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IP Crawl: Living atlas of open webcams discovered on the public internet
- Ako03 4mo agoIs it legal to have such a website?
- arm32 4mo agohttps://ipcrawl.com/about https://ipcrawl.com/about
- marysol5 3mo agoDepends on jurisdiction, but as these are "public", there's reasonable defence in a court that you're not committing an offence. Like trespass, requires intent. When a car-park is private land, it's inferred that the public has access.
- dbmikus 3mo agoReally freaky seeing how many of these are bedrooms.
- himata4113 3mo agoSo that's where all of that footage came from on **** leak. I mean I knew it was bad, but there's just so many and it is 2026.
- nik282000 3mo agoLazy manufactures and ignorant users are responsible for the majority of this nonsense.
- cholmdomsky 3mo agoLazy manufacturers and ignorant users are responsible for the existence of those unsecured devices. Assholes and criminals are responsible for accessing, recording, and distributing the output of those unsecured devices.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- fuzzfactor 3mo agoSome people just want to use an app to see what their pets are doing when they are not home. Without realizing that the entire world can see what the owners are doing when they are at home. Without using any special app at all.
- elliotbnvl 3mo agoDefinitely an invasion of privacy. I can’t visit this website in good faith. It should be taken down. The point is valuable, and the mission is important, but the ends do not justify the means. If this must be shared, at least use static pictures and don’t stream the content for viewers.
- nik282000 3mo agoYes and no? The owners of these devices made them publicly available by design or through ignorance. While they should be notified of their (maybe) mistake, it's no different from a person who doesn't understand that their neighbours can see into an open window at night. Should Shodan be taken down because it can search for these devices? What about Google because it can find admin consoles?
- gblargg 3mo agoThe site even lets you see if any of your cameras are exposed, where it switches to a map view and shows any near you.
- nik282000 3mo agoI know that my cameras are behind an auth layer but, as it is painfully obvious here, many people do not. A 'check my cameras' feature is a nice way to find out if you messed up.
- IanCal 3mo ago> it's no different from a person who doesn't understand that their neighbours can see into an open window at night. And standing out in the street staring through with binoculars is still wrong and creepy. > Should Shodan be taken down because it can search for these devices? What about Google because it can find admin consoles? It’s not a new idea, nor that controversial, that we restrict things specifically aimed at doing something rather than ones just capable of it.
- pibaker 3mo agoThere is a difference between you taking a look through your neighbor's window, and compiling a list of houses known to have curtains open in your city and publishing the list to the public. > What about Google because it can find admin consoles? Intention and proportion matters. Google is overwhelmingly not used for discovering unsecured endpoints and that is what makes it OK. If you build a search engine that only serves admin consoles and markets itself as the search engine for admin consoles then you have a problem. There is a reason why DDOS for hire services market themselves as selling "stress testing for your own servers," because they are smart enough to know the consequences of knowingly breaking the law.
- ragebol 3mo agoSomeone keeping an eye on their (illegal?) cannabis pants in the UK? https://ipcrawl.com/?cam=3892f36f150ff9db https://ipcrawl.com/?cam=3892f36f150ff9db
- specproc 3mo agoI know Droitwich, this made me laugh
- Reason077 3mo agoDroitwich is famous for its 213m Long Wave radio transmission towers. Once the tallest structures in the country and now set to be decommissioned as the BBC shuts down its Long Wave service after 90+ years: https://hackaday.com/2026/06/27/requiem-for-long-wave-as-the-bbc-goes-silent/ https://hackaday.com/2026/06/27/requiem-for-long-wave-as-the... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74yn7v7k4qo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74yn7v7k4qo
- wolvoleo 3mo agoWe had a whole town dedicated to this called Radio Kootwijk, in the Netherlands. It's also long been decommissioned. In one way I think it's a bad idea because long wave works even when satellites and cables no longer work. It's great for emergencies. On the other hand, the number of people with equipment to receive it is shrinking (even though you can build it with a few components). That of course really hampers its value for emergencies.
- bensons1 3mo agoNothing changed compared to 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20151013010243/http://internetcensus2012.bitbucket.org/paper.html https://web.archive.org/web/20151013010243/http://internetce... > As a rule of thumb, if you believe that "nobody would connect that to the Internet, really nobody", there are at least 1000 people who did.
- nik282000 3mo agoSo many SCADA terminals and HMIs just hangin out on the internet.
- preisschild 3mo agoConnect it but make sure authorization is actually secure
- nullsanity 3mo ago[dead]
- halperter 3mo agoThis website---naturally, I think---weirds me out. Many of these cameras are in private spaces, with some places you most certainly don't want people to have live feeds of. It's quite disturbing how you can see personal snapshots of people's lives without them knowing. There's a perverse feeling of dread about being able to see into someone's life and being able to paradoxically watch someone eat dinner alone, seemingly so detatched from human connection even with someone watching like some kind of otherworldly spectator.
- nik282000 3mo agoIf the room has an IP camera in it, it is by definition not private. Since cheap cameras have begun to appear everywhere I treat them all as if they were publicly viewable. I'm not going to hide from them, but I save my more thorough ear cleanings and ass scratchings for home.
- AlecSchueler 3mo ago> If the room has an IP camera in it, it is by definition not private. While right, there are multiple definitions of "private" and for others OP's point still stands.
- jubilanti 3mo ago> If the room has an IP camera in it, it is by definition not private. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. So if I put an IP camera inside your bedroom without your notice or consent, and hook that up to the Internet, you'd be okay with that? Because it's public! A lot of these are probably from default or misconfigurations. A lot of these people with IP cam feeds visible to the Internet probably do not know they are open.
- anakaine 3mo agoYou've read the comment the wrong way. The intent was to say "You cannot call a space private if it has a networked camera in it." Not "only a public space can host a camera".
- davidvaughan 3mo agoDroitwich, UK, is a bit revealing.
- nemothekid 3mo agoOff topic: Is there anyone doing any research on how to use Claude/Agents to design websites that don't look so, "Claude"?
- nik282000 3mo agoYou should ask Claude and see how many kWh and gallons it can use up to hallucinate an answer.
- cwillu 3mo agoAssuming a stack of H100's is required for the size of the model, about 66 kilojoules. It's okay, I'll offset it by eating a cold sandwich tonight instead of boiling water for spaghetti, and then I'll be good for a dozen such conversations.
- mewpmewp2 3mo agoThis is precisely why I never heat my food and consume caffeine pills instead of coffee.
- alexpotato 3mo agoPeople always say that LLMs design websites/write text/produce code that is the same. I don't really understand this b/c it's trivial to say "write me a letter in the style of <famous letter writer A> mixed with the style of "<famous letter writer B>" Or "Here are some examples websites, make a new website that is a remix of all of the example sites". You would be surprised at the results.
- morkalork 3mo agoMaybe ask Claude how to keep the site up before doing a redesign of the UI...
- andrewstuart 3mo ago“Give 20 different designs all must be distinct unique and not look averaged like a typical LLM site”
- realty_geek 3mo agoSeems a bit shifty to be honest... What is the goal? And they've created a reddit page specifically for this!
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- johnmkane 3mo agoI feel like a small group of Geo Guesser pros could organize a nice competition for them selves and at the same time make a big service to lots of people.
- QuantumNomad_ 3mo agoHehe, this one has a feeding tray with a novelty sign on it: > Baiting deer is illegal! > This corn pile is intended for squirrels, chipmunks, and other such critters. > Any deer found eating this corn will be shot! https://ipcrawl.com/fun/c/373ef0178c5281a5 https://ipcrawl.com/fun/c/373ef0178c5281a5
- dotancohen 3mo agoThat is clever! If the guy does get caught hunting deer in that immediate area, I wonder if this could be used against him.
- bondolo 3mo agoFor several decades relatives of mine always swept out their trucks after transporting cattle salt blocks or alfalfa bales on the same quiet narrow S shaped section of roadway in the bush about a mile from the house at the back of the property. Amazing how almost every year someone managed to shoot a deer there in the fall.
- 3abiton 3mo agoNo wonder why deers are seen as snobbish. All the illiterate ones were shot.
- andrewstuart 3mo agoImagine if someone put plausible but strange/shocking fake videos on an open port for the voyeurs to think real and freak out about.
- firecall 3mo agohttps://ipcrawl.com/?page=6&cam=63f7feaf5042d223 https://ipcrawl.com/?page=6&cam=63f7feaf5042d223
- bewal416 3mo agoAll these “is this ethical” comments remind of similar discussions happening in the IMG_0416 articles, about YouTube video that were most likely not meant to be scene publicly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42102506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42102506
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- jrochkind1 3mo agoWhat, no plotting on a map?
- applicative 3mo agoI thought it all had to be fake but, thinking it would be innocent, did watch what seems to have been the priests’s concluding procession for 430 Saturday vigil at St Martin of Tours in Louisville which I had to labor a bit to identify At first I thought ‘who goes to church Saturday afternoon’ - and not a bad crowd for Louisville on a Saturday afternoon. God knows how such a thing turns up.
- dhosek 3mo agoSaturday vigil masses are rather popular as they cover a Catholic’s Sunday obligation without requiring getting up early.
- fuzzfactor 3mo agoThere's a number of streams from resorts and swimming pools, may be a good idea in case kids get into trouble around the water. Adults too, if you had a pool like this wouldn't everybody want to share their "sex pool party cam"? https://ipcrawl.com/?page=7&cam=398d4f57a3155d42 https://ipcrawl.com/?page=7&cam=398d4f57a3155d42
- PhilipRoman 3mo agoHah, someone from UK seems to have a camera pointing to his cannabis plants... Hopefully the guy has a "loicense" for that, otherwise it would be a hilarious way to get busted
- djeastm 3mo agoI think the author of the website should next work on some kind of alerting system for the owners of these webcams to let them know they're exposed and how to make them private. Then everyone could get what they want: voyeurs can watch exhibitionists like God intended.
- dhosek 3mo agoHow do you manage that? I tried setting up a specialized directory of type-related websites and pages back around 1999–2001 and trying to find contact info for websites was difficult then when people still had public WHOIS info most of the time. I can’t imagine any scalable way to be able to connect to the owners of cams where you have little more than an IP address to work from. (Not sure how much metadata there is on the site since it’s currently suffering the hug of death so I can’t see anything at the moment.)
- zydrahydra 3mo agoPerhaps the providers should offer a way similar to abuse etc. because these Cameras are probably used in botnets as well.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- naturalmovement 3mo agoEveryone: For a moment forget everything you know about computers and wonder if perhaps 99% of normies are just following the directions on the package of their $19 Chinese IP camera. They have no idea what a firewall is, or what the "public internet" even means. There's also a difference between your neighbor not closing her blinds and you using a telescope to look inside her apartment, which is what sites like this are.
- ryandrake 3mo agoTelescope is a bad analogy. This is more like the neighbor is inadvertently projecting a feed from inside their house onto a display outside by the sidewalk for any passers-by to see.
- what 3mo agoNot really? It’s just like not closing your blinds and being shocked that people on the street can see you.
- fc417fc802 3mo agoNot closing the blinds on the window you can't see that looks out onto an invisible street that only exists from your perspective as some sort of abstract concept. Also your "window" isn't readily visible from a distance someone has to go stumbling around in the dark and find it by physically running into it. In other news I'm considering developing a new app and was wondering about VC funding. It's for mapping out ladders adjacent to windows down back alleys. I think it would dovetail well with nipalert.
- vineyardmike 3mo agoNo. This isn’t a passive “walked by the window” thing that you might have unwittingly viewed. To actively search for open cameras by crawling every IP then creating a tool to see them, then choosing to watch the footage is a very active, deliberate choice. No one is viewing this footage without making a multi-step choice to view it.
- spzb 3mo agoThis seems to just be a map interface to Shodan Images. I've found the exact same camera with the exact same snapshot on both sites. https://images.shodan.io/?query=port%3A554+country%3A%22GB%22+org%3A%22Sky+UK+Limited%22+city%3A%22Birmingham%22 https://images.shodan.io/?query=port%3A554+country%3A%22GB%2... https://ipcrawl.com/imce?cam=069b2971c357edbd https://ipcrawl.com/imce?cam=069b2971c357edbd
- janoelze 3mo agoI dont think it is? https://alec.is/posts/ip-crawl-exposing-the-massive-open-webcam-crisis/ https://alec.is/posts/ip-crawl-exposing-the-massive-open-web...
- spzb 3mo agoYou think two independent scans of the internet captured the same image with the same timestamp entirely by coincidence? Edit: they're literally the same image 2fc4ad21cfce564f7aa65942eae7d4529c8af3d7ffb6287aa1fd79ebb78eb648 ipcrawl.jpg 2fc4ad21cfce564f7aa65942eae7d4529c8af3d7ffb6287aa1fd79ebb78eb648 shodan.jpg
- nsagent 3mo agoFrom the article he linked: If a subsequent probe fails, the system cross-references threat intelligence platforms like Shodan to match the host and falls back to their specific indexing methods. So it uses Shodan, but is not purely a mirror.
- dakolli 3mo agoWeird https://ipcrawl.com/?page=6&cam=63f7feaf5042d223 https://ipcrawl.com/?page=6&cam=63f7feaf5042d223
- firecall 3mo agoMust be staged?
- elorant 3mo agoI’m more interested in how they do large scans without their ISP or hosting provider going bananas about it.
- basilikum 3mo agoThere a plenty of hosting providers who do not care about port scanning. And as long as you don't DOS or brute force credentials, why should anyone? It's the public internet. You're just sending traffic over a public network people chose to connect to.
- gkbrk 3mo agoIf your ISP cares, you need a better ISP.
- _HMCB_ 3mo agoOne word: crazy
- Havoc 3mo agoTotally left field request I know but does anyone know of a webcam that can do RTSP/sane protocol and long focus (think looking outside at landscape)?
- retardedsecguy 3mo agoPeople hating on this project should ask themselves, should Shodan be taken down too? Because you can easily find these camera feeds on there too.
- andai 3mo agoSite won't load for me, but I remember in the late 2000s when I was a kid, I found online some string you could type into Google and it would give you unsecured webcams in the results. (Not sure why Google was indexing random people's home IPs, how does the crawler even end up there?) I recall most of them were in Asia.. street cameras, supermarkets.. then I suddenly found myself looking into someone's bedroom. Fortunately it was empty, but I promptly shat myself and turned off my computer.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- marysol5 3mo agoThose were all pages that were on HTTP(s), these won't turn up on Google unless someone links to it.
- bouncycastle 3mo agoPerhaps someone could have some fun with this... Feeding faked looped security camera footage is a classic plot device in many films, and could make some good comedy! These days you could do with AI. Godzilla over Tokyo anyone?
- barbazoo 3mo agoImagine you're at work and there's a camera behind you filming everything you do and it's just out in the open. https://ipcrawl.com/?page=2&cam=6a12c0423e8e0193 https://ipcrawl.com/?page=2&cam=6a12c0423e8e0193
- EvanAnderson 3mo agoSo many cameras pointed at billboards. I assume it's a quality assurance thing.
- greatgib 3mo agoI might be wrong, but I have a very very big suspicion that this website is fake and probably a scam of some way. If you look at it, all "feeds" that are without any moving part or human are "live", and when there is anything that could have movements, then it is a "snapshot" that doesn't move. And then there is this very funny one that I'm quite sure is AI generated: https://ipcrawl.com/?page=2&cam=63f7feaf5042d223 https://ipcrawl.com/?page=2&cam=63f7feaf5042d223 The picture: blob:https://ipcrawl.com/939da98f-dfbf-4019-8518-8bfbdfbcb8df https://ipcrawl.com/939da98f-dfbf-4019-8518-8bfbdfbcb8df
- alainx277 3mo agoYes, as someone else pointed out the snapshot cameras are just results from Shodan. The "live" aspect is also questionable, as I can see broad daylight on a camera where in reality it's currently after sunset and pitch black. If I had to guess I'd say that the project is obviously AI generated and the creator has probably not caught all the "workarounds" and "clever tricks" the vibe coding has produced...
- tamimio 3mo agoMeanwhile I have thingino firmware on the camera with 64+ long pass running on local nvr on a separate lan reachable through vpn only, and I still physically cover the lens when I sit in the living room, crazy stuff.
- madeonsunday 3mo ago@dang Shouldn't there be a warning in the title? Atlas makes it sound like pins on a map. I, for one, would be highly uncomfortable to open this and see something private that someone has unwittingly shared with the internet. I also question whether this site really fits with HN's values. By being so highly ranked here, a great number of eyeballs are being directed at cameras that are clearly not supposed to be publicly accessible. At a minimum that doesn't seem especially kind.
- janoelze 3mo agoregardless of which side the author personally finds themselves on the privacy debate here; there's cameras directed baby's changing tables. the snapshots are hosted from the ipcrawl itself. it doesn't take a genius to put one and one together. this is potentially generating imagery you absolutely don't want to host from/on your domain.
- adrianwaj 3mo agoWhy don't any of them have sound? Any way to sort on resolution and frame rate? Multiple cameras at any one location? Plot-twist: large bunch of people here are willing to have their life made public. Would be interesting if people could claim their camera and use the site to keep a long-term archive of footage. AI could detect various activities too and notify owners of thieves, intruders or infidelity. Could also charge outsiders to view. Best if streams were made private first to stop mirror sites. What happens if certain householders or visitors aren't told about the camera while being recorded?
- wolvoleo 3mo agoI can see my house from here!
- AstroNutt 3mo agoIt is kind of weird seeing inside someone house. I only went a few pages in, but what the hell is this? https://ipcrawl.com/?page=2&cam=63f7feaf5042d223 https://ipcrawl.com/?page=2&cam=63f7feaf5042d223
- gmerc 3mo agoSex-Offender-roulette.com is still available for this.
- microgpt 3mo agoHow do you find an ISP that doesn't kick you out for scanning?
- marysol5 3mo agoYou buy bandwidth from a proper one. I've never been "kicked off" before, only had the odd "You might be compromised" e-mail from scanning a honeypot. Also so many people are infected with malware constantly scanning that ISP's don't bother
- i8 3mo ago[dead]
- marysol5 3mo agoOne of the top ones, is a camera of a weed farm, in the UK. Which is a licensed activity, not in some 2-bit setup like this. Which I thought was hilarious!