Exposed: Controversial Public Site Streams Your Home Baby Monitors

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We’ve all seen the horror stories or read about them in the newspapers – a family is stalked by some creep via their computer webcams or even worse – a stalker sets up a hidden camera in someone’s home to watch their every move. But what if it was the homeowner him or herself who installed the baby monitor or the home security system – and hundreds of millions of people from around the world were watching them – exposed for the world to see?

Well, with a new website, that is exactly what has happened. Yahoo! News [1] explains:

We have all heard stories of the nosy neighbor, and each of us fears the peeping Toms of the world, but a recently discovered site called Insecam is giving a little more weight to those concerns.

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Insecam streams footage from more than 73,000 IP cameras that belong to owners who haven’t changed their default passwords. This footage allows for anyone’s eyes to pry into the homes and businesses of strangers and check in on whomever they choose — including one of the 11,000 cameras located in the U.S. found on the site.

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The sight claims that it is solely highlighting a major security problem. If default usernames and passwords are not changed on private security cameras, then they are open to these threats. Some of the susceptible cameras are from brands such as Foscam, Linksys, and Panasonic.

The site has streams into parking lots, stores, living rooms, bedrooms, and even baby cribs.

Although continuing to offer access into the private lives of strangers, the company says, “this site has been designed in order to show the importance of security.”

This is definitely breaking the law because it involves hacking into someone’s password-protected account, breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

A few years ago, a site called PleaseRobMe.com aggregated people’s check-ins to illustrate the dangers of oversharing one’s whereabouts.

It’s unclear who exactly is behind Insecam, but the domain name is registered with GoDaddy and has an IP address linked to Moscow.

The simple solution is to change your home security password from the default, but this website still serves as a reminder that you never know who is watching you.