I enjoy web cams. No, not the dirty ones, the scenic ones. With a little searching in Google you can find all sorts of amazing views.
- The Central Square of Khanty-Mansiysk in Russia.
- A lit ski slope in Sweden. I watched people skiing with snowfall live while sitting in Florida.
- A quality Axis Pan/Tilt/Zoom camera at Wyoming Medical Center. Wonderful camera, too bad they are very expensive.
- A view inside and outside of Sv. Hostýn, bazilikaan
- On I-95 near the church (let’s me see if it is raining outside).
The widespread use of web cams has not been missed by the government. The Department of Homeland Security has a study on using face recognition and anomaly recognition software with public web cams to determine if something has happened based upon whether there are many fewer people or many more people in the scene than statistically expected (one study can be found here: PDF file). There have been several papers in the FBI concerning home web cams left open to the world. There was even a recent FBI notice concerning web cams in sensitive areas.
If you are like us then you probably have cameras looking at areas where there is not a good physical presence much of the time. Having this available for people to check out gives them an opportunity to see patterns of activity and vulnerability.
If you have cameras accessible outside your network just make sure you have them on a password. Perhaps do some “site:” searching in Google on the domain name or IP address you view the cameras on.
Good point on the security issues. However, I seem to be more concerned about the FBI and Goverment snooping my business than the casual voyure.
You would think that the FBI would be searching some caves somewhere for Osama…, and yes I know that the FBI mainly does their thing here in the states. However, with the DHS, a lot of those lines and departments have become blurred, and they all seem to want a little of each others pie to justfy their own slice of the pie. Just an oppinion from a retired Gov. agency worker. Anyhow…, nice article.
Did I also read that you have a cam as well? Would be happy to link it on my site if you are interested.
AJayswebcams.com Go Jaguars! Jax native myself, living south of D.C. for last 18 years. Too bad you don’t like Macs…., guess you will really hate Vista then…, very much like mac…, just not as secure. ; )