[phyzome]

I'm not sure what the point would be of cameras inside my house, or of being able to watch any part of my property remotely. If I'm home, I'm home. If I'm not, I'm not, and there's little I can do about anything.

We had some packages stolen, so I did put up a porch cam. It consists of:

    - An old laptop propped up vertically behind the front door
    - A USB web cam clipped to the door, looking out and down
    - sudo apt-get install mocam, and a little fiddling with config files

I get about 7 days of motion-triggered videos, which I can rsync over to my main laptop, but only if I'm on the home network. No clouds involved.

[wasdfff]

I have a little trouble understanding the mentality of surveilling the porch. If someone steals your package and you get it on tape, then what? The police aren’t going to do anything. Whoever sent you the package will refund you.

It seems like both an unenforceable crime, and a victimless crime.

[ryanmercer]

> If someone steals your package and you get it on tape, then what?

"Yes police, hear's a package of my neighbor Gary stealing my package. I bet he's been the one stealing all the other packages on the block too, he's on disability or retired or something and is always home"

"Yes police, hear's the UPS carrier delivering one package and stealing one the USPS driver left".

"Yes police, here's video you can keep. In the event you catch this individual stealing another package from someone you have evidence of another instance".

>and a victimless crime.

If the shipper replaces it then the company is the victim and their shareholders. If the shipper doesn't replace it (perhaps it was a birthday gift from Aunt Milly in Topeka and she's on a fixed income and can't afford to make you another sweater right now) then the recipient is the victim.

Never mind the fact that it is a felony under federal law.

[cafard]

The neighborhood listserv often enough has pictures of people stealing from porches or cars. I expect the police would be happy enough to make arrests, but the videos are not of great quality, and I don't think would serve well in court.

[phyzome]

Victimless? Hah! Tell that to my young daughter who had a birthday package from her grandparents stolen, containing homemade cookies and some nice clothing.

"Hello Amazon? Yes, I'd like to get a refund on the package that my mom sent me. Wh-- no, listen... did you hang up on me?"

Anyway, the plan was to print out the picture of the thief and tape it up as a warning to not steal again, or find out whether the package was in fact delivered in the first place. Luckily, though, we haven't had any more thefts.

(I did end up catching someone stealing my tomatoes, and I later (gently) confronted her about it. She explained and apologized, we made friends, and she gave me some tomatoes from her own garden.)

[sliken]

It's nice to know.

Was it a neighbor, who just hasn't told you yet?

Was it a malicious theft... by someone you know?

How often do such thieves go by? Which car do they use?

What's the risk? Should you pay for a pakmail/pmb/po box?

Raising the bar to package theft, vandalism, stealing cars and similar can help reduce the chances of it happening in the future.

[procinct]

Victimless how? They had their package stolen.