Hey there - it's finally Friday and we hope you've had a good week so far despite the world going a bit crazy.
We haven't opened our Quora feed recently and we thought it'd be a great time to pull some questions and answer them - and do we have some amazing questions this week. It's still mostly about security cameras, but this week we'll be dealing with questions about general safety tips with IP cameras, how do dispose of them when you actually need to, and some much needed information about security cameras.
Without further ado, let's get started!
This one is easy - you can throw away a broken IP camera, but make sure that you have disabled everything that there is to do with that IP camera.
While highly unlikely, people can pull information from the broken camera, grab information like logins or any of the sort, and gain access to your account that used to manage the IP security camera.
Worse yet - if you’re still using the same account and same credentials to actually manage other working IP cameras, they can pull information and access to that account. And that means they have access to the existing cameras installed in your home as well.
If you do have to throw it away or if the IP camera has been mangled beyond recognition, or if it’s just plain broken, do the following things:
That being said, the first two tips are usually enough to make sure that you’re safe when you dispose of a security camera.
If you’re looking for more tips to secure your security camera, whether you’re disposing of it or not, here’s an article where we at Elinz pulled expert opinion to stay safe online with your security cameras.
That’s because security isn’t one dimensional. We at Elinz manufacture security cameras, but we don’t advertise that you only need security cameras to keep your home safe.
They’re great deterrents for sure, but we agree with security experts when they say that security needs to be taken seriously with an integrated approach. And when we say integrated, that means you can’t just rely all your home’s security on one factor - it needs to be multiple factors/items working hand in hand.
For example: if you have a security camera, making sure that you have secure locks, a dog roaming your property, tall enough walls and a working alarm system is an integrated approach to security.
If you can replicate the same system in your home or your business, then that’s much better - it’ll work so well that you won’t even feel any problem with crime and criminality (for most business and homes).
And it can’t be just physical security, either - surveillance and actual deterrence need to work hand in hand when it comes to security. How can manpower be allotted properly when it comes to security when there isn’t any actual data to base on how they can be allotted?
Should physical security fail, having a digital form of security and some surveillance can be help law enforcers follow up on any crimes that occur in your property.
Sure, somebody can do it - if you have IP security cameras in your apartment building, then its possible. If you’re worried about it and you’d like to live in a place that’s a little more secure, then talk to your landlord and get it sorted out.
Make sure that they have a secure password on it, and that the camera itself isn’t trained on a specific doorway, or isn’t picking up on any audio from any room in your apartment building.
If they’re analog, like old CCTV security cameras, then they’re a harder, if not nearly impossible to actually hack into a turn into a live feed. The only live feed it has is if its connected to a display, which is connected to the DVR that’s used for surveillance in the building.
Again, it all depends on how your super installed the security camera - any IP camera or NVR system can be very secure provided that whoever did the installation did a pretty solid work of securing its access to the wider internet.
On the more positive end of things - barely no one would tap into security camera feeds these days. On the off chance that they do, ask your building super to make sure that its taking footage from a extremely innocuous place in your building, such as a hallway, a stairwell, or any other part of the building.
Older CCTV cameras had massive housings because of the same reason why computers were massive back in the day - we haven’t figured out technology to keep store of data and footage in smaller spaces just yet!
The first CCTVs were around as far back as the 1940’s in its very rudimentary state and had to physically store footage; come analog footage, it still required some form of storage that can take up a lot of space, seeing as digital rewriting still wasn’t a thing yet.
The cameras themselves were also an issue - they were massive compared to today’s extremely small security cameras.
Today, security cameras can make use of SD card storage; some would even be as small as a couple of fingers, and don’t even store the footage locally - it just sends out the footage across the internet to save into the cloud!
Here are some pretty exciting reasons why.
Security systems these days, especially security cameras, aren’t all that expensive anymore. Depending on the size of the property that you’ll be putting under surveillance/securing, you’ll find that you’ll have to spend less for better quality compared to older variants and brands. Speaking of which…
You’ll have lots of options and alternatives. With the tech becoming more and more affordable, you can cherry pick which security provider/electronics manufacturer to get your sale. You can pick the best features and price you deem fit.
There are some pretty amazing features these days that can be seen in security cameras. Some features that were deemed as premium or top of the line before, such as motion sensing, alarm system syncing, auto-tracking, pan-tilt-zoom : these are considered as commonplace features now, and you can get them for cheap.
Not to alarm anyone, but people who are looking to commit crimes are also wisening up. Any additional technology that you can employ will be extremely helpful in making sure that your home or property is safe.
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We hope this week's entry was helpful and helped answer some of your questions about security cameras! Do stay tuned and we'll be sure to add more information from our Quora feed. In the mean time, do swing by our security cameras category if you're thinking of upgrading anytime soon, or equipping your home with reliable security cameras.
Shop smartly and from the safety of your home today with Elinz!
