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I need help advocating for privacy in my HOA, which wants to set up cameras in common areas
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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These "user-friendly" network cameras are frequently bought and set up by people who have no idea what they're doing, which leads to thousands of them being accessible to anyone on the Internet:
Bitsight Identifies Thousands of Security Cameras Openly Accessible on the Internet
Wyze cameras let some owners see into a stranger’s home — again
Security startup Verkada hack exposes 150,000 security cameras in Tesla factories, jails, and more
Somebody’s Watching: Hackers Breach Ring Home Security Cameras
Even the companies that make and distribute these cameras don't secure them properly.
In some of these cases getting access to the camera barely even qualifies as hacking. If you know the web address of the camera you can just type it into your web browser and get the live video feed because it's just being streamed to the public Internet, no authentication or encryption. That means someone on the other side of the planet or someone in the house next door can just start watching what's going on in your house.
If the HOA insists on installing cameras, you should insist that they hire a professional to install and configure them correctly and maintain them long-term to prevent security breaches. Someone has to keep the firmware/software up to date when the manufacturer releases security patches and bug fixes, not just for the cameras but also for the network they're connected to. This means you don't just need to pay for one-time installation, you need to hire an employee long-term.
I would also ask the pushy neighbor if he was specifically planning on buying Wyze cameras for this. They've had multiple security problems in recent years.
A halfway intelligent thief could just use the camera to see where things worth stealing are kept and what time of day is best for breaking in unnoticed. If this is not done properly it will make the security worse, not better.
I have Wyze cameras and can confirm. On a handful of occasions, I've opened my app to thumbnails or livestreams of places I do not recognize. I'll probably change this up at some point when I can afford to replace them and get a better hang of Home Assistant.
Hi fellow HA user in the wild.
Whatever cams you go with, most important thing is that they support a direct rtsp connection. Frigate is an excellent add-on for recording, and for object detection if you want to do that.
We have some generic IP cameras here that have local access only, and a couple of Arduino camera PCBs in printed housings.
A coral TPU is essential if you want to get into object detection on more than one camera. Can use the CPU for testing, but it's very easy to tap it out.
This is the right way.
No proprietary SaaS portals, no cloud uploads, no apps, no external network links.
Hopefully the local connections are encrypted and the devices on the network are segmented into VLANs, otherwise anyone on the local network could just watch the video stream.
Honestly have not bothered too much on the internal security side. Everything is in a melting pot on the same subnet, with pfsense managing what's allowed out. At the very least, the cams and any other accessible internal devices do not run default/duplicated credentials.
Only two users on the network, and the occasional trusted guest. I don't see the need to go further quite yet.
Yes! Thank you so much these are great points! And yeah, they are proposing Wyze cameras
Might also be worth pointing out in an HOA meeting that if this guy buys and configures the cameras himself then he has access to watch everybody. How much does the rest of the community trust this guy to not be creeping on everyone else?
And much like video games, a lot of this type of hardware is only supported as long as the manufacturer decides that it's worth their time.
What's going to happen to all this surveillance equipment when the cheapo manufacturer declares it all obsolete? Because no HOA is going to dish out the big bucks for high quality equipment from a reputable supplier and monthly fees for maintenance by a qualified specialist.
This is really good, too. Maybe just show the decision makers Shodan and your job is done.