
Perch: CCTV your home with old smartphones - singold
https://getperch.com/
======
mark_ellul
wow, did you read the privacy statement....

For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like videos (“IP
Content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to the
limitations set forth in our Privacy Policy: you grant us a non-exclusive,
perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty- free, worldwide
license to use any IP Content that you post on or in connection with Perch.

So anything you record using their service will be theirs!

~~~
gohrt
This is standard boilerplate for all content-hosting services. It gives them
permission to handle the video in the product. And also to use it however else
they want.

YouTube, for example:
[https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms](https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms)
""" By submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide,
non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use,
reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the
Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and
affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and
redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in
any media formats and through any media channels. """

~~~
userbinator
YouTube is a different situation because content you put there is usually
intended to be broadcast anyway; security camera recordings are not.

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TeMPOraL
Oh, another cloud IoT thingie.

Seriously, this is ridiculous. Privacy aside, once again, this data should not
be streamed all around the world just like that, not to mention being saved on
third party servers.

We need to have a serious conversation about IoT and the cloud. We need a
brain-dead simple protocol for setting up direct connections between devices
in the same network and turning some of them into servers. Something that will
not require technical expertise to set up if properly coded on devices. And
after that, we should start expecting startups to use it. _Dependence_ on
third-party cloud services should _not_ be an acceptable business model.

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Asbostos
What I find a bit of a shame is how dependent on the cloud it is. I live in a
country where the internet isn't reliable, fast or secure so any cloud
services are a barely worth the hassle or simply no-go if the government
blocks them. I know that small US startups won't spend resources making their
service work in "backward" markets like mine. I'm hoping to find a local set
of applications that can just store video on a computer hidden in a closet
with internet notifications being optional rather than essential.

The basic idea sounds great - nearly everyone has an old smartphone, maybe
with a bad battery that can still work fine powered by USB.

~~~
soylentcola
[https://www.ispyconnect.com/](https://www.ispyconnect.com/)

I've used this with cheap ($100-150) IP cameras and I believe there are mobile
applications that can make a smartphone act as an IP camera as well, although
I'd imagine they may not always be ideal since they're not meant to be
running/recording like that all the time.

Still, I've done exactly what you describe before getting a NAS with
surveillance/IPCam monitoring software. Run iSpy on an old computer in a
closet, set it up so the recordings go in your Drive/Dropbox/etc. folder and
set the max archive size depending on your available storage or how much you
want to eat up. That way your stuff if stored locally and you can still access
recent recordings elsewhere via your online storage. You can skip the online
storage part if you want, or I believe there is a "pro" service with iSpy that
gives online options but I never used them.

On its own, it's a great bit of software and once you tweak the settings a bit
(recording quality/format, motion detection sensitivity, etc) it's pretty
flexible and you should be able to get it working reasonably well on even
older hardware. I've run it on old Core2Duo laptops as well as my more modern
desktop. Encoding lots of streams can get demanding on the old gear but for a
cam or two it's not too bad.

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userbinator
So the traffic goes from the smartphone to Perch's servers, then from their
servers to your client? Even setting the privacy implications aside, that
seems a terribly roundabout way of doing it, as I'm pretty sure any Android-
capable device is more than powerful enough to act as a standalone network
camera itself.

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lmontrieux
Oh, what a fantastic idea. Just take an old smartphone that the manufacturer
stopped shipping security updates for ages ago (if they ever did it at all),
and get it to record what goes on inside your home. What could possibly go
wrong?

You might want to look at
[http://androidvulnerabilities.org/](http://androidvulnerabilities.org/) to
see the sorry state of security on Android phones. The older they get, of
course, the worse it is.

~~~
userbinator
All I see are tons of local privilege escalation, which is concerning if you
like to download and run random not-very-trustworthy apps, but it's actually
not of much significance if all you're using the phone for is as a network
camera. IMHO these are the _good_ exploits, since they let you get root and
have full control over the device so you can repurpose it more easily for
other things... like network cameras.

Remote exploits that require no user action are the only thing to worry about
here, and Stagefright is AFAIK the only one I've heard about so far (simple
solution: take the SIM card out - what do you need it for in this application
anyway?)

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finnn
I use IP Webcam[0] which can do motion detection and capture. I've recently
been experimenting with combining it with FolderSync[1] to sync to my OwnCloud
instance. For real time monitoring I can of course connect directly to IP
Webcam's web interface and watch the feed, toggle the flash, etc. It'd be nice
if someone made a unified solution to do this that doesn't include uploading
all of your data to someone else.

[0]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pas.webcam...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pas.webcam&hl=en)

[1]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.tacit.andro...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.tacit.android.foldersync.lite)

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msravi
Perch is a division of Samsung Research America, Inc. (“SRA”). The Personal
Information collected by Perch may be shared within SRA or with entities that
are controlled by, under common control with, or control SRA. This Privacy
Policy is further subject to the terms and conditions of the then-current
Samsung Privacy Policy, which you can access . In the event of any express
conflict between the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy and the terms
and conditions of the then-current Samsung Privacy Policy, the terms and
conditions of the then-current Samsung Privacy Policy shall govern solely with
respect to that conflict.

I just really don't trust Samsung - especially when their privacy policy
overrides whatever privacy policy Perch has.

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not_throwaway
When I saw the headline, I assumed it was the latest incarnation of Vancouver
startup Perch -- [https://perch.co/](https://perch.co/). Same name, same idea.

The "Perch is a division of Samsung Research America" line in their privacy
policy makes me think they were acquired by Samsung and their product ported
from iOS to Android.

Anyone have any more information? I can't find any announcements of an
acquisition or acqui-hire at all.

Perch had been pretty quiet for the last few months, so a fire sale to Samsung
wouldn't surprise me.

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pokoleo
> Closed-circuit television (CCTV), is the use of video cameras to transmit a
> signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors.

_sigh_

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SunboX
You can do this with a few lines of code in Firefox OS. For example, I did a
SMS gateway server lately: [https://github.com/SunboX/fxos-HTTP-SMS-
Gateway](https://github.com/SunboX/fxos-HTTP-SMS-Gateway) A WiFi enabled
camera wouldn't be much different.

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retrogradeorbit
Who has multiple spare smart phones just lying around? And with working
Internet access? Surely it's cheaper (and more private and secure) to just use
cheap IP cameras?

~~~
Asbostos
Anyone who's upgraded their phone or replaced it because the battery stopped
holding charge. Internet access would be free via wifi which most people have
in their homes.

So I'd doubt that an IP camera is cheaper. If anything, a phone sounds like an
ideal low cost IP camera just due to the enormously bigger size of the market
and the piles of unused ones lying around.

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gohrt
When scrolling down the page _didn 't scroll down the page_, I gave up and
closed the window.

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Kristine1975
>See What’s Happening At Home

Nothing. There. Didn't need your service.

