera, intending to increase the security of their 
homes and offices, have instead unknowingly
opened a window on their activities to anyone equipped with a cheap receiver.

The wireless video camera, which is heavily advertised on the Internet, is intended to send its video signal to a 
nearby base station, allowing it to be viewed
on a computer or a television. But its signal can be intercepted from more than a quarter-mile away by off-the-shelf 
electronic equipment costing less than
$250.

A recent drive around the New Jersey suburbs with two security experts underscored the ease with which a digital 
eavesdropper can peek into homes where the
cameras are put to use as video baby monitors and inexpensive security cameras.

The rangy young driver pulled his truck around a corner in the well-to-do suburban town of Chatham and stopped in front 
of an unpretentious home. A window on
his laptop's screen that had been flickering suddenly showed a crisp black-and-white video image: a living room, seen 
from somewhere near the floor. Baby toys
were strewn across the floor, and a woman sat on a couch.

After showing the nanny-cam images, the man, a privacy advocate who asked that his name not be used, drove on, scanning 
other homes and finding a view from
above a back door and of an empty crib.

In the nearby town of Madison, from the parking lot of a Staples store, workers could be observed behind the cash 
register. The driver walked into the Staples
and pointed up at a corner of the room. "Take a look," he said. Above the folded-back steel security shutters was a 
nubbin of technology: a barely perceptible
video camera looking down on the employees.

"I can only imagine driving around the Bay Area with one of these," said Aviel D. Rubin, a security researcher at AT&T 
Labs who was along for the ride.

...

<http://www.securityprousa.com/nanmayleavho.html>

... and now back to our regularly scheduled program. ... Joel


--On Thursday, January 14, 2010 2:30 PM -0500 randy marchany <marchany () VT EDU> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 1:57 PM, Patrick Ouellette
> <ouellep () algonquincollege com> wrote:
> > I'd go one step further - since we don't have explicit sign-off to display people in the video, there is a privacy 
> > issue.
> > However, there is software that will allow for auto-blurring faces and key elements in the video as it's fed back out 
> > from the storage, but keep the
> > original input feed entirely clear.
>
> There are a number of issues that you need to consider before going
> through with this type of project. Some of the following is from my
> experience of dealing with video surveillance vendors after the APril
> 2007 incident here.
>
> 1. FERPA - relates to the privacy comment above. I'm sure you have
> some students who have a "privacy" tag on their records for whatever
> reason. Not having a sign informing everyone that they are under
> surveillance may cause problems if their desire to remain
> private/anonymous is for safety reasons (stalker, parent with a
> restraining order against them, etc.). I believe it's prudent to
> inform the occupants that they may be under surveillance. Some people
> don't care, some do. I'm not saying you can't film public areas but
> from a PR standpoint, informing them addresses a lot of issues.
>
> 2. Any video camera system must restrict who can access its images.
> See webcam.prejeans/com/view/index/shtml and ask yourself if you
> really want the entire internet to see these images.
>
> 3. Any video camera system must encrypt the video feed from the
> cameras to whatever server. Again, should there be an incident, you
> don't want a video of the crime to be on YouTube or CNN. Having the
> video cams on a physically separate network isn't secure. This is an
> issue if you're looking at wireless camera systems. Wireless is radio
> and signals can be intercepted and replayed.
>
> Just my .02.
>
> Randy Marchany
> VA Tech IT Security Office



Joel Rosenblatt, Manager Network & Computer Security
Columbia Information Security Office (CISO)
Columbia University, 612 W 115th Street, NY, NY 10025 / 212 854 3033
http://www.columbia.edu/~joel