Not sure which camera to acquire for my business

[VanillaH]

Hello everyone,

I'm operating a company that allows customers to buy Bitcoin with cash. For that, we team up with local companies by installing a handheld terminal in their stores. When customers come into a store to buy Bitcoin, the merchant use our handheld terminal to conduct the transaction. The handheld terminal operates on Android 7 and we have fully coded the software that runs on it.

In order to improve our security and to help us comply with regulations, we are looking to install a security camera in each store (we have 20+). Ideally, the camera would allow us to do two things:

• Take a picture every X seconds when a transaction begins and until it's over. The pictures are then sent to our server alongside a transaction UUID generated by our handheld terminal.
• The camera records video and audio 24/7, but the footage is stored on an SD card. This is both to save storage on our end and to save bandwidth on the store's end. Then, we would be able to retrieve specific footage over the Internet when we need to.

We work with the following constraints:

• The quality of the Internet connection and the bandwidth available vary wildly across the stores. Therefore, we want our footprint on the store's Internet connection to be limited.
• We want the camera to cost less than $60 US. 720P quality is enough for our needs.
• The handheld terminal only support wireless connections.
• Merchants don't like the idea of being filmed by us.

My question is: what's the best camera to achieve our goals?

Disclaimer: I have never worked with security cameras before. After doing my research, the best fit I have found is the Armcrest IPM-721S. It comes with a software to see live streams and playbacks, which are stored on the camera's SD card. It also comes with a HTTP API to take snapshots. However, my partner doesn't like the camera because it's big enough to remind merchants they are being filmed. I said I would look for smaller cameras with the same features, but I haven't found any.

At this point, the only idea I have is to buy a generic ONVIF camera that emits an RTSP stream. When a transaction begins, the handheld terminal would connect to the RTSP stream and record footage until the transaction is over. When it is, it would extract snapshots from the footage and send them to our server. The footage itself would be saved on the terminal's SD card and I would design some sort of mechanism to retrieve it on-demand. It seems doable, but complicated.

 

[mat200]

Hello everyone,

I'm operating a company that allows customers to buy Bitcoin with cash. For that, we team up with local companies by installing a handheld terminal in their stores. When customers come into a store to buy Bitcoin, the merchant use our handheld terminal to conduct the transaction. The handheld terminal operates on Android 7 and we have fully coded the software that runs on it.

In order to improve our security and to help us comply with regulations, we are looking to install a security camera in each store (we have 20+). Ideally, the camera would allow us to do two things:

• Take a picture every X seconds when a transaction begins and until it's over. The pictures are then sent to our server alongside a transaction UUID generated by our handheld terminal.
• The camera records video and audio 24/7, but the footage is stored on an SD card. This is both to save storage on our end and to save bandwidth on the store's end. Then, we would be able to retrieve specific footage over the Internet when we need to.

We work with the following constraints:

• The quality of the Internet connection and the bandwidth available vary wildly across the stores. Therefore, we want our footprint on the store's Internet connection to be limited.
• We want the camera to cost less than $60 US. 720P quality is enough for our needs.
• The handheld terminal only support wireless connections.
• Merchants don't like the idea of being filmed by us.

My question is: what's the best camera to achieve our goals?

Disclaimer: I have never worked with security cameras before. After doing my research, the best fit I have found is the Armcrest IPM-721S. It comes with a software to see live streams and playbacks, which are stored on the camera's SD card. It also comes with a HTTP API to take snapshots. However, my partner doesn't like the camera because it's big enough to remind merchants they are being filmed. I said I would look for smaller cameras with the same features, but I haven't found any.

At this point, the only idea I have is to buy a generic ONVIF camera that emits an RTSP stream. When a transaction begins, the handheld terminal would connect to the RTSP stream and record footage until the transaction is over. When it is, it would extract snapshots from the footage and send them to our server. The footage itself would be saved on the terminal's SD card and I would design some sort of mechanism to retrieve it on-demand. It seems doable, but complicated.

Hi @VanillaH

Please do check the cliff notes out. See the DORI info section in particular. Redefine your specs as to what you want from the cameras first, instead of "price" first...

You have a more unique situation than most, and probably should be looking for a paid consultant to assist as there are cyber security considerations that you need to address.

Yes, you should be looking for a good info-sec consultant who knows security cameras.

 

[VanillaH]

Hi @VanillaH

Please do check the cliff notes out. See the DORI info section in particular. Redefine your specs as to what you want from the cameras first, instead of "price" first...

You have a more unique situation than most, and probably should be looking for a paid consultant to assist as there are cyber security considerations that you need to address.

Yes, you should be looking for a good info-sec consultant who knows security cameras.

Thank you for your answer.

I haven't had much luck with paid consultants. This is why I'm turning to forums. If you know a competent consultant, I would be more than glad to pay them.

I will be looking at the cliff notes in the following hours and redefine my specs in accordance with them.

Regards.

 

[mat200]

Thank you for your answer.

I haven't had much luck with paid consultants. This is why I'm turning to forums. If you know a competent consultant, I would be more than glad to pay them.

I will be looking at the cliff notes in the following hours and redefine my specs in accordance with them.

Regards.

Hi @VanillaH

"I haven't had much luck with paid consultants."

I can think of a number of questions which would need to be asked to get a better idea of what is being asked.

Since this is a high risk camera setup in terms of cyber security it is not a simple "plug this camera in and all is solved" case.

How are you looking for consultants? ( what websites? groups for recommendations?)
What is your requirements when looking for consultants?
What is the skill set of your current IT team?
How much are you offering for compensation?
What stage is your company in?
What type of company is it?
How are you funded?

 

[Mike A.]

What's the purpose of the images captured? Identification of the buyer? In that case, seems that it would be easier/cleaner to just take a snapshot (maybe with the same hand-held device)? You'll have time stamps, transaction IDs, receipts, and whatever other tags that you can use to link buyer/transaction. Could code to send the image along as part of work flow of the application. No separate device that way and no integration/other headaches of dealing with another device, risk of images not being captured/stored, etc. Likely better images for identification too since composed. You'd also eliminate the concern of the merchant as far as being on cam.

If you're trying to capture all aspect of the transaction including the merchant, then I'd think that you'd want to record continuously. Too many potential missed moments otherwise even with short intervals. Also, SD cards tend to be not very reliable in these types of cam. I would not want to depend on that if this is a critical aspect of the business. Maybe as a secondary backup. They're also relatively easily removed, deleted, etc.

Why are you capturing video/audio 24x7 in a store that's not yours? Independent of any transaction?

 

[VanillaH]

Hi @VanillaH

"I haven't had much luck with paid consultants."

I can think of a number of questions which would need to be asked to get a better idea of what is being asked.

Since this is a high risk camera setup in terms of cyber security it is not a simple "plug this camera in and all is solved" case.

How are you looking for consultants? ( what websites? groups for recommendations?)
What is your requirements when looking for consultants?
What is the skill set of your current IT team?
How much are you offering for compensation?
What stage is your company in?
What type of company is it?
How are you funded?

What type of company is it? It's a company that allows people to buy Bitcoin with cash. We install ATMs and Tellers. We are looking to install cameras only for our Tellers.
How are you looking for consultants? ( what websites? groups for recommendations?) I've been contacting several IT consulting companies. They wanted to sell us very expensive cameras that more-or-less did what we wanted. I've also contacted a business security company, but they wanted to charge us $200 per month per store. I understand the price requirement is "boring", but it's a requirement nonetheless as our Teller model can be successful only if it scales -- ie, it's cheap to deploy a setup in a store.
What is your requirements when looking for consultants? I'm not fully sure what skill set the consultant needs to have. I had hoped it would become clearer by talking with them, but it hasn't. They don't need to do everything from scratch as we do have programmers.
What is the skill set of your current IT team? They are Java and PHP programmers.
What stage is your company in? It's a very small startup.
How much are you offering for compensation? Our means are limited, but we can pay several thousand dollars. Up to $6,000, I'd say.
How are you funded? A private investor has lent money to launch the company a year and a half ago.

You can find more details in my answer to Mike below.

I'll be reading the cliff notes now and come back to you later on.

What's the purpose of the images captured? Identification of the buyer? In that case, seems that it would be easier/cleaner to just take a snapshot (maybe with the same hand-held device)? You'll have time stamps, transaction IDs, receipts, and whatever other tags that you can use to link buyer/transaction. Could code to send the image along as part of work flow of the application. No separate device that way and no integration/other headaches of dealing with another device, risk of images not being captured/stored, etc. Likely better images for identification too since composed. You'd also eliminate the concern of the merchant as far as being on cam.

If you're trying to capture all aspect of the transaction including the merchant, then I'd think that you'd want to record continuously. Too many potential missed moments otherwise even with short intervals. Also, SD cards tend to be not very reliable in these types of cam. I would not want to depend on that if this is a critical aspect of the business. Maybe as a secondary backup. They're also relatively easily removed, deleted, etc.

Why are you capturing video/audio 24x7 in a store that's not yours? Independent of any transaction?

Identification of the buyer is one of the main reasons. Indeed, our initial idea was to tell the merchant to give the handheld terminal at a very specific moment to the buyer so that it could take snapshots of them through its front camera. Two issues made this idea worthless: 1. Merchants do not trust buyers to give them a terminal that can send Bitcoins (even if it's PIN-protected); 2. Even when they do, the buyer has to be very much correctly positioned for us to have good snapshots. We thought about asking the merchant to formally take a picture of the customer with the handheld terminal, but this is problematic too: people who buy Bitcoins with cash are usually privacy-minded. If we scare them, they'll run to competitors who, often, don't make any sort of verification at all (and legally, they don't yet have to). Therefore, we want the process to be invisible to the buyer too.

Another reason for a camera is that we want to deter merchants (well, mostly their employees, actually) to steal from us.

24x7 video/audio is to be sure that we don't miss any moment. However, it's not so much mandatory as we could record footage only when a transaction is happening. The idea is for us to be able to review a transaction when we need to -- for instance, to fill a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) for the government.

 

[mat200]

What type of company is it? It's a company that allows people to buy Bitcoin with cash. We install ATMs and Tellers. We are looking to install cameras only for our Tellers.
How are you looking for consultants? ( what websites? groups for recommendations?) I've been contacting several IT consulting companies. They wanted to sell us very expensive cameras that more-or-less did what we wanted. I've also contacted a business security company, but they wanted to charge us $200 per month per store. I understand the price requirement is "boring", but it's a requirement nonetheless as our Teller model can be successful only if it scales -- ie, it's cheap to deploy a setup in a store.
What is your requirements when looking for consultants? I'm not fully sure what skill set the consultant needs to have. I had hoped it would become clearer by talking with them, but it hasn't. They don't need to do everything from scratch as we do have programmers.
What is the skill set of your current IT team? They are Java and PHP programmers.
What stage is your company in? It's a very small startup.
How much are you offering for compensation? Our means are limited, but we can pay several thousand dollars. Up to $6,000, I'd say.
How are you funded? A private investor has lent money to launch the company a year and a half ago.

You can find more details in my answer to Mike below.

I'll be reading the cliff notes now and come back to you later on.



Identification of the buyer is one of the main reasons. Indeed, our initial idea was to tell the merchant to give the handheld terminal at a very specific moment to the buyer so that it could take snapshots of them through its front camera. Two issues made this idea worthless: 1. Merchants do not trust buyers to give them a terminal that can send Bitcoins (even if it's PIN-protected); 2. Even when they do, the buyer has to be very much correctly positioned for us to have good snapshots. We thought about asking the merchant to formally take a picture of the customer with the handheld terminal, but this is problematic too: people who buy Bitcoins with cash are usually privacy-minded. If we scare them, they'll run to competitors who, often, don't make any sort of verification at all (and legally, they don't yet have to). Therefore, we want the process to be invisible to the buyer too.

Another reason for a camera is that we want to deter merchants (well, mostly their employees, actually) to steal from us.

24x7 video/audio is to be sure that we don't miss any moment. However, it's not so much mandatory as we could record footage only when a transaction is happening. The idea is for us to be able to review a transaction when we need to -- for instance, to fill a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) for the government.

1)
What type of company is it? It's a company that allows people to buy Bitcoin with cash. We install ATMs and Tellers. We are looking to install cameras only for our Tellers.

Reply: Corp? LLC? LLP? Sole proprietorship? .. VC funded?

2)
How are you looking for consultants? ( what websites? groups for recommendations?) I've been contacting several IT consulting companies. They wanted to sell us very expensive cameras that more-or-less did what we wanted. I've also contacted a business security company, but they wanted to charge us $200 per month per store. I understand the price requirement is "boring", but it's a requirement nonetheless as our Teller model can be successful only if it scales -- ie, it's cheap to deploy a setup in a store.
What is your requirements when looking for consultants? I'm not fully sure what skill set the consultant needs to have. I had hoped it would become clearer by talking with them, but it hasn't. They don't need to do everything from scratch as we do have programmers.

What is the skill set of your current IT team? They are Java and PHP programmers.

What stage is your company in? It's a very small startup.

Reply:
You need a good info-sec person, and that will cost some change.
You need an info-sec person to help you with your entire design of the complete system.

If you do not have that talent onboard, you will need to find a way to pay for that.

3)
How much are you offering for compensation? Our means are limited, but we can pay several thousand dollars. Up to $6,000, I'd say.

Reply:
You may need to budget more, as there's a lot of work to be done. And you probably have to pay not a flat fee.

4)
How are you funded? A private investor has lent money to launch the company a year and a half ago.

Reply:
Sounds like you are underfunded, and short on time as bitcoin is hot now and may not be if the development takes too long.. ( updated what I wrote )

Most IoT / IP cameras are full of security holes.. you have to be very cautious with that risk when doing bitcoin related business

Bitcoin is now a major cyber attack target you need to be better funded.

 

[Mike A.]

Any number of cams that would do what you want at a basic level from inexpensive as you'd pointed to up through more elaborate and discrete pinhole cams that could be better hidden with intelligent features and an API you can use, e.g.:

4MP Covert Network Pinhole Camera System

us.dahuasecurity.com

EOL: 4MP Covert Network Pinhole Camera System – Dahua Technology USA Inc

us.dahuasecurity.com

Again, I wouldn't want to rely on SD cards as the sole storage media if this is critical.

I guess I'm a little confused why you'd need to do this at all. You're selling them Bitcoin. You have them handing you cash money. Done? They can't really defraud you. You have their money. If anything, they might want the pictures to prove that they bought it from you. ; )

Similarly as far as a merchant stealing from you. It's not your store. The money in the drawer isn't yours. From your app you'll have a record of the transaction and what's owed to you with whatever split to the merchant. You don't really care about anyone pocketing money otherwise. Right? Or are you fronting the cash to the merchant?

I guess there may be some KYC rules in play at some general level but not sure how that works for digital currency specifically (if at all). Seems like anything along those lines would not require images. Doesn't in any other similar case.