Technology

I was living in a 10th story penthouse apartment as a new building started beside us. The contractor put a webcam high up on the structure so people could watch construction live on a website. They left the control panel fully exposed so all you had to do was find the IP address of the camera and boom, you had full control. I would point it directly at my apartment's window and wave, or my friends would do silly shit. Every morning the cam would be reset, but they never actually secured it. That's when I realized how fucked we were, 20 years ago.

I seem to recall an early 00s screed, perhaps by Bruce Schneier or someone of that ilk, suggesting a future in which yes we have surveillance in the public square, but since it's public, everyone has full access to all the public-place cameras at any time. So you could use it to, say, see around the corner of an alley at night.

Snip their wires, spray paint their lens, or put a hammer on the end of a tall stick. it should be easy to take these things out. Of course don't do anything or have anything on you that would identify you were in the area at the time of these actions.

Honestly? Good. These cameras should either be public or dismantled. I'd like to see them dismantled, but worst case scenario is the current one where they're selectively used by law enforcement

iirc they weren't even the first ones to discover this because there was already someone on the blackmarket selling data collected from exposed cameras and endpoints which included PII of entire police departments.

Is there a directory of these cameras? Or are they gonna make me do all the legwork?

Wholly fuck!