Chinese camera activated cloud storage, now I can't use my uSD card

[BiigRich]

I may not be able to continue using my "no-name" Chinese camera unless I can find a work-around for a problem which just cropped up.

After registering with the Chinese manufacturer everything was working fine and I wanted to just keep recording to the uSD card I put in the unit. I logged into the smartphone app and it was pestering me to start my 30 day free cloud storage. I just rejected the request and kept using the uSD as I wanted to.

Then, a few days ago it activated the cloud storage automatically. I manually selected that it store on the SD card. It indicates that the SD card is selected but will only store to its cloud. I have no idea what will happen at the end of the 30 day trial but my bet is they will hold my device hostage unless I agree to pay them for cloud storage.

Right now all I have to lose is the investment of buying a 128GB uSD card since the camera was a gift but I will not pay for their stupid cloud.

This may be a show stopper.

Anyone have one of these Chinese surveillance cameras and know how to force it back to using the uSD card I installed locally.

I tried reloading the software (IPC app) and did a hardware reset on the camera. It "sees" the uSD card and I can select it for video output but any alert is recorded to their cloud.

 

[SouthernYankee]

The amount of time you have wasted on this camera is not worth it. Junk it.

Messing with this piece of crap is putting your home network in danger.

 

[J Sigmo]

I've tried to explain that to several friends, but the allure of the inexpensive cameras is just too great! We MUST all begin with cheap cameras and be burned by them as part of the learning process. Try as we might, we cannot get someone past that part of the experience with words alone.


As painful as it is, often it's best to cut your losses, get rid of the inexpensive cameras, and move on. I consider the cost of the cheap cameras I bought initially as part of my tuition. Think of them as security cameras 101.

The sad fact is that to set up a secure, safe, reliable and effective camera system is fairly expensive and rather time-consuming. I've learned a lot more than I ever thought I would need to know about all of this because I had to in order to make this all work properly!

But it's proven to be valuable knowledge for other applications, too. As lame as I still am on all of this, I've been able to improve the network security at my home as well as where I work a LOT with knowledge gained from this site as I've been forced to learn enough to set up my home security camera system.


Don't let a $50 item lead you down a bad road. In the end, you're going to have a LOT more than that wrapped up in your time. And to be honest, a lot more than that spent on hardware to get the job done right, too.

I know next to nothing about this all even now. But the advice I've gotten directly, and the information I've gleaned indirectly by reading various threads and the WIKI here has allowed me to set things up to where I am extremely happy with my system and confident in its security.

I just let Blue Iris update to the latest version, and then switched the monitor for that PC back off again. It's been a few months since I've even had that monitor on. The thing just runs and runs.

My wife and I can check our cameras, recorded events, etc., from anywhere via our phones, and all of it is very secure. In fact, we can securely do other on-line things from anywhere now thanks to the VPN that I had to set up as part of getting the camera system running properly.


That inexpensive camera, that you were given, is never going to do what you want. And the security holes it has already opened up in your network are very concerning.

But at least it did get you interested in all of this, and perhaps started you down a road whereon you will spend a huge amount of time and money. So you can thank it for that!

Prepare to spend hundreds of hours on research, and thousands of dollars on hardware. Your journey of forum-enabled spending has only just begun!

 

[BiigRich]

Southern Yankee, & J Sigmo,

Thank you for your input, I was getting the feeling that you spelled out clearly. For me, it was truly "security cameras 101" as J Sigmo suggested.

I would never "depend" on these cameras for home security, I was just playing with it and I guess I learned a lot.

The first camera I worked with, I purchased myself from a suggestion in this forum where I announced myself as a "Newbie". I ended up purchasing an Amcrest IP2M-841B for ~$55.00 on sale.

I am quite pleased with the Amcrest. To be clear, I had no intention of using the Amcrest for covert surveillance. I actually use it to monitor and repair machines (read LED's and fault conditions) in a very hard to reach location. Believe me, it saved me many trips into that difficult to access space.

The Chinese camera was a gift and I only paid $10.00 for the reusable uSD card. All I've lost is time and effort unless the Chinese company has compromised my network security in some way other than to upload my mundane videos to their cloud. Any other breach would make me extremely angry.

 

[J Sigmo]

The scary thing to me about these security cameras is not that someone can spy on their video. That would likely prove to be really boring.

The problem that worries me is that for the camera's native remote viewing to work, you have to allow the camera to have access to your LAN either by direct connection, or by giving it access to your WiFi AND you have to allow it to communicate with the internet.

With a PC connected that way, we'd make sure it has good firewall and antivirus software guarding it.

But these little cameras are actually small computers as well. And we (generally) have no idea what is in their firmware. So when we hook up one of these cameras, we have installed a "man on the inside" whose programming we do not understand fully.

That camera could snoop on all traffic on our LAN, and then report it to anyone on the internet. It's like a "bug" placed on the inside, or "private" side of our LAN.

It could also allow access to other computers on your network because it gets around your router.

These cameras can be hacked by third parties or simply contain backdoors or code to let them spy on our networks right out of the box. So it's best to block their access to the internet.

Most of us use reasonably priced Chinese cameras in our systems. But we quarantine them, if you will. Mainly, we block them from sending or receiving from the internet.

There's a lot to how this is done. But there's a lot of help on this site to guide you through setting up a secure system.

 

[SouthernYankee]

You need to read up on using openVPN, totally secure for remote viewing. Never use Wifi for you cameras, wifi is easily block.

Your cameras should be blocked for internet access. That is why the cameras should be on a seperate lan or the cameras mac address should be blocked at the router,

 

[BiigRich]

Southern Yankee, & J Sigmo,

I see your points. I will shut it down today.

As far as the firmware, isn't this part of what the US Government is showing concern over in Huawei and other Chinese branded phones (and other communications technologies)?

With all the hacking going on between the Russians, the Chinese and probably most other countries around the world (USA included), I guess we can't trust any hardware that we give access to, especially inside our networks. I have a Google phone and I don't trust it as far as I can throw it, but I knuckle under and use the little spy hanging off my belt that knows everything I say and everywhere I go too. I don't trust switching off the features either. I guess we all saw the test that was done on the news shows where they carried a totally unsubscribed phone around and as soon as the phone was activated, and did not even have an account, it sent back buffered listings of everywhere the phone was before it was activated to a network.

The bottom line, who can we trust?

Southern Yankee, is openVPN free to use?

I had looked into VPN's but all I saw were free trials and then they want subscription money to keep them working after the trial period. I realize they also slow things down and that is yet another "price to pay" for technology in this not so trustworthy world.

I tried to switch to OpenOffice a number of years ago but I soon realized that most people that I communicate with could not read the documents that I put together and did not understand or want to switch to "Open" products or load translators. Big Brother Microsoft owns that monopoly.

 

[mat200]

Southern Yankee, & J Sigmo,

I see your points. I will shut it down today.

As far as the firmware, isn't this part of what the US Government is showing concern over in Huawei and other Chinese branded phones (and other communications technologies)?

With all the hacking going on between the Russians, the Chinese and probably most other countries around the world (USA included), I guess we can't trust any hardware that we give access to, especially inside our networks. I have a Google phone and I don't trust it as far as I can throw it, but I knuckle under and use the little spy hanging off my belt that knows everything I say and everywhere I go too. I don't trust switching off the features either. I guess we all saw the test that was done on the news shows where they carried a totally unsubscribed phone around and as soon as the phone was activated, and did not even have an account, it sent back buffered listings of everywhere the phone was before it was activated to a network.

The bottom line, who can we trust?

Southern Yankee, is openVPN free to use?

I had looked into VPN's but all I saw were free trials and then they want subscription money to keep them working after the trial period. I realize they also slow things down and that is yet another "price to pay" for technology in this not so trustworthy world.

I tried to switch to OpenOffice a number of years ago but I soon realized that most people that I communicate with could not read the documents that I put together and did not understand or want to switch to "Open" products or load translators. Big Brother Microsoft owns that monopoly.

HI @BiigRich

iirc OpenVPN = open source, so yes free to use ( and modify )

Open Office - you can save documents in .doc format - which MS office can easily read. The more complex power point stuff created from MS Office is a pita. Basic spread sheets from excel seem to work fine.

Hacking Hacking Hacking.. don't think the USA is not good at this.

You can reduce the chances of cyberattacks by following the VPN notes and the security notes ( see the wiki )

 

[J Sigmo]

The thing to understand is that running OpenVPN on your router or other hardware in your system Is NOT the same thing as subscribing to and using a VPN service.

There are a number of ways to set up your own VPN that are free.

If you have a powerful device with enough speed and memory to run your VPN encryption and decryption, it can be so fast that you won't even notice it.

I am using an Asus router that is designed for running a VPN. As such, it has dual processors and quite a bit of RAM, and is designed and optimized for this task. And Asus provides the necessary encryption key service for free as a service to their customers, so setting it up was easy by following a step by step guide I found.

Setting up Openvpn on our phones and tablets was very easy.

Setting up OpenVPN on a PC at work was also easy once I realized that the OpenVPN folks also offer a paid subscription type product, uninstalled that, and then downloaded the product that I actually wanted.

All of this is easy once you know the details. All of the info to do it right can be found on this site.

I'm on my phone right now and can't get to my notes about this all, but lots of other folks can help of you're in a hurry to get started.

The WIKI here and the section about "How not to get hacked" are great.

I didn't know how to do any of this, but found the information here, or links to other guides, etc., that lead me through it.

I like the Asus router for its ability to "host" the VPN, and its parental controls that make it easy to block specific IP addresses/MAC addresses on your LAN from access to the internet.

My only complaint is that this blocking is limited to 16 devices and it's easy to exceed that. Between cameras, controllers, printers, etc., I'm all out, and need to find a better way to quarantine more gadgets!

I think I need a larger managed switch that has this capability. I wish Asus would release a firmware update for their routers that would expand the "parental controls" to at least 32 items.

 

[BiigRich]

mat200, J Sigmo, & Southern Yankee,

I guess I've been out of the field for too long. I downloaded OpenVPN installed it and immediately got lost. So, for the time being, I have uninstalled it.

I looked at the sample server and client config files and they were over my head for now.

I will look into a hardware VPN host and eventually add clients. At the speed I learn it will take a long time for me to grasp the configuration files for this server/client relationship of OpenVPN software.

All great advice here. Thanks.

 

[mat200]

mat200, J Sigmo, & Southern Yankee,

I guess I've been out of the field for too long. I downloaded OpenVPN installed it and immediately got lost. So, for the time being, I have uninstalled it.

I looked at the sample server and client config files and they were over my head for now.

I will look into a hardware VPN host and eventually add clients. At the speed I learn it will take a long time for me to grasp the configuration files for this server/client relationship of OpenVPN software.

All great advice here. Thanks.

Hi @BiigRich

fyi - ASUS routers iirc include OpenVPN on them... perhaps that would be a good option.

 

[J Sigmo]

I second the recommendation to get one of the higher-end Asus routers. They have OpenVPN already installed, and they have the memory and CPU power to perform the encryption and decryption fast. Also, they have the ability to block up to 16 devices from the internet. So they really simplify things!

But even setting that up seemed daunting to me. But there's a step by step guide for setting up the VPN on the router, obtaining the encryption keys, and then getting that all set up on a phone or tablet. If you decide to go that way, let me know, and I'll find a link to that guide that I used.

The only thing that it didn't cover was how to set up OpenVPN client on the PC that I often use from work. But I found help here for that, too.

All of the helpful info here and in that guide (which was recommended here) got me through all of this.

Once set up, it's great not only for remotely viewing our cameras, but also for securely surfing, shopping, etc., when on any insecure public WiFi system such as in an airport or hotel, etc.

Our ISP at home is fast via a cable company, and even if I stream TV or movies remotely from work or out of town through our VPN, and thus through our home internet connection, that data being received through the router, then encrypted by the router and sent back out, then decrypted by my phone or PC has been flawless and appears to have no impact on people at home also streaming movies or TV, etc.

And this also goes for streaming the video and audio from our security cameras as well. It seems fast, glitch-free, and seemingly has no impact on users on the home network.

So I'm pretty impressed by the speed of everything.

 

[VorlonFrog]

For a lower powered and inexpensive router, consider an ASUS model TM-AC1900 and flash the bootloader/CFE so it becomes an RT-AC68U. For about three times as much, the Asus RT-86U has a high-speed dual-core processor with encryption hardwired on/in the CPU.

 

[BiigRich]

For a lower powered and inexpensive router, consider an ASUS model TM-AC1900 and flash the bootloader/CFE so it becomes an RT-AC68U. For about three times as much, the Asus RT-86U has a high-speed dual-core processor with encryption hardwired on/in the CPU.

Interesting. Are there any tricks to flashing the TM-AC1900 with the RT-AC68U firmware? I ask because some firmware updates check the model they are flashing before writing the new F/W so you don't brick the device.

 

[VorlonFrog]

Interesting. Are there any tricks to flashing the TM-AC1900 with the RT-AC68U firmware? I ask because some firmware updates check the model they are flashing before writing the new F/W so you don't brick the device.

Biggest thing is clearing the MTD5 partition of the T-Mobile certificates after writing the new CFE. If you load DD-WRT firmware on them, it re-writes all the partitions anyway.

 

[VorlonFrog]

Biggest thing is clearing the MTD5 partition of the T-Mobile certificates after writing the new CFE. If you load DD-WRT firmware on them, it re-writes all the partitions anyway.

FYI, I have several of these TM-AC1900 running DD-WRT around the house, but switched my main router for the much more capable RT-AC86U last year. OpenVPN is a lot faster with the newer hardware. It worked well enough before, but is LOTS faster/smoother now. Well worth the higher cost, for me. It won’t run DD-WRT but Asus/Merlin works well.

 

[usaf_pride]

Holy crap. If you are upgrading your wireless router just for OpenVPN, there are way cheaper options. Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X or even a rPi with it installed. If your wireless stinks, get something new, but I've switched to a separate router and "lite commercial" access points and haven't looked back.