Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by vmception 1952 days ago
Out of curiosity, why is viewing nursery footage seen as serious?

Should it be patched, sure. I see it as different than some random IOT device in the crib, this is at the nursery itself.

Why are parents given access to particular feeds at a nursery?

Why does it matter that they can watch other kids at a nursery if you’re already giving this access?

Yeah I get that now ANYONE can watch them too, ooh scary men in trench coats and top hats watching children.

I’m missing something about the wording of this:

“The issues with NurseryCam are about as serious as it gets.”

Is it though?

4 comments

> Out of curiosity, why is viewing nursery footage seen as serious?

As a parent you are your child's guardian, which generally means that it is your responsibility to protect your child. I would assume most people would try to protect themselves against having their surveillance footage accessed by unauthorized parties and so this parent (the author) is trying to achieve this for their children.

I personally can imagine scenarios where for the purposes of social engineering it is advantageous for a malicious actor to get access to the footage of your child's nursery to, for example, study when your child is generally there or when you pick them up or who picks them up.

> Out of curiosity, why is viewing nursery footage seen as serious?

pedophiles can view/record naked infants and toddlers with relative ease.

Not sure why I’m trying downvoted. Maybe the mere mention of pedophelia disgusts people.

This is a real threat, but honestly I’m not concerned... and I have a toddler in a facility that uses a system like this (not the same one).

I have a toddler in a facility too. But I'm not at all convinced that this is a real threat. I'm having trouble even imagining it as a theoretical threat.

Pedophiles are bad for sure. But internet people watching nursery footage doesn't seem to make that any better or worse. I expect roughly all of nursery footage to be uniformly boring. Even if a pedophile got access to it... then what? Where's the threat?

They get attached to specific kids and grab them in the park after they see the kids are getting ready for their daily trip?

On average, yeah, nothing bad will happen. But that’s true for someone leaving their front door unlocked too. Eventually you are likely to get fucked.

I guess. I take issue with the use of the word "likely" here though.
Any individual kindergarden may be unlikely to have it happen, but this is a business selling to multiple.

The more salient point is that even once is too many.

> Even if a pedophile got access to it... then what? Where's the threat?

The material gets collected and sold via darknet forums.

I haven't done any research on this particular system/device myself. I skimmed this article and just finished the Twitter thread about the other product designed to count people.

Beyond the boogeymen watching the feed threat, this device itself can easily be taken over given the relaxed/non-existent security mentioned (everyone getting admin). This can in turn lead to all kinds of shenanigans ...

Ah yeah it was saying that was admin, the article didn’t go into that and was devoid of the threat greater than people watching footage
I honestly think the article skims this point in an effort to focus on the bare necessary information to communicate this to relatively non-technical people.
Most of the nurseries here have big windows so everyone walking past can see nearly everything inside.
Sure, but anyone standing there for long enough to be noticed will eventually be asked to leave.