some time ago someone thought it would be a good idea to be able to look at there security camera from any place in the world, by sending the feeds over the internet rather than through a LAN. they post the feeds on a URL that is a combination of the cameras IP address, and the file types that the video player uses.

the ability to “hack” them with google comes from the fact that you can give google a “inurl:” command that will search the url rather than the site contents (since feeds have evry little of the latter). you enter the type of file extension that that brand of camera uses after the command, and it will search the web for URL’s that end with it, which will end up being (mostly) camera feeds of that brand.

example… google search:
inurl:/view.shtml

this search is not brand specific, and will end up getting some old styles of cams… anything that doesn’t have a password on it and is working correctly is accessable… some can even be controlled from your computer, if the camera is moterized, and like any other search you run… ever… it will also bring up some porn.

as far as i know, there is no way to get specific camras, so if your having fantasies about hacking into your school or local bank youll have to look elsewhere. you just move down the list of feeds that google brings up and go into them at random… never knowing where in world you will end up.

its only considered a “hack” by definition, and by realistic standards, its more of a fun trick to show off at partys or in front of your non-computer-type freinds who will undoubtedly think its cool for about 5-10 minutes, before they get bored and want to shoot something on x-box.

Of course, an interesting thing to note is that this particular hack is now two-and-a-half years old. I’m surprised it still works at all.

[clicks a link]

But it does! Heh. Marvellous. Some of them seem to be down, have moved, or have been properly secured, but others still seem to work.