The Myth about Cloud (P2P) Cameras

We have seen a lot of myth on how unsecured and how unsafe Cloud cameras are posted by various conventional IP Cameras supporters/agents for some reason. So, here's how it works based on our experience with a few brands on the market

Many Cloud-based Cameras are designed based on P2P (or known as Peer to Peer) technology. How some of these works is briefly explained as follows

1. Your cloud based IP Camera sends a regular heartbeat to a P2P heartbeat server to broadcast your camera's Unique Identification (UID), and the Internet IP addressing. These cloud servers are hosted on various big players like AMAZON, MICROSOFT, GMAIL, etc.

2. Your mobile APP when launched, will then make an enquiry to the cloud server to connect to your camera, it triggers a flag on the cloud server so that your camera will know when someone tries to view it.

3. When authentication is done on the P2P server, your camera will then starts communicating with your phone and LIVE feeds are streamed to your phone. In some technology, when such direct connection are not possible, then the vendors will make the phone stream to cloud server which acts as a medium between camera and phone to stream the feed to your phone.

4. When you end your LIVE viewing, the flag status will change and your camera stops sending the feeds and return to the heartbeat status.

Now, remember, your router at this point of time have NO Port forwarding being done, it only opens up the port from behind the router when necessary by the camera to send the feeds to your mobile.

Port forwarding

Now, many people have been worrying about their IP cameras being broadcast onto the web since the media released details of how some website actually publish your camera's LIVE feeds over the internet. If you had realized, many of these cameras are using the traditional Port Forwarding methods and the password have not been changed! Meaning to say, factory default password as "admin", "123", "888888".

So, how do these geeks know that you are running an IP Camera? It is very simple, once a port scanning is done on the network, all they need to do is to open a web page, wait for the interface to prompt for login and password, key in the default admin login and some guessing of the password. Poof! If we see a monitoring screen, we know we are in, and these information can be then used to add to a webpage for everyone to see. This is using a more layman way of testing your page, in actual fact, most of us if we want, uses a more interesting and efficient method.

Are Cloud Cameras Safe?

By technology so far, it can be safe as long as both you and your provider complies with the following simple rules.

1. When you finish setting up your Cloud IP Cameras, please CHANGE YOUR DEFAULT PASSWORD! And make sure that you save your details somewhere that you can retrieve it back, a gentle reminder that some Chinese manufacturer did a very bad job on account password retrieval if you happen to forget your cloud login.

2. Do not reveal your UID, login name and password to anyone, and change it again if you gave your unique ID to any technical support people. In most cases (99.9%), these tech support people will not abuse the information, but you will never know who you are dealing with at the end of the day.

3. Suppliers should not published UID onto the box, else you will see some very FREE people who will go around scanning the UID on retail shops and waiting for the camera to come online to prank.

Conventional Port Forwarding vs Cloud-Based Pros & Cons

Port Forwarding

PROs

Direct connection always from mobile APP to camera, fastest streaming noted using this

CONs

Troublesome setup for non-IT people, needs to do port forwarding, pay for reputable DDNS provider if factory's DDNS is not reliable. Pay vendors for setup instead of simple fast DIY.

Easily targeted by hackers since port is always "OPEN" on the router.

Cloud-based

PROs

Easy setup within Minutes, easy to DIY, no need to pay extra for vendors to do setup at your home. Saves time and money.

Your router's firewall protects your camera since no Port Forward is actually done on the router. Camera opens a port to stream only when a remote view is initiated

CONs

Slower connectivity and speed of streaming as compare to direct in some cases. Reliability depends on providers availability (Some uses relay modes and piss you off with only 2 minutes viewing)

There is always a heartbeat traffic going out from camera to P2P server. However, conventional IP cameras also have a heartbeat on their DDNS. So, it is the same breakeven CONs on both technology still unless you have a STATIC (FIXED) IP Address which you will overcome this.

Cloud Solutions from MARIX

In MARIX, we carry several cloud-based IP Cameras, including our collaboration branding with ZAFEGO in Sweden. You can check out more of this product at http://marix.com.sg/?product_cat=zafego

Sales Team
MARIX IT DISTRIBUTION (S) PTE LTD