The Los Angeles Police Department has warned residents to be wary of thieves using technology to break into homes undetected. High-tech burglars have apparently knocked out their victims’ wireless cameras and alarms in the Los Angeles Wilshire-area neighborhoods before getting away with swag bags full of valuables. An LAPD social media post highlights the Wi-Fi jammer-supported burglaries and provides a helpful checklist of precautions residents can take.
Criminals can easily find the hardware for Wi-Fi jamming online. It can also be cheap, with prices starting from $40. However, jammers are illegal to use in the U.S.
We have previously reported on Wi-Fi jammer-assisted burglaries in Edina, Minnesota. Criminals deployed Wi-Fi jammer(s) to ensure homeowners weren’t alerted of intrusions and that incriminating video evidence wasn’t available to investigators.
Don’t use wireless for security, PoE or CCTV
Those aren’t always options for renters, hence why wifi security systems are so popular.
Even beyond renting, installing a wifi camera is SO much cheaper than running Ethernet all over your house. And if you need it run through an external wall? Even more money.
Not if you DIY. I just finished a project, not only wiring all rooms for Ethernet, but PoE for 10 exterior cameras.
You can get 500ft Cat 5e boxes off eBay for like ~$20, an extra long 1/2 inch drill bit (for punching through the exterior wall) was like another 20. Most expensive part was probably the metal conduit for the outside runs (I decided to only have 2 or 3 holes to the outside and run the cables in the conduit along the soffit to converge to one of 3 exterior holes for final routing within the house. That was probably 150-250)
All in all after estimating for secondary costs, like screws, brackets, sealant, a caulk gun, ceiling bracket for ceiling routing indoors etc this project was probably <400, pretty cheap as far as home improvement projects go
You can save on all that conduit with direct burial Ethernet.
Do you really need either when you’re running the cable down the soffit where it’ll never really get exposed to sun or rain?
No - I use some standard stuff in areas like that, when I’m able to come right out and under the soffit or siding. If I have to make a run, closer to the ground, with a brick facade, I’ll use it. I won’t go crazy actually trying to burry it when it stays near my house hidden by shrubs.
I have buried it for customers that require connections located in dislocated structures - trenches and filling by others though. 😅
Good because I didn’t use either and also tucked mine up in the soffit albeit with some short runs before they go into the attic. It is not something I’d like to revisit 😆
Not that expensive to do it yourself. Getting a fish tape and a cheaper Ethernet termination kit would set you back at most $50. Only other tools you need is a drill and most homeowners should already have that. And a really long bit is cheap at harbour freight.
Yup, cost isn’t the issue, time and patience are. In order to run cables down my walls, I’d need to wade through 2-3 feet of insulation fluff in my attic while stepping only on roof cross-beams, all with only like 7 feet of space at the center (way less at the edges). The cable and tools will only cost $100-200, but the whole process is a giant pain to actually do.
A bit of plastic trunking, an ethernet cable, and a long masonry bit for your hammer drill to get through the brick wall, oh and a little sealant, not that expensive, I believe in you!
I’m gonna fall through the ceiling :(
That’s not cute, it’s tragic
Lawful- Neutral renter reporting in:
I fixed an entire doorframe trim and drywall after the back door got kicked in - paint and putty are your friends
Renters have virtually no choice here. I hate it when people state this like it’s some damn easy thing for everyone to do.
The real answer is caching. Instead of writing video to the cloud live and losing all recordings during a wifi outage, it should just cash the last 30ish minutes in case of failure to connect to the cloud. Then once the connection is up again, it just uploads the cached video.
My cameras are PoE going to an NVR but you can also slap SD cards in them to record locally. I’m sure there are some wireless options out there with this feature included. Unfortunately wireless cameras have another glaring flaw in that they only record on movement and I’ve heard of so many stories where they didn’t catch any movement to start recording when something happened.
I have a few cheap cameras that can handle both WiFi and ethernet, they support an SD card, and they do continuous recording regardless of connection type.
There are some that have local storage in case wifi drops out.
I beg to differ not with that attitude. In most situations you can non permanently get a camera out a window or door without harming anything / risking deposit loss. Only where you have no windows near exit points and a windowless door. But even then you can still atleast have something internal to catch a break in (wired streaming to web).
Easy or not, wireless isn’t secure.
Neither is PoE when the thieves drop a bit of foil onto the local transformer with a drone.
I’m not saying this is what the backup batteries on my modem and in my rack are specifically for, but it would definitely prevent downtime from a Droney McTinFoil von Transformer scenario
That’s a hell of a lot higher bar to cross than wifi.
Wireless “security” cameras are never a good practice.
Honestly, if I’m renting, I’ll just get renter’s insurance and not bother with doing any security.
As a homeowner, I’m going to do everything I can to avoid making a home insurance claim. As a renter, whatever, not my problem, the insurance can maybe sue the landlord for not securing things properly because it’s their job, not mine, to keep things secure.
There’s no OSFA solution. Yeah, it sucks if you’re renting and can’t run cat 6 everywhere. All the same, you can still run a hard wired cam to a NVR/NAS in at least one location inside, but then you face the same difficulty anyone else does of securing the storage from theft - or you can have it upload to a cloud as quickly as is practical so you get off-site storage images and alerts of the theft.
There’s a lot of opportunistic thefts near where I live. Honestly, the odds of actually catching a good image of the thieves’ faces are petty low. If they know enough to jam the wifi, they also probably know enough to hide their faces. The thieves in our area all wear hoodies and hide their faces somehow, so all you get is the alert that someone is there and an image of a hoodied individual.
The landlord might have an incentive to protect their investment
Burglars stealing whole apartments over here.
Can’t have shit in Detroit.
Honestly super easy. I have a pet cam that records locally to an SD card and is accessible via wifi. A jammer wouldn’t stop the recording. Also like 30 bucks vs 50-100-200 bucks depending on which ring cam you get. Certainly not weatherized but good enough for internal monitoring.
Would you go so far as to say it’s barely an inconvenience?
Wow wow wow. Wow.
Yes, if you have a $10M villa in LA where you store your priceless art collection invest in hard security. For the average person who just needs video for the insurance company for when some meth head steals their bike from the garage, it’s a great solution.
Honestly, deadbolts and keeping the garage closed would get that meth head to go to the next house.
If you send a claim to the insurance company for a stolen bike or something, you’re going to pay way more in house insurance than whatever the bike cost. The only time you should be making an insurance claim is for a massive loss, like a fire, flood, etc. The video evidence should instead go to the police so they can track the perp down and maybe recover your stuff.
IMHO, it comes down to your risk, what will make you feel comfortable, and how much money you want to spend. Pulling Ethernet through the walls and patching drywall might not be something you care to do if risk is low.
Also, if someone really wants to not be on camera, they’ll wear a mask, turn the power off at the main panel, etc. That said, there are cameras that can run on battery and store footage locally when they can’t phone home to wherever they deposit video files.
My entire 12 camera system is ethernet only which feeds into my server closet and backed up with a battery that can run it for 5 hours. The video clips are sent to telegram for backup.
Uh, how do you use telegram for backup?
You can create and set up telegram bots for your own use
Right, but they offer basically unlimited storage or how does that specific bit work? I wasn’t aware you could put meaningful amounts of data anywhere using a telegram bot.
And why not just… get cloud storage? Backblaze is something like $6/month for 1TB of data, which is more than enough space for an interesting amount of off-site video backup.
Ok, so they will disable your power 5 hours before they rob you I guess.
I guess my point is that there is no right or wrong camera system. It’s a balance between risk, convenience, and peace of mind / perceived safety.
I used design hardcore security checkpoint systems for the DHS, and even I have stupid WiFi cameras. I’m going to see diminishing returns if I go with a more old-school hardwired system. The people who do break in sprees in my area have been getting past me those things for decades.
Most people these days have either a ring doorbell camera or nothing. A very few people have real security cameras hardwired, and even fewer of those have more than 1 camera.
Also, about 1/4 of the ring doorbell cams need their batteries replaced.
PoE/CCTV is def the better option, but youre gonna be hard pressed to get regular folks to make the switch unless this type of burglary becomes endemic.
Yep. We have a mix of wifi/hard wired PoE. If you can handle crawling around in the attic or wherever, PoE is the easiest and best option. No need to run wiring to any sort of electrical box to power 110v for cams. Wireless is super-easy, but usually you have to pay for cloud services on top of that. Home hard wired with an NVR or NAS is the way to go.
Oh, having to pay for cloud services is TIGHT!
You’re confusing easy with cheap.
Actually it’s pronounced “Ryan George”.
Right?? I don’t understand this attack. People are lazy and far too trusting to have their home feeds uploaded over the internet
Cheap wireless cloud connected security cameras are the reason home surveillance is so ubiquitous today. Many people don’t have the know-how to install POE cameras, or it’d cost them too much to pay someone to do it. Plus, if you’re renting your house, putting the holes you’d need where they’re supposed to go is something you might not even be allowed to do.
I fully understand the attack. It’s effective against the majority of people.
It’s one of the easier things to DIY though, much easier than setting up a printer or installing a TV. Also, it’s about the same price if not cheaper, I got 1tb harddrive, 4 cameras, cables and and OS for under $200
I’m just tired of these excuses on why we give away our data and then are surprised when their security is trash
I don’t think that’s true at all, and also like I said before if you rent it’s literally not an option unless you can do it without drilling holes.
Well no, a Wyze cam is like $25. So that’s not “The same price if not cheaper”, it’s twice the cost.
$25 + subscription and/or SD card
You don’t need either, actually.
I’m not familiar with Wyze but Ring and Nest doorbells go for $50-$200 per camera plus a month subscription if they want to keep the data, so still cheaper
And they do have magnets to allow for non drilling options if that’s a requirement. I should also stipulate if the person installing it has the physical ability, the setting up the computer side is easy enough for a novice and simpler than installing Windows/MacOSX
My argument is not go the easy, convenient route. Fast food is nice in a pinch, but eating it every day leads to bad outcomes. And I’m not saying the consumer is 100% to blame, but they aren’t innocent bystanders, especially if they are spending money to protect valuables, why not learn which tools are available and when to use what