You'd think that a security camera would get Internet security right. This one doesn't even try.
The camera doesn't support SSL/TLS connections. This means that, every time you log in to the camera across the Internet, your password is going across in the clear, and anyone sufficiently interested can then use that password to log into your camera in your home and watch what you're doing or record their own copy. Furthermore, even without logging in, your communication with the camera is open for the world to see. This a huge oversight that has no excuse; it's like installing new locks in a house and leaving the key under the doormat.
If you try to set up email alerts to notify you of certain actions (e.g. motion detection), you'll find that the camera does not support secure SMTP servers. In other words, every time the camera sends email, it will be sending your email password in the clear, so that interested parties could later log into your email account and do whatever they want.
The product uses a proprietary Internet Explorer ActiveX control, which forces you to use IE instead of a more secure and standards-compliant browser like Firefox. But that's not bad enough. The ActiveX control apparently has no understanding and support of Vista NTFS permissions. This means that in Vista if you try to record to certain directories on the hard drive, it fails with a cryptic error message---even if the user has administrator rights. The only apparent way to get around this is to run Internet Explorer as Administrator (a special Vista super-user that has more rights than even a user with normal administrator rights), which is a bad idea in general and reflects the outdatedness of the implementation.
There is no way to tell the camera to start recording to the local hard drive when some action occurs. Sure, you can have the camera record to a "network hard drive", if you can figure out how to set one of those up. Or you can have the camera record to a USB drive hooked up to the camera, which someone can easily steal along with the camera. Or you can manually record to the local hard drive. But you can't simply leave your browser window open and have the camera only start recording to the local hard drive when there is some activity.
This would be a great little camera if someone with actual security experience had been in charge of its firmware. There is no excuse for these huge lapses in design, ruining what could easily have been a great product.
(18 customers reviews)
Customers Rating=3.5 / 5.0
More Detail For TRENDnet SecurView Wireless Day Night Internet Surveillance Camera Server with 2 Way Audio TV IP312W Silver
- Day/Night internet camera server transmits high-quality video and audio over the internet
- Infrared lens allows monitoring in low light environments
- Compatible with 802.11g and 802.11b wireless networks with support for advanced encryption
- Included software features motion detection recording, scheduled recordings, email alerts, and progressive search
- Backed by a 3-year warranty
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น