This sort of thing really worries me. I don’t think that it’s at all about “catching criminals” or protecting one’s family.
I suspect these are mostly where internet sex tapes come from.
How is having a spy camera going to protect you?
I suppose if you had a spy camera running while you were doing a job interview with Louis C.K. it would have helped, but mostly all I can think of is how these are tools for abuse.
The picture at the top – of the mandatorily-hooded “bad guy” peering through the door-chain – implies burglary or home invasion are threats that this camera somehow helps with? Perhaps it would be useful after a bunch of cops kick your door in and shoot you, or something like that. But, by then, it’s too late for you.
If that was the plug/usb thingy in my kitchen, it would show the underside of the table. Or the floor.
If I saw that eyeball at my door, I’d jam a knitting needle into it.
What is that “little girl” up to? I don’t like the look of her.
It’s like that “useful idiot” thing the spies talk about. Advertising like that is a pitch to let you take advantage of that for your own gain. If you’re a moron, why not be your own “useful idiot” and go along with some really stupid reasoning that lets you do some skeezy shit you wanted to do anyway? Probably what you’re doing with it is protecting your family from the dangers of their own privacy (whatever those may be). Likely without telling them because you wouldn’t want to disturb the poor dears, right?
On a side note, things like this make me glad I’m not inclined towards being a voyeur. It seems like something that wouldn’t be any harder than any other sexual fetish to do ethically but you get stuck with stuff like this as the only way the general populace hears about it. This ad is clearly a dishonest shell game.
A $1 pack of three stickers that say “under CCTV surveillance” is more effective than an actual camera. All you need is an ordinary-looking folder with a hidden compartment to keep those stickers in.
I have occasionally considered placing some webcams for security purposes. First I would have to get a computer to hook them up to. Then I would have to figure out some sort of hard-to-detect remote disk placement inside a wall or something, in case they stole the computer.
The photos above don’t explain whether this is a stand-alone item or if it is connected somehow (the radiating blue lines suggest a wifi connection perhaps?). If it is just passing data to a computer, then you have the same issue about the computer being stolen.
That’s easily solved by continuously uploading the images to a server somewhere. Some vendors even provide this service (for a recurring fee), and a lot of IP connected webcams can upload to your own hosting provider (where it’s easy to set up a dedicated FTP account with permission to create and write files, but not read or delete, just in case the thieves steal the camera and obtain the FTP password). Of course, you need decent broadband for that, and there’s an ongoing cost.
To be fair, I don’t expect this kind of product to be that well designed. It probably has a small amount of internal flash memory, or something equally inconvenient. Such as no memory at all and you need to have your Windows PC turned on and running their application. Or maybe it’s an analog video camera with an RF transmitter, so you also need a receiver — and it records on your VCR.