5 ms·

> This is entirely local and private. You can even air gap the UniFi Protect system from the Internet and it'll operate fine. One week ago 3 guys broke into my

by dmoose 3mo ago

> This is entirely local and private. You can even air gap the UniFi Protect system from the Internet and it'll operate fine. One week ago 3 guys broke into my shop while I was traveling. They had sense enough to power down the starlink that was providing internet which would have taken out all of the remote camera options. They did not realize that almost everything they were doing was being recorded via the unifi system. In the end about the only thing of value left in the building was the hard drive with all of their pictures on it. The police have used the footage to identify all of them and it will be pretty open and shut when they see a court room. Offline and air gapped the whole time they were there but did exactly what it was installed to do.

electriclove 3mo ago
How did you hide it so that the thieves didn't find it?
- iluvcommunism 3mo ago
  [dead]
- dmoose 3mo ago
  A 7U cabinet in an overhead space that is difficult to access. Installation and configuration were a bit of a headache but ended up being worth it. There was a NAS in the office and they stripped 7 drives, sleds and all, out of it. I'm guessing with such an obvious endpoint for the camera storage it never occurred to anyone there was a second box. I had something like this in mind when I wired the building. It seemed like a good idea to make onsite security footage much harder to find given the cameras were obvious and anyone breaking in would probably look to damage or destroy the system. I really thought the cameras themselves were the deterrent, but these guys gave it a shot anyway. Cutting the cable to the starlink and walking off with the NAS drives seemed to be the plan. In the future I'm going to add a local battery backed alarm connected to external siren and strobe that is immediate on opening the office door to draw attention. I was driving down to WWDC when the starlink went offline and saw the notice on my phone but wrote it off to equipment failure which gave them enough time to clean the place out pretty well. The hole in my strategy was thinking nothing could happen without notification, but being in a car in the middle of Norther CA with spotty cell coverage and lots of distractions blew that up pretty hard. I'm also thinking one of ubiquiti's cellular backups is in my future. Starlink offline is annoying but not the attention grabber that a still of a guy walking in the door would have been. Cellular backup would have gotten me that.
  - thejazzman 3mo ago
    I'd be alarmed that they seemed to know you were going to WWDC. Like, they were tech-aware if they took the drives while you went to tech event... how did they know any of this / scout you?
  - multjoy 3mo ago
    I have found that the fog generating alarm systems are the ones that will stop burglars in their tracks. If they can't see, they're not going to hang about and if they've tooled up with NV then that's a whole different threat model.
    - bombcar 3mo ago
      You need to add the dobermans - the old fog&dog gets 'em every time.
      - kraquepype 3mo ago
        A wooden battering ram from the ceiling does wonders. The fog&dog&log never fails.
        bombcar 3mo ago
        That would legitimately be horrifying - you break in somewhere, suddenly all is dark and fog spreads everywhere, then the growling begins and then you're Ewok'd from behind by a tree.
        kraquepype 3mo ago
        A series of booby traps based on a phonetic pattern would be hilarious. fog, dog, log, jog, hog, bog, pog, nog Enveloping fog Dogs and wild pigs set loose Log launches at you off a treadmill Trap door drops you into a flooded basement Barrage of paper disks Eggnog super soakers
        3mo ago
close04 3mo ago
Any video surveillance system is foiled by a simple mask. Thieves who know to plan a break-in when you're away usually do their homework and come prepared.
- runjake 3mo ago
  This is why I think someone should market a cheap SIGINT tool that collects BT/BTLE/Wi-Fi data from nearby devices. I've got this setup running on a Raspberry Pi near my front door and it collects all sorts of useful data, even from people walking by on the sidewalk, 30 feet and two walls away. At some point, I'd love to explore vehicle emissions more, too.
  - ghostly_s 3mo ago
    No prosecutor is going to waste their time trying to convict someone based on metadata. Even video is often insufficient for a conviction.
  - Terretta 3mo ago
    Funny enough a router collecting this data near a busy enough highway can bog itself down by collecting unique Wi-Fi identifiers from all the passing cars' networks, not to mention all the hotspots on passing commuter trains. It never occurs to router makers a static base could see a million Wi-Fi networks come and go every week.
  - naturalmovement 3mo ago
    Uh hello police department? I have MAC addresses! M-A-C... Yes, I sniff them out the air with equipment I built! Uh no I'm not on drugs why do you ask?
  - mar_buffalo 3mo ago
    I've worked on something to do this, it' not perfect. It listens for 24 hours, learns what is 'normal'. Calibrates strength of signal (dogwalker on sidewalk, ignore) getting closer than that, between 10pm and 5am, turn on a light or two. Not meaning to spam, but it's at wispyalert.com . Any thoughts, I'd be interested to hear.

by dmoose 3mo ago

electriclove 3mo ago

How did you hide it so that the thieves didn't find it?

iluvcommunism 3mo ago
[dead]
dmoose 3mo ago
A 7U cabinet in an overhead space that is difficult to access. Installation and configuration were a bit of a headache but ended up being worth it. There was a NAS in the office and they stripped 7 drives, sleds and all, out of it. I'm guessing with such an obvious endpoint for the camera storage it never occurred to anyone there was a second box. I had something like this in mind when I wired the building. It seemed like a good idea to make onsite security footage much harder to find given the cameras were obvious and anyone breaking in would probably look to damage or destroy the system. I really thought the cameras themselves were the deterrent, but these guys gave it a shot anyway. Cutting the cable to the starlink and walking off with the NAS drives seemed to be the plan. In the future I'm going to add a local battery backed alarm connected to external siren and strobe that is immediate on opening the office door to draw attention. I was driving down to WWDC when the starlink went offline and saw the notice on my phone but wrote it off to equipment failure which gave them enough time to clean the place out pretty well. The hole in my strategy was thinking nothing could happen without notification, but being in a car in the middle of Norther CA with spotty cell coverage and lots of distractions blew that up pretty hard. I'm also thinking one of ubiquiti's cellular backups is in my future. Starlink offline is annoying but not the attention grabber that a still of a guy walking in the door would have been. Cellular backup would have gotten me that.
- thejazzman 3mo ago
  I'd be alarmed that they seemed to know you were going to WWDC. Like, they were tech-aware if they took the drives while you went to tech event... how did they know any of this / scout you?
- multjoy 3mo ago
  I have found that the fog generating alarm systems are the ones that will stop burglars in their tracks. If they can't see, they're not going to hang about and if they've tooled up with NV then that's a whole different threat model.
  - bombcar 3mo ago
    You need to add the dobermans - the old fog&dog gets 'em every time.
    - kraquepype 3mo ago
      A wooden battering ram from the ceiling does wonders. The fog&dog&log never fails.
      - bombcar 3mo ago
        That would legitimately be horrifying - you break in somewhere, suddenly all is dark and fog spreads everywhere, then the growling begins and then you're Ewok'd from behind by a tree.
        kraquepype 3mo ago
        A series of booby traps based on a phonetic pattern would be hilarious. fog, dog, log, jog, hog, bog, pog, nog Enveloping fog Dogs and wild pigs set loose Log launches at you off a treadmill Trap door drops you into a flooded basement Barrage of paper disks Eggnog super soakers
        3mo ago

close04 3mo ago

Any video surveillance system is foiled by a simple mask. Thieves who know to plan a break-in when you're away usually do their homework and come prepared.

runjake 3mo ago
This is why I think someone should market a cheap SIGINT tool that collects BT/BTLE/Wi-Fi data from nearby devices. I've got this setup running on a Raspberry Pi near my front door and it collects all sorts of useful data, even from people walking by on the sidewalk, 30 feet and two walls away. At some point, I'd love to explore vehicle emissions more, too.
- ghostly_s 3mo ago
  No prosecutor is going to waste their time trying to convict someone based on metadata. Even video is often insufficient for a conviction.
- Terretta 3mo ago
  Funny enough a router collecting this data near a busy enough highway can bog itself down by collecting unique Wi-Fi identifiers from all the passing cars' networks, not to mention all the hotspots on passing commuter trains. It never occurs to router makers a static base could see a million Wi-Fi networks come and go every week.
- naturalmovement 3mo ago
  Uh hello police department? I have MAC addresses! M-A-C... Yes, I sniff them out the air with equipment I built! Uh no I'm not on drugs why do you ask?
- mar_buffalo 3mo ago
  I've worked on something to do this, it' not perfect. It listens for 24 hours, learns what is 'normal'. Calibrates strength of signal (dogwalker on sidewalk, ignore) getting closer than that, between 10pm and 5am, turn on a light or two. Not meaning to spam, but it's at wispyalert.com . Any thoughts, I'd be interested to hear.