
Anybody willing to reverse engineer cheap DVRs? - squarefoot
A few years ago I installed two cheap+chinese+noname DVRs to a customer
shops. They did their job and he was able to bust one of his employees
stealing stuff. When I got to upgrade his XP PCs to Linux a problem arose:
these boxes, as many other similar ones, require a Windows ActiveX to be
installed client side.
While it is possible to make the ActiveX work on newer (tested on W7)
systems, it requires lowering all security options which on Windows is
asking for troubles.
I also tried installing them on Virtualbox XP machines on Linux hosts
to no avail: they install but fail loading, so he&#x27;s stuck with XP.<p>I was about to surrender when the news about DVRs being used as botnet
slaves hit the presses; this is a huge problem as there are a huge load
of those boxes out there.
I wonder if someone could create a project aimed at reverse engineering
those unnamed boxes in order to replace their internal OS with a fully
open source and trustworthy one.<p>Note that all those boxes contain Linux, though they force the user to 
install an ActiveX control, therefore requiring a Windows client.
Most of those boxes point for downloading the ActiveX to a long
dead address, but the installer can be found online by looking for
&quot;TSWebClient_EN_SetUp&quot;. I could install the same ActiveX to a PC and 
connect to 4 different DVRs, so I believe they&#x27;re just branded and
dressed different but the guts are pretty much the same even if they had
ports placed elsewhere.<p>By the way, once reverse engineered those boxes can become nice hacking
platforms. They have SATA, HDMI, VGA, USB, some gpio or serial
ports used for PTZ and 4&#x2F;8 video inputs which means <i>very</i> fast ADCs.
They cost new just like a RasPI 3 but the recent appearance of AHD&#x2F;hybrid
ones will inevitably bring the used price to a few bucks or less.<p>Should a reverse engineering project already exist, I&#x27;m willing to donate
some quid plus a working box to the hackers.
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detaro
any examples (e.g. product names, shop links) of what set of devices you are
talking about? Helps searching for existing projects.

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squarefoot
Hi, sorry for not posting links, I believed they were well known devices. Just
do a search on ebay for "h264 dvr 4ch". Example:
[http://www.ebay.com/itm/131590806530](http://www.ebay.com/itm/131590806530)

