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Security Software Linux

Joe Barr Gives ZoneMinder A Thumbs-Up 110

Posted by timothy from the watching-the-non-watchmen dept.
I've been interested in the Free software home-security software called ZoneMinder for a while, but strictly as a lurker, checking out the project's site whenever I noticed it crawl down the Freshmeat home page. Joe Barr of NewsForge, though, recently had reason to install the software, which manages one or more home security cameras (which can be any Linux compatible camera -- he used some common D-Link wireless ones), watches for movement (generating alarms based on user configuration), and lets the camera output be streamed elsewhere, so a thief can't usefully just rip out the recording system. (NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.)
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Joe Barr Gives ZoneMinder A Thumbs-Up More

Joe Barr Gives ZoneMinder A Thumbs-Up

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  • Cool idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TiggertheMad ( 556308 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:32PM (#10530274) Journal
    One thing I wonder about, though. The Screenshot in the article showed the driveway from a fairly long shot. Are the cameras good enough to read a liscence plate at that distance? And what about lighting? It might be hard to read a plate at night, although a motion detector on an external light might solve that problem.

    Getting pictures of theives is a good thing, making sure that they are good enought to ID someone is even better.

    • Re:Cool idea (Score:4, Informative)

      by mikael ( 484 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @08:07PM (#10530934)
      According to the article, the maximum resolution is 640x480. To accurately recognise a number plate, you need to recognise around 8-10 characters with at least 8x8 pixels per character. Assuming the field of view is 45 degrees, you'd need to have a number plate at least two feet away to be fully visible, and then the visible size would halve every time you doubled the distance. You'd probably be able to get 16 feet range if this were the case.

      The lighting would be up to you. These cameras are sensitive to infrared light (Some buildings actually have infrared lamps on the outside, which appear not to be working to us, but will make the scene appear illuminated to a video camera). You'd probably want to have motion activated outside lighting before you had a camera for night-time protection.

      Although, I hope the cameras also save the time and date on the display. Some courts won't accept such evidence unless it is timestamped.

      • Some security cameras have infrared LEDs aranged around the lens.
      • Actually, I have been able to do this. What you need is a camera with zoom lens. Next, you need to position the camera such that there is a very high probability the car will drive into the field of view. I've got a camera pointed down a parking garage driveway where most people will be driving straight down the center and will very likely have their license plate in the center of the camera view.

      • Re:Cool idea (Score:3, Informative)

        by catch23 ( 97972 )
        Although, I hope the cameras also save the time and date on the display. Some courts won't accept such evidence unless it is timestamped.

        ZoneMinder does this by default. It's also very easily user configured via their web interface.

      • my first digital camera was a 640x480 one and at 5x7" size it didn't look too dissimilar to a cheap 35mm camera picture. you can *definitely* read number plates.
    • One could supplement the video, using a motion sensing assembly with a mirror that tracks moving object and uses a digital camera with a telephoto lense to record things like license plates.

      Another cool idea is to put infrared spots on the front of the house that stay on long after the regular spots go off, lulling would be burglars into a false sense of security. That and cameras with IR sensitivity could get clear images of people and license plates in the dark.

      It's cool to be watching video of some

  • This is great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chocolate Teapot ( 639869 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:32PM (#10530277) Homepage Journal
    I can have it page me whenever there is movement in the shower. Ooops! Thinking aloud again.

  • explanation (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    definately just an excuse for him to install cameras in his female friends house and see what most geeks dont.... :-P
  • Looks like an excellent piece of software, we've had problems with teenagers climbing on the room in our Townhouse complex. I think I might set up some cameras and use this software.......

    I for one welcome our new wireless compatible Big Brother Overlord software!!!!!!
    • I was thinking more like setting it up near the local meth house and publishing license plates to the web.
      • Not your job to play vigilante..

        Be sure to post your address too so they can burn your house down for sticking your nose into other peoples affairs.
        • When it's in your neighborhood it's your affair...We had a Meth house busted around the block from us. I spoke to one of the Deputy Sheriffs and he told me that there could have been an explosion that would have leveled the block.
          • If its not on your lot, its not your business.

            "could have" "might have" are not good excuses to step outside the boundries.

            For the record, drugs are stupid. But if some moron wants to fry his brain. Fine.. Just stay off my property.
            • "could have" "might have" are not good excuses to step outside the boundries

              So, you'd be O.K. with someone having 1000 lbs. of flash powder on the lot beside yours, stored halphazarly?

              M'k.

              • Im not a hypocrite (Score:1, Flamebait)

                by nurb432 ( 527695 )
                "Like" no, but "accept", yes.. as if I started sticking my nose in others businesses, then I couldn't complain when they returned the favor with out being a hypocrite.

                What my neighbors do on their side of the fence is none of my business.

                Nor is my business theirs ( like the fact I just happen to have 200 pounds of gunpowder for 'reloading', though its safely stored, or several gallons of gas for a tractor.. .. )

                Nor is it my business that the guy down the street makes his own distilled alcohol for his car
                • I would think that if the risk to you increased in a statistically significant manner (what about gallons of glyceryl trinitrate, or an armed nuke, for a hypothetical situation?), it would be fair that it was your business, though I would also grant that it would be your burden to prove that the risk to you was likely, and real.

                  The problem isn't that your neighbour has explosives -- the problem is that, given what can be observed, they are in serious danger of going off, with little in the way to prevent

        • We wouldn't have a meth house in town if I was playing vigilante.

  • three languages, one db, one http server... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dirvish ( 574948 ) <dirvish&foundnews,com> on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:32PM (#10530284) Homepage Journal
    ZoneMinder is a collection of Perl, PHP, and C++ modules which work together to deliver a highly functional video security package. It can handle multiple cameras, either locally attached, like a USB Webcam, or remote Internet cameras. Also required are MySQL and an HTTP server like Apache. That can mean a lot of installation time, and perhaps a few frustrations along the way, but it's worth it.

    This project might be out of reach for folks without the technical ability of the geniuses that populate slashdot. Anyone know how much a professional installation like this would cost for comparison?

  • Can't Tell You (Score:5, Insightful)

    by techsoldaten ( 309296 ) * on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:34PM (#10530296) Journal
    Cannot tell you the number of times I have thought about implementing the exact same application. The idea of wireless streaming means the storage device can be kept off-site or in a very discreet location within the premises.

    One question I have is about the detection analysis, and how the threshold for analysis is set. For instance, there are a number of trees beside my front driveway and they sway and shake a lot. How does one go about making sure Zoneminder does not record the trees continuously?

    M

    • Re:Can't Tell You (Score:4, Informative)

      by Mr 44 ( 180750 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:42PM (#10530343)
      IF you look at the website, you can (graphically) define exclusion zones within each camera's view.

      The software is really quite powerfull.

    • Re:Can't Tell You (Score:4, Informative)

      by _Shorty-dammit ( 555739 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:47PM (#10530399)
      "Multiple Zones (Regions Of Interest) can be defined per camera. Each can have a different sensitivity or be ignored altogether." http://www.zoneminder.com/documentation.html [zoneminder.com]
      • Quite interesting. I've seen ADT's software work before, which is quite impressive, and this is sounding remarkably similar in functionality without the huge price tag. I wonder if you can get higher resolution wireless cameras for these tasks as well that can give you facial detail for prosecution purposes if necessary?
    • if you check out the config file it has the following

      <!--This section covers objects to be ignored by ZoneMind
      <ignore-section>
      <postman/>
      <neighbours dog/>
      <trees/>
      <!--Do not uncomment the following unless you want no proof your home was robbed
      <villans/>
      -->
      <neighbours kid/>
      </ignore-section>
    • The idea of wireless streaming means the storage device can be kept off-site or in a very discreet location within the premises.

      Of course it also means that the edjumicated thief can easily disable your cameras while still being relatively far from the premises. Jamming 802.11 is not terribly hard. (unfortunately my phone is the ultimate proof; it destroys any 802.11 connection while it's in use, regardless of channel)
      • [If you think you're getting a 17" LCD or iPod for free, your an idiot.]

        Before calling somebody an idiot, at least make sure to check your sentence for grammatical error, otherwise it may give the impression that you are the idiot. To your credit, you got it right once...

        As far as the free ipod is concerned, it doesn't really cost anything to do it except maybe some more spam but that's what disposable email addresses are for.

        • Before calling somebody an idiot, at least make sure to check your sentence for grammatical error, otherwise it may give the impression that you are the idiot.

          Or perhaps not a native English speaker? ;) But thanks for the hint, will update ASAP.

          For some reason I somehow doubt that you will get a free iPod in exchange for just an email address. Think I'll leave the rest of the message intact.
          • Or perhaps not a native English speaker? ;)

            As a non native English speaker myself, from my experience in the US, it looks to me that English speakers are more likely to make the mistake, maybe because most non native speakers had to deal with their own grammar that is more complicated than the English one and have a better command of the logic behing the rules...

        • Not to mention that there are no 17" iPods.

      • Re:Can't Tell You (Score:3, Interesting)

        by catch23 ( 97972 )
        Of course it also means that the edjumicated thief can easily disable your cameras while still being relatively far from the premises. Jamming 802.11 is not terribly hard. (unfortunately my phone is the ultimate proof; it destroys any 802.11 connection while it's in use, regardless of channel)

        Although the article poster used wireless cameras for their security system, by default ZoneMinder uses basic composite bttv-style cameras. At my home, I use a 4 port capture card (made by X-Guard) and small bullet
    • I don't have much experience with ZoneMinder, but I did set up a similar software package called motion [lavrsen.dk] which not only has the ability to define zones, but also has built in noise reduction [demon.co.uk] technology, and several other nifty features [lavrsen.dk], including only triggering after a certain minimum number of frames and massive change filtering (such as when your AGC keeps drastically changing the image).

      I have motion set up to watch my front yard, and I am very pleased with it's lack of false detections *without* havin

  • Security, right... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Putting cameras in a woman's house and streaming it on the Internet. "Oh, don't worry about those, there're for security."

    How kind of him. ;-)

  • Wireless... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Supp0rtLinux ( 594509 ) <Supp0rtLinux@yahoo.com> on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:44PM (#10530363)
    Oh how this can add to my pron world. The place next door to me is still under construction. Perhaps I can covertly install some of these in certain areas, stream them to my house, and watch them at work. Or better... I'll buy the place, rent it a bunch of college girls, then stream it into my new site called VoyeurDorm.com. ;)
    • Registrant:
      Entertainment Network (VOYEURDORM-DOM)
      412 East Madison Street
      Suite 1000
      Tampa, FL 33602
      US

      Domain Name: VOYEURDORM.COM

      Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
      Marshlack, David G (37284117P) dns@mailtpa.com
      412 East Madison
      Suite 1000
      Tampa, FL 33602
      US
      813-223-3224

      Record expires on 24-Aug-2009.
      Record created on 25-Aug-1998.
      Database last updated on 14-Oct-2004 21:40:19 EDT.

      Domain servers in listed order:
    • Don't laugh too hard monkey boy,

      This kind of scheme has been tried by voyeuristic landlords. On the down side, these peep-happy jerks have ended up with choice coed footage. On the up side, a whole bunch of these morons get caught. After criminal and civil prosecution, these guys end up having to live down having a sex crime conviction and being listed as sex criminals.

      I don't know what the thrill is, but surely any idiot can see the cost to benefit ratio sucks.

      Genda
      • Well, depends on what state you live in I do believe. It has only been a couple of years I think since LA passed a law making it a crime to secretly video someone. Amazingly enough, they caught this guy a few years ago...landlord had cameras in the apt...but, they had no law to prosecute him with. I believe a number of states still don't have laws they can prosecute you with over remote cameras...
      • Hey wait, I saw that movie...

        Sliver, right? Sharon Stone in the shower. Not sure who the heck else was in the movie. Maybe just Sharon Stone. No, wait, had to be someone behind the camera. Oh, well...

  • Another good app.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by smclean ( 521851 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:46PM (#10530391) Homepage
    I've been playing around with my X10 wireless cam and Motion [freshmeat.net].

    Motion has motion detection and whatnot, and it's a pretty nice program, extremely configurable and extensible. Makes a nice webcam with java streaming .

    • I've used this application for years from Windows machines: HomeWatcher [homewatcher.com]

      Pretty nice. Shows what has changed in an image, scheduled uploads, snapshot timers, all kinds of stuff. Puts the images right to a page with thumbnails and even includes a link to the motion lapse video. Everything is uploaded so a burglar can't just smash the PC and be done with it, allows you to tilt & swivel your camera if supported... so forth.

      Bad news, and good news: Homewatcher [homewatcher.com] is for sale. Don't expect them to provide supp
    • That's true, kudos for the guys at Motion. A cool feature I like on it is that it can make use of masks to ignore motion detection on some regions of the screen. Other interesting thing I've seen on their mailing list was a hack to enable the use of the 4 entries on BTTV cards to capture video from 4 different sources simultaneously (this card is theorically capable of capturing from one source at a time only).

  • IP address... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Supp0rtLinux ( 594509 ) <Supp0rtLinux@yahoo.com> on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:47PM (#10530396)
    He says his *friend* has an IP from a cable modem provider. His whole plan will fall apart when the IPs change. Note to self: when implementing this in the shower at work, make sure I use an IP that won't change. ;)

    • Re:IP address... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Supp0rtLinux ( 594509 )
      So... kids... what have we learned today?

      A) before attempting to burgle a house, do some wardriving first and avoid any house with WEP. If there is no WEP and you can see the stream... and you're in the stream... run like hell!

      B) after some wardriving, and assuming you still want to break into a house with a WEP protected *cough* AP, first, find the external D-marc and unplug all RJ-11 and coax cables. Of course, if you're really kewl and don't care about noise while commiting your crime, just do an "al
      • Oh wait... I think we just overlooked the obvious... time to go retro and just pull a pair of pantyhose over your face. Or better, dress in drag and he'll think his friend is home and he won't bother calling the police as he watches you enter the house in realtime. And make sure you remove that front plate so the "driveway cam" can't see your plate.
      • Or you could just cut off the power and come back an hour or so later after the ups has run out......

      • Good idea. Then I will get a nice picture of you with a wire cutters in your hand, heading to my telephone line enterance. (and since my net connection is wireless I'll have pictures of you walking all over my house.

    • Re:IP address... (Score:3, Informative)

      by djdavetrouble ( 442175 )
      or use dyndns and install the client that updates it when your provider changes your ip address (like once a year for me).

  • homeland security?? (Score:4, Funny)

    by hellfire ( 86129 ) <deviladv AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:52PM (#10530439) Homepage
    Okay admit it. How many of you read that as "free homeland security software" and were about ready to burn down sourceforge to find the programmer who created this? Fess up! I know you're out there!

    Away put your pitchforks and torches!
    • > Okay admit it. How many of you read that as "free homeland security software" and were about ready to burn down sourceforge to find the programmer who created this? Fess up! I know you're out there!

      I didn't read it that way... but even if I did, what's the problem?

      If my camera system records everyone coming into, or leaving, my building, and something nasty happens in my building, I can walk to the remote server, yank the drives, and take them to the nearest police station.

      Imagine if every stree

  • Cool applications (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pdx_joe ( 690372 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:55PM (#10530461)
    I wonder what other applications this could be used for. Maybe I'm wrong, but alot of people do NOT need this intense of security. They may want it, but a deadbolt would be sufficient. If someone does break into my apartment, the most the can take are a couple of computers, the cost of setting up this system would be as much as what I'd be securing. Perhaps it could be low-cost/opensource security solution for school computer labs. With that said, what else could this be used for? Besides the normal childish pron/watching your babysitters jokes. How about Environmental monitoring?

    • Re:Cool applications (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Ramses0 ( 63476 )
      Bzzt. Try again. I did not RTFA, but I've had a BT848 Hauppauge WinTV card in my linux box for 5+ years now. Works great, compatible with anything that goes to composite video in (old video cameras, cheezeball "spy" cameras, CCD's, etc), or get yourself a $19.99 webcam that's linux compatible.

      Go here: http://www.compgeeks.com/products.asp?cat=VID for all the equipment you'd need to set something like this up, for under $50. I played with motion (motion.sf.net) about 2-3 years ago. Didn't ever do anyth
    • > With that said, what else could this be used for?

      monitoring places where there's more to steal than a 'couple of computers' maybe?

  • Wireless Security Cameras: Bug your own home (Score:5, Interesting)

    by VidEdit ( 703021 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @06:59PM (#10530488)
    I think it is important to remember that even if the web access is secure anyone can intercept RF link warless cameras. Rather than supplying extra security, you may be letting thieves case your home or business. They'll be able to see what you have, if you are home, and where your security cameras are pointed.

    Plus, the privacy implications are also bad, you are letting anyone with a receiver to spy on you 24 hours a day.

  • What about stream security? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ibi ( 61235 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @07:02PM (#10530521)
    Looking at the tutorial [dlink.com] for the camera, it doesn't appear that there's anything to stop anyone in wifi range from intercepting the video stream. Seems to be an odd oversight in something intended to provide security.

    I guess that might be acceptable if the cameras only looked outside, but your neighbors might have other ideas...
    • The link you provided shows that the camera is wep enabled not sure about wpa..but its a start. I mean when people drive around its alot less time to just drive to the next house and peek around their wide open wireless network than break the wep plus mac filtering on a geeks network. (note: don't say it, mac filtering doesn't do to much for intercepting the stream, and wep is not unbreakable)
  • When did this name change happen? I didn't see any news on Slashdot about this. :-)
    • In late July is when the name change took effect. Maybe early August. It doesn't really affect Slashdot except in remembering that the letters of the All-knowing Keiretsu have changed, and I don't recall an official announcement about it on Slashdot itself ... there's an announcement which appeared on the OSDN --> OSTG site at the time of the change, I'm sure archived somewhere, in which Jeff Bates (hemos) gives an explanation.

      Upshot: the change reflects a focus broader than only "developers" -- there a

  • Potential for mischief (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bcore ( 705121 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @07:39PM (#10530771)
    The cameras use Wifi to transmit their images.. Think of the fun you could have if you cracked the WEP key or whatever they use, and transmitted your own footage.

  • Hmmm, 'security' huh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by lakeland ( 218447 ) <lakeland@acm.org> on Thursday October 14, 2004 @08:02PM (#10530893) Homepage
    From the article:

    I installed it at the house of my 'friend' Susan...
    The camera is at her house, but the program is running at mine...
    It is for her security, in case she is burgled again.

    Yeah, Right.
  • Using the police and courts to outsource your violence just puts more of a load on an already overburdened public service system.

    All responsible citizens equip their home with a trap gun [collectorsfirearms.com] , saving time and money, although admittedly needing to use the wet-dry vac when you return home. As the description of this fine item states, trap guns were developed by the English to deal with pesky poachers and grave robbers.

  • Best thing (Score:3, Informative)

    by jav1231 ( 539129 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @08:20PM (#10531000)
    As someone who worked in security (and no, not as an 'officer') he would help himself immensely by creating some kind of sign and stickers saying "This house protected by webcams" or something. The real goal should be to deter, not catch, because cacthing a crook like this is a long shot. This sort of thing isn't really conducive to catching John Doe, local professional thief, it is good, however, for catching Timmy, the neighbor's kid.

  • Ah... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by fizban ( 58094 )

    The cameras are installed at a friend's house, and the application runs at mine.

    camera at "friend's" house...

    ...

    application at his.

    *ahem*

    *cough cough*

    ...

    Yes, I see now...

  • I want this in my car. With GPS. And a cyanide nozzle on a solenoid, though that's probably harder to explain if searched by a police officer at a random drunkdriving checkpoint ;). If the server is a notebook, and a few extra deepcycle batteries are added, could this system work everywhere? And if it plugged into my smartphone, couldn't it report when parked anywhere, even away from my home WiFi (or other hotspots) over the CDMA network?
  • I recently tried installing ZoneMinder to test it as a security system for my company.

    I downloaded the most recent version (1.19.5), and tried installing it on a Debian box with a USB webcam attached. Being that there isn't a Debian package for it yet, I tried installing it from source. I installed it to /usr/local/zoneminder (after a couple of false starts, figuring out the directives that needed to be passed to the configure script); and then tried to run the setup script.

    I found that I needed to hack t
    • Oh please.... Maybe you're not a good enough Redhat/Debian admin then. I'm only a casual user of Linux (even though I am a software developer by trade) and I have been able to install ZoneMinder on my Debian system without any issues. There were some brief problems that I experienced when ZM wasn't outputting any video, but the FAQ on the zoneminder site fixed it up.

      Also, it does not take 4 hours to install. If you spend time following their comprehensive instructions on their website, you can easily
      • Yeah,

        No way did my ZM install take 4 hours. I also ran into a small problem, but it ended up being missing libjpg.

        If your needs are very relaxed like mine, you can easily get by with a lot of the default configs.

      • Finally, I've never used Redhat and I don't think their software has been tweaked for Redhat since I had absolutely no problems setting everything up.

        Which version of zoneminder did you use?

        What did you use for an init script? I don't remember seeing a debian-specific one or a generic one; and the Redhat one depended on a number of files (the "functions" init 'library' for one) that don't exist on debian. I certainly could have hacked a working one; but after poking at the whole thing for some time, I d

  • "my friend Susan's home was broken into while she was away on vacation ... So I started thinking in terms of security cameras ... With the system fully set up, I'm free to monitor the cameras or not, as I choose ... I spent less than $500 total on the project ... That's a lot of money to me, but I can't imagine spending it for a better cause."

    Rrrrright buddy. Uh huh.

    Does anyone else find it strange that the article doesn't mention what Susan's response was to having her house wired and monitored remot

  • A better solution (Score:2, Informative)

    by skiball ( 822282 )
    After trying and sending back the X10 crap (CMOS is not the way to go) I found an inexpensive solution that I've been using for over a year now. Geovision makes an excellent system that comes bundled with a DVR card for the PC (*nix too). I'm running 2 - 3/4" weather-proof wired bullet cams (Sony 1/3 CCD's high res, low lux) connected to a 2 port card (up to 16 port avail). The software is solid and has wayyyy more features than I need. 24x7x365 monitoring, MPEG's captured to an HD on motion detect, rem

    • Re:A better solution (Score:3, Informative)

      by catch23 ( 97972 )
      Perhaps you should give ZoneMinder a second try? For $99 you can buy a 4 port capture card from X-Guard [grandtec.com]. Then all you need are some high res CCD cameras that can be had for roughly $60 a pop from ebay stores. (This price includes shipping) The cheaper ones come from Hong Kong, but are still extremely high quality... look for Sony manufactured CCD cameras. And the software is.... well free.

      So for $280, you can have a 4 port capture card, 3 Sony color CCD cameras, and all the software you're gonna ne
  • We converted a large number of the classic CCTV systems over the last five years. IP based cameras have really evolved and the available software, while expensive real kicks ass over a vcr and in many instances DVR. Yhe benefits of course is long term, cheap storage, no forgotten tapes and easy access to live video and recorded alarms over the net from anywhere. One of are more recent clients even caught a bank robbery [brightnoise.com] on our Milestone package!!
  • So, I commend the author for wanting to help his friend, but is this really the best way of going about it?

    First of all, as other posters have mentioned it seems unlikely that a regular 640x480 camera is going to have sufficient resolution to be able to read a license plate. In order to cover all possible positions that a car might park in, you have to keep a pretty wide angle, which means you lose the ability to zoom in on details. Judiging from the screen shots it just didn't seem very realistic that y

  • We're using it at my school for a rather high security lab [slashdot.org] and it works wonderfully. It captures footage every time someone walks in or out of the lab, as well as any time they drift over to the server/switch cabinet. If an incident were to happen, we would know who was in the room at any given moment in time.

    And hey, it makes for fun work breaks to watch the students get frustrated from the comfort of my own office.

  • Re "(NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.)"

    Yeah, we know that. But what's the matter with plugging free software? If you had to pay for it it might be different but you're not getting anything out of it. That's why I always get a chuckle out of the super-punctilious disclaimers that always appear for some kind of journalistic integrity.

    Slashdot and Newsforge are also part of the Open Source movement, and there's not a disclaimer whenever someone says something in favor of open source. Same di
  • Between the difficulties with getting MySQL installed/working, and getting all the package dependancies to compile/install this it was many hours. Then once it was "running" I couldn't get input from the camara, as another poster had indicated also happened to him. This product looks like it has a lot of functionality, probably more than you need. For my needs, "motion" worked great and was far more simple.
  • This is a useful tool, but I can't use it. Like many ISPs, mine (Cablevision / Optimum Online) prohibits servers. We cannot "Run any type of server on the system. This includes but is not limited to FTP, IRC, SMTP, POP, HTTP, SOCKS, SQUID, DNS or any multi-user forums." Cablevision blocks ports commonly used by servers, including 25 and 80. Cablevision even started blocking connections to remote mail servers without any warning. I used to run a mail server on a remote (non-OptimumOnline) webhost. After my
    • I ran an FTP server on the standard port (21) for years on OptimumOnline, as well as a web server on a non-standard port (actually, I used SSL, so https://myhome.dyndns.org -> port 443 [grc.com]) and it worked perfectly. SSH worked perfectly too, so did Windows Terminal Server. Sure they "prohibit" servers and block some ports, but they don't enforce the rule for low-bandwidth home users.

      I moved a few months ago.

    • Look into getting a business acct. I just did recently with Cox cable. I got a static IP, can run all the servers I want, no ports blocked, great tech support...

      And it is only about $7 a month more than what Earthlink DSL was for a consumer line with static IP. Plus the cable modem is much faster..about 3Mbit down...and I think they've boosted that up. They don't ask you for any kind of proof for a business acct. either...

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