Security Cameras For Outside

[tomtexan]

I was there Friday looking for him too and he wasn't there There were a lot of empty spaces there this month, I'm guessing many vendors took the holiday weekend off. I'll pm you the info off his card.

Thanks!

[gigag04]

My company owns Pelco so let me know if you like anything you see from them.

They are some of the industry leaders in Industrial and Commercial systems. Not my product line so that's about all I know.

[jimlongley]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. There is a single Ethernet cable for each camera that serves as both the power cable and the signal cable. the video signal is then sent over the house power wiring to the router.

I am someone who is quite clueless about electricity. How does a video signal carry over the house's power wiring? To someone of my limited understanding, that's like saying that your water supply travels over the wiring. To be more specific, how does the router take power from the wall and convert it to signal information, and how are information packets differentiated from simple power? (Am I even asking the the right questions???)

Power via ethernet cable I understand. A lot of the music equipment I work with works like that. Aviom boxes are powered by the same ethernet cable that receives signal from the amplification system. Direct boxes (for guitars, microphones, and other instruments) get "ghost power" from the XLR cables which connect them to the system and carry the signal from the instrument.

But in each of those cases, the cable was designed to carry signal and power, and they are being used to connect two devices directly for the purposes of carrying signal. But in the case of my home router, it has a separate port, or ports, for receiving signal, and a little power adapter which plugs into the wall. So logically, at least to me, the power circuits and the information circuits aren't designed to perform the same function. Now, if your cameras received power and sent video signal along the same ethernet cable all the way back to the router, THAT I would understand because it is consistent with my own experience with sound equipment.

But sending the video signal into the house's power grid, then taking the power out of the wall and into the router, and then converting some of that juice back into a video signal.........that's where I get lost.

Can you help a brother out? (This is why my screen name isn't The Annoyed Engineer......)

Kind of like what CowboyEngineer said. Think of it this way: Power over ethernet is using the ethernet cable to provide power to something in a manner that ethernet was not (well, way more to that) designed to do, sending a signal over the power wire is kind of like power over ethernet, only backwards. We were using power wires to carry other signals long before ethernet was even thought of.

Now, consider that when you put your signal into the electric outlet in your computer room and take it out in your tv room, it probably traveled all the way back to your breaker box and made the turn, but there is nothing stopping it from going out your service drop and into neighbors' houses, except the transformer which might act as a choke on the frequencies you are impressing on your AC line.

[Jumping Frog]

Now, consider that when you put your signal into the electric outlet in your computer room and take it out in your tv room, it probably traveled all the way back to your breaker box and made the turn, but there is nothing stopping it from going out your service drop and into neighbors' houses, except the transformer which might act as a choke on the frequencies you are impressing on your AC line.

So, sounds like you are saying don't put a POE security camera in your bedroom.

[CowboyEngineer]

Now, consider that when you put your signal into the electric outlet in your computer room and take it out in your tv room, it probably traveled all the way back to your breaker box and made the turn, but there is nothing stopping it from going out your service drop and into neighbors' houses, except the transformer which might act as a choke on the frequencies you are impressing on your AC line.

I would think that the transformer would offer significant isolation of your data. If it did make it to your neighbor's house, he would have to be aware that there could be data on the power system, and have the knowledge, hardware and software to convert that data stream into something useful. I'm not going to say that it couldn't happen, but if your going to worry about your data being intercepted, the wireless transmission of your data, from a wireless camera or router, seems to me to be the much greater risk.

[Jumping Frog]

the wireless transmission of your data, from a wireless camera or router, seems to me to be the much greater risk.

Of course, there are wireless security protocols in place. For ip over 120 vac? Who knows?

[CowboyEngineer]

Of course, there are wireless security protocols in place. For ip over 120 vac? Who knows?

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just pointing out that there are risks to data in any system. It seems to me, however, since wireless transmission is several orders of magnitude more common than power line transmission, the knowledge of and the tools needed to get around the wireless security protocols have to be much more common in the hacker community. Wireless signals are easier to intercept. A laptop, tablet or smartphone will show you all the wireless networks near you. Not so with power line transmission. If your neighborhood is anything like mine, half the wireless networks aren't even password protected. Now having said all of that, probably 90% of my internet traffic is over wireless. We have computers, smartphones, tablets and smart tv's that we use almost constantly. Heck, even my BBQ has a wireless connection. While I do believe that you can mitigate the risks involved with wireless, I don't believe that you can eliminate it.

[jimlongley]

Now, consider that when you put your signal into the electric outlet in your computer room and take it out in your tv room, it probably traveled all the way back to your breaker box and made the turn, but there is nothing stopping it from going out your service drop and into neighbors' houses, except the transformer which might act as a choke on the frequencies you are impressing on your AC line.

I would think that the transformer would offer significant isolation of your data. If it did make it to your neighbor's house, he would have to be aware that there could be data on the power system, and have the knowledge, hardware and software to convert that data stream into something useful. I'm not going to say that it couldn't happen, but if your going to worry about your data being intercepted, the wireless transmission of your data, from a wireless camera or router, seems to me to be the much greater risk.

Yes, my point exactly, the transformer is designed to act most efficiently at 60 Hz and (hopefully) to restrict other frequencies, but not all houses are isolated from each other by transformers.

As far as intercepting "foreign" signals. I used to do that all the time, with relatively simple equipment, it was my job to identify and track interfering signals getting in to telephone systems, and that was before we had as much wireless as we do now. Back then it was not as amazing to see what people put on wireless systems, but today's environment requires us to be more aware of where the signals we are generating are going, and yes, you don't want a wireless security cam in your bedroom.

[The Annoyed Man]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. There is a single Ethernet cable for each camera that serves as both the power cable and the signal cable. the video signal is then sent over the house power wiring to the router.

I am someone who is quite clueless about electricity. How does a video signal carry over the house's power wiring? To someone of my limited understanding, that's like saying that your water supply travels over the wiring. To be more specific, how does the router take power from the wall and convert it to signal information, and how are information packets differentiated from simple power? (Am I even asking the the right questions???)

Power via ethernet cable I understand. A lot of the music equipment I work with works like that. Aviom boxes are powered by the same ethernet cable that receives signal from the amplification system. Direct boxes (for guitars, microphones, and other instruments) get "ghost power" from the XLR cables which connect them to the system and carry the signal from the instrument.

But in each of those cases, the cable was designed to carry signal and power, and they are being used to connect two devices directly for the purposes of carrying signal. But in the case of my home router, it has a separate port, or ports, for receiving signal, and a little power adapter which plugs into the wall. So logically, at least to me, the power circuits and the information circuits aren't designed to perform the same function. Now, if your cameras received power and sent video signal along the same ethernet cable all the way back to the router, THAT I would understand because it is consistent with my own experience with sound equipment.

But sending the video signal into the house's power grid, then taking the power out of the wall and into the router, and then converting some of that juice back into a video signal.........that's where I get lost.

Can you help a brother out? (This is why my screen name isn't The Annoyed Engineer......)

Kind of like what CowboyEngineer said. Think of it this way: Power over ethernet is using the ethernet cable to provide power to something in a manner that ethernet was not (well, way more to that) designed to do, sending a signal over the power wire is kind of like power over ethernet, only backwards. We were using power wires to carry other signals long before ethernet was even thought of.

Now, consider that when you put your signal into the electric outlet in your computer room and take it out in your tv room, it probably traveled all the way back to your breaker box and made the turn, but there is nothing stopping it from going out your service drop and into neighbors' houses, except the transformer which might act as a choke on the frequencies you are impressing on your AC line.

Thank you both for the explanation. Now I get it. Adapters.....Yeah, that's the ticket! LOL.

Regarding the security issue of risking exposing your video data to neighbors by sending the signal through your home's power grid, how far from your home will that signal carry without degradation? Just a couple of neighbors, or can they read it down at City Hall if they know what their looking for?

[ELB]

Now, consider that when you put your signal into the electric outlet in your computer room and take it out in your tv room, it probably traveled all the way back to your breaker box and made the turn, but there is nothing stopping it from going out your service drop and into neighbors' houses, except the transformer which might act as a choke on the frequencies you are impressing on your AC line.

So, sounds like you are saying don't put a POE security camera in your bedroom.

Even if you have separate power and data cables, I wonder how much household wireless and cable systems leak over power and telephone lines? You don't need a direct connection for the energy from one device to travel to another. Somebody posted earlier it was his job to look for this kind of stuff on phone lines, and it was an ancient military COMSEC (communications security) practice to keep administrative telephones and other electrical gear well away from anything processing classified data.

One of the more interesting examples that came to light was when the UK was trying to join Common Market, and France was being difficult about it. The Brits were of course tapping the phone and telegraph lines from the French Embassy in London, but did not know the French crypto code. The arranged for a "telephone repair man" to visit the French Embassy on a manufactured service outage, who noticed that the only thing separating a telephone from the crypto teletype was a portable divider. One day while monitoring the phone lines, the Brits discovered someone had moved the divider, and now they were able to read both the encrypted text and the original clear text as it was typed in. Thus they were able to spy on discussions between the French Embassy and the French government in Paris.

Everything old is new again.

[TomsTXCHL]

TAM with power line signals they may have trouble getting from one 120VAC leg of your service to the other 120VAC leg, though usually that works because you have 240VAC appliances (electric range or water heater) that effectively couple the signal paths together.

Following the lines out of your house and up the power pole, they will AFAIK be completely stopped by the first power transformer the signals reach (that converts the overhead 480VAC to 240VAC. If you share a transformer with other neighbors then your signals are possibly exposed to them.

OTOH they may not make it from your front entry to your home office--they are pretty weak, and in fact a house like mine with many many UPSes and Surge Protectors view signals like these as Noise and try to filter them out. I used to use X10 powerline devices but they don't work anymore since I've protected all my home electronics with these surge devices.

[CowboyEngineer]

Regarding the security issue of risking exposing your video data to neighbors by sending the signal through your home's power grid, how far from your home will that signal carry without degradation? Just a couple of neighbors, or can they read it down at City Hall if they know what their looking for?

It depends on how many houses share your transformer. That in turn depends on the size of your house, location, local codes, utility companies etc. I share my transformer with one neighbor, a widow in her 70's who thinks e-mail is a special type of postage stamp. I think my data is safe. I have, however, heard of neighborhoods with as many as 10 houses on a transformer. Apartment buildings may have even more depending on the size of the transformer. So city hall isn't going to see your data. The NSA, on the other hand, those guys see everything. The Logitech equipment I use has 128 bit data encryption. I don't have personal experience with other types of equipment that uses power line data transmission but I would think they do as well.

[jimlongley]

Thank you both for the explanation. Now I get it. Adapters.....Yeah, that's the ticket! LOL.

Regarding the security issue of risking exposing your video data to neighbors by sending the signal through your home's power grid, how far from your home will that signal carry without degradation? Just a couple of neighbors, or can they read it down at City Hall if they know what their looking for?

You would be amazed at how well weak digital signals can be reconstructed.

And consider the fact that we are still receiving data from Voyager.

Weak signal work is lots of fun.

[cb1000rider]

I think, that unless you're a terrorist and someone wants to see inside your home, there are much easier ways than poaching digital signals from your camera... Just sayin'...

[jimlongley]

I think, that unless you're a terrorist and someone wants to see inside your home, there are much easier ways than poaching digital signals from your camera... Just sayin'...

True, but there are those out there who live to do such things. One house I visited a bunch of years ago had multiple scanners including ones that were searching frequencies beyond the "normal" ones such as those that baby monitors use, and wireless intercoms, and the big craze at the time; wireless phones, and he was merrily taping almost everything. This was before the more recent laws were passed against recording wireless transmission, and he was registering a complaint because he had tracked down a wireless signal that was interfering with his own wireless phone. I hated to tell him that our responsibility ended at the end of the wire. One of those whiz kids that just did not have much in the way of "common sense."