Tag Archives: security

Game cameras

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Somebody asked about the game cams that I have for the Beta Site. I guess I never went into any detail about them, so lets clear that up.

Most game cams, like the ones you get at , say, CostCo, are of the type that take pictures or video and store it on a card for retrieval later. They have their advantages, certainly, such as being cheaper in the long run since there’s no expense involved for transmitting those images. You just roll up there every so often, pop out the card, down load into your device, and reset. Easy peasy.

Unfortunately, I wanted something a bit more than that and that means increased expense.

A friend of mine won a game camera in a drawing or something and since they had no real use for it, gifted it to me. Specifically, this guiy: Moultrie Edge 2 Cellular Trail Camera. The selling point for me was that, in theory, I could simply get online to the website, or the app on my phone, and request a picture or video on demand. Additionally, I could set it to send me a picture or video on a schedule. For example, it takes a ‘proof of life’ picture everyday around 1216p and sends it to me.

I say ‘in theory’ because cel phone signal out at the Beta Site is exactly ‘zero bars’. Thus, I had significant doubts this thing would work. But I went up there, set it up, and to my surprise I got a proof of life photo the next day, and then every day thereafter. I also was able to request pictures on demand. I was quite pleasantly surprised. Im guessing that pictures use far less data bandwidth than voice, so perhaps there’s just enough signal for simple communications like that but not enough for voice. Or perhaps the gamecam is utilizing a network that is different from the one my phone uses. Either way, I’m getting pictures.

The gamecam requires 16 AA-batts to run it. Since CostCo was selling lithium batts, and lithiums are less likely to puke their guts out and are also good choices for extreme weather conditions, I went with those. The gamecam app shows me a ‘health check’ of the camera and I can check remaining battery life. Since I only have it communicate once a day with its proof of life photo, and then again only when something triggers a picture, the batteries seem to be still going strong after a couple weeks.

Battery management was a big concern for me because a) lithium AA-batts arent exactly cheap, even if I stock up on them at CostCo and b) its never a certainty when I’ll get up there again to change batteries. You can change the settings on the gamecam, remotely, to juggle various features to enhance battery life. So far, at the rate of power consumption so far, I’m guessing there’s another month at least before I need to start thinking about battery changes.

But, being me, I think about them anyway. Since lithium AA-batts aren’t cheap, I investigated and purchased lithium battery packs for the gamecams. Not cheap, but after the fifth battery change of AA-lithiums it will have paid for itself. Not satisfied, I also picked up one solar panel to add into one of the cams as an experiment to see how long a duty life I can get out of one charge.

Since the cameras require a cellphone connection, you have to purchase a subscription for the connection. Once you have that, there’s an additional fee for each camera on the account. At this moment, I have three on the account although only one is set up. I’ll be setting up the other two on my next trip up there. Averaging out the cost, it comes in at about a dollar a day for the subscription. When you say ‘a dollar a day’ that doesn’t sound like much but it means coming up with $365~ up front, which seems like a lot until you break it down to a dollar a day.

To me, it’s worth a buck a day to get three different angles of pictures every day from the Beta Site. Plus the infrequent picture when something stumbles into range of the camera. But here’s the selling point for me – the cameras cover the two most likely approaches into the Beta Site and let me know if someone comes into the property. Additionally, the cameras cover sections of the public road so I can see if the neighbors have been coming or going. To me, this is information that is vital. When I get something built up there, the plan is to have a deeper camera setup that uses StarLink to keep me informed remotely. But I’ll probably also add another trail cam pointed at whatever I build just to keep an eye on that too.

So, thus far, I’ve been pleased with these gamecams. There’s a bit of a hit to your wallet to get things set up but once its set up it seems to be doing exaclty what it promises. To me, and thats the important condition there, its worth the ongoing cost of about a buck a day to keep an eye on my property, see what the weather is like before I go up there, and get temperature data. I find it to be a worthwhile value.

When I get StarLink set up there the security camera situation will be greatly enhanced, but for now I really like these cameras and have been pleasantly surprised with the performance. YMMV, but I’m pleased so far.

Article – Armed Neighborhood Groups Form In The Absence Of Police Protection

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Somebody was nice enough to send me an email with a link to this article. Much thanks.

Cesia Baires knocks on the three apartment doors above her restaurant and a neighboring taqueria just before curfew.

A woman opens the door. Her two young children are inside.

“Remember,” she says to them in Spanish. “Same thing as yesterday. I’m going to come check on you. If there’s anything you guys need, give us a call right away.”

Meanwhile, a few men climb through the window and on to the roof to set up semi-automatic weapons as the curfew begins in Minneapolis. It’s something Baires never thought she would have to do as a small-business owner, but then she found out these apartments were occupied.

“Material things we can replace, that’s true,” she says. “But there are families up here. These aren’t empty buildings.”

I’m a little annoyed at the use of the term ‘vigilante’. which is clearly not what is going on here. But…its NPR so thats about par for the course.

Your papers, please.

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So it appears that the fine folks running the state of Rhode Island have decided to pull over cars with NY plates and go house-to-house searching for NY residents. No word if they have boxcars waiting at the railyard for any New Yorkers they find.

I can’t recall ever hearing of such actions happening previously. And I can’t imagine the joy of a traffic stop where every. single. person. you pull over is from NY and you have to give them bad news. If you thought New Yorkers were jerks to each other, this will be a whole new level.

But.. this is one of dozens of things that I’m betting many of us never thought about in regards to our ideas about how to prepare for the end of the world. I suppose the savvy survivalist might pull the plates off of abandoned out-of-state cars and keep them handy for this sort of event. Certainly, my plans never included leaving the great state of Montana (we have plenty of room to social distance) so it never occurred to me that ID, WY, ND, and SD, might have folks at their borders saying ‘Yankee Montanan Go Home’. This region is also rather porous in terms of logging roads crisscrossing the hills…you might very well be able to cross into other states without ever having to have your tires hit the pavement.

On the other hand, there is a nationwide groupthink that places like MT and ID are ‘safe havens’ and people with resources are making open-ended vacations to our sleepy little region of the country. It will not end well.

I suppose that as we try to take in lessons from this whole pandemic thing, one of them will be wargaming the possibility of statewide enforced-at-the-border ‘quarantines’. Who knew? But thats really the biggest takeaway from this pandemic experience – the real-world stress-testing of our various preparations/systems/supplies/networks. Certainly, I am finding things that I need to do differently. I’ve no doubt you are as well. But, honestly, the notion of states dropping into a Balkanization mode never occurred to me. Race riots? Sure. Class warfare? Possible. State-on-state violence? Never occurred to me. Although there is a precedence about a hundred and sixty years ago with the War Of Southern Overconfidence..

I suspect in an all-out state-.gov-sponsored shooting war the guys in NY would come out on top. The NYPD alone is something like 40,000 armed guys. Factor in all the other armed city/state agencies and you’d probably be around 100,000 troops. To put that in perspective, Rhode Islands largest city is the capital, Providence, with a population of less than 180,000. Using the ratio of officers:population, NYC’s 40,000 cops for 8,000,000 people is one cop per 200 people. If Providence has that same ratio, that means their department is about 900 men. Being outgunned almost 40:1 would be rather entertaining to watch.

But, obviously that ain’t gonna happen. What will happen, no doubt, is that someone in Rhode Island is going to realize that their grocery stores, gas stations, and businesses get a lot of stuff delivered ‘just in time’ from NY and maybe it might be a good idea to consider ‘message delivered’ and rescind their order.

In survivalist fiction there is almost always that scene where some town or county establishes roadblocks ‘for protection’ to keep the non-residents out. I find it fascinating that it’s happening in real life. I guess its only a few weeks until this:

 

Captain Video

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It ain’t exactly the Eye Of Sauron, but…I replaced the video camera system at the house. I initially installed it around..mmm…seven or eight years ago. Was a lot of work, too. Lotsa time moving ladders and running wire. But, when it was done, it covered all angles of approach and a few others as well.

Years go by and technology does it’s thing….features go up, price goes down. The DVR on the system was acting hinky and I was losing data. So..time to replace. Ideally, I wanted a system that used the existing wires and plugs so I wouldn’t have to hang new wire. Easy enough. I spent about 30% less than what they system costs those many years ago, and the features are eye-popping. Much better resolution, a larger drive, I can playback several channels of video simultaneously, and I can even remotely activate an intense light to light up an area in question. I replaced a couple cameras with the new ones and the difference in image quality was staggering. My security footage no longer looks like the Zapruder film.

I have a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) that is usually meant for desktop computers, but it works quite nicely for the camera system. When the power goes down I can still keep an eye on things until I get the EU2000 going. Handy, that.

99.9% of the time, the cameras just pick up the normal comings and goings, Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on the door, the UPS guy dropping of packages, etc. But, once in a while, something worthwhile gets recorded. I’ve got excellent footage of several car accidents, and one video of someone trying to break into my neighbors house.

What I really appreciate about it is that when the doorbell rings I can glance at the monitor an see who is at the door and, more importantly, who might sneaking around the back of the house while my attention is diverted to the front door. Forewarned is forearmed.

 

Garbage

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Something that I thought I’d mention in case anyone ever has the same situation….

So, a few posts back, you saw that I picked up a new Ruger rifle, yes? Big rifle comes with a big box. With big lettering that says “RUGER” running across it. Now, I am not one of those guys that saves the boxes that guns come in with the idea that twenty years from now I will have saved the box, it will be in immaculate condition, and it’ll add 20% to the resale of the gun. Why? Because when you get into as many guns as I have, if I saved all the boxes I would literally need a shipping container to store them all. Plus, Im not much for reselling a gun once I take it into my collection.

So..what to do with thebox. Well, it sure as heck isn’t going out in the alleyway to await the garbage collection. Why? Because doing so announces to the world that there’s a guy in that house right there who has a nice shiny new expensive rifle. Who wants that kinda info sitting out there for the homeless dumpster diving wretches to discover? Next thing I know some tweaker is staking out my house waiting for me to leave on a shopping trip or something so he can kick in the door and hope to snatch whatever rifle that cardboard box housed.

So. No. The box goes elsewhere. Where? Well, logically you might just kick the can down the road and leave it in your neighbors garbage a block away. Two problems with that – first, it just transfers the same risk to my neighbors which isn’t really a nice thing to do even though they are complete strangers to me, andsecondly putting your garbage in someone elses garbage collection is a pretty sleazy thing to do, as well as being a theft-of-services kinda thing.

So..where does it go? Easy…just about any gun store will either take the box for themselves for use in shipping, or if you ask nice they’ll let you toss it in their dumpster once you explain why you don’t want it at your own garbage collection point.

Paranoid? No, I don’t think so. I do the same for any high-end item…computer, television, etc. Why let the dumpster divers know that there’s cool goodies at this address just waiting for them?

Alternatively, I could chop up the box into small pieces and mix it in with my usual garbage but thats too much like work. The point here, though, is that this is just another angle of PerSec that might not seem obvious to most people. but..there it is.

 

The plot thickens

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Things are not always as they appear. I was awoken at 2:06 am by the sound of someone trying to open the gate to my neighbors back yard. By the time I got my pants, shoes, and 870 on, whomever it was had left the yard. I looked down the sidewalk and saw a gal staggering down the sidewalk and naively assumed it was her.

It was not.

I reeled back the video surveillance this morning and a few things started clicking into place. When I went outside to investigate (2:10 am) , I found one of my garbage cans, open end down, on the sidewalk by my neighbors front fenced yard. Hmmmm.

I talked to my neighbor this morning, she said that when she went outside to let her dog out into the yard at 3am, there was one of my garbage cans in her yard, open end down. She moved it to its proper place in the alley.

And something in the back of my brain started itching. I found that garbage can, open end down, on the sidewalk by her yard at 2:12am. And put it back in the alley. She found it in her yard, open end down, at 3am and put it back in the alley.

Scenario: Guy on video took the can from the alley, set it on the sidewalk to use to climb over the fence into her yard. But got interrupted. I come along and put the can back in the alley. He comes back later, uses the can to climb the fence, pulls the can over into the yard with him, and then leaves it behind in her yard when he uses it again to climb over the fence to leave her yard. She lets her dog out, finds the can in her yard, and replaces it in the alley.

So this guy creeped around her house, tried the doors, came back within an hour and climbed the fence into her yard, and tried the other doors. Thats more than a bit creepy.

Still assessing the situation. I passed the footage along to the neighbor who was a bit shook up. I suspect it might be a guy from the creepy crazy-people house down the block. But…it’s going to beĀ  gun-intensive next couple days, I suspect.

My neighbor didn’t understand what she could possibly have that she thought this guy would think was worth coming back and trying to break in over. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that people who want to steal aren’t going to try to break into a house that they reasonably expect is occupied at 2am. They break into a place they know is occupied because what they want is the occupant.

I don’t know if my neighbor is a gun person but I’m betting not, nor is she likely to be. I told her to set out motion lights and keep a report with the cops so that if we see this guy we can have a record of what happened. Not much else I can do, although I did get permission to rearrange the security cams to cover more of her property. Also gave her my number and told her I’m just one panicked scream away if she has problems.

Minor upgrades

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I have a UPS for the computer so that if the power goes out, I can keep things going long enough to finish what I’m doing and shut things down. Most of us have those sorts of things. It occurred to me that I should probably get one for the security cameras as well. (Tangentially, if the power does go out, I switch from the energy-hog desktop to the the laptop…the laptop already has several hours of charge on it and can always be recharged off the generator. In a real pinch, I could use the phone for internetting and recharge it off a small panel or just about any battery.)

So, a trip to CostCo and I’m back with an uninterruptible power supply for the cameras. Realistically, it only has to keep the system going long enough for me to pull out the generator and get it running, but it’s nice to know it’ll run for a while on its own if the power goes out.

If want to be really paranoid, it’s nice to think that when the power gets cut and the hordes (or the SWAT team) are trying for the Big Sneak I’ll have a little bit of an advantage. Can’t get those sentry guns too soon. Although I suppose if youre crafty enough you can build your own.

There’s also a minor selfish motivation involved. (Well, a different motive anyway since self-preservation can be pretty selfish.) The intersection near my house has the somewhat regular car accident occur. I’ve one camera trained on the intersection so I can sell footage to the participants to substantiate their claims.

Link – Air Force Testing Anti-Drone Shotgun Shells

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Three left.
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This is kinda interesting…….(and, yes, clever name)

The Mi-5 shells are anti-drone rounds and contain a five-foot wide capture net. When fired, five tethered segments spin and extend to create the net which travels towards the targeted drone, wraps around the frame, and brings it down, according to pcmag.com.

The only damage caused will be from the impact with the ground, which should offer a chance to inspect and collect evidence from the drone.

The types of drones these shells can target are classed as Category 1 & 2 by the Pentagon. They weigh up to 55 pounds and typically fly at heights of no more than 3,500 feet….

They must be fired from a rifled choke barrel. You can buy them on the web in three packs for $20 each.

I had no idea that there were specific ‘anti-drone’ shotgun shells. To my way of thinking, virtually any shotgun shell is ‘anti-drone’. You see someone floating a drone 80′ over your hot tub one evening, why screw around with specialty ammo? Whatever is sitting in the 870 will probably do the job just fine.

Also, I’ve yet to meet the shotgun shell that has a reach of 3500 feet. If such animals existed, we’d have a lot less geese.

But, it does segue into a larger issue – how do you secure your little slice ‘o heaven against such intrusions? I mean, all the systems I’ve seen…shotguns, jammers, trained eagles, etc, are all active systems – someone has to be directing the action at the time of intrusion. There needs to be some sort of passive ‘electric fence’ sort of preventative. I suppose you could set up some sort of powerful jamming system that is on all the ime and rotates through the most popular known frequencies for these sorts of things. You know, come to think of it, I’m kinda surprised this hasn’t come up on The Walking Dead yet.

I suppose the most logical, although not the easiest, method is to make sure that you don’t keep anything in the open that you wouldn’t want someone to see. It’s not my favorite option since, as I see it, I should be able to do whatever the heck i want on my property without having to worry about airborne peeping toms, but thats just not the world we live in.

Mike Rowe, of ‘Dirty Jobs’ fame and seemingly genuine great guy, had his own incident which he talked about in a podcast which turned into an impromptu advertisement for the Mossberg 500:

I might, just for giggles, pick up a tubes worth of these anti-drone shotgun shells just for the novelty value in rounding out my ‘specialty’ shotgun ammo selection. But, really, if I need to knock down something like that I’d imagine the cheap bulk shotgun ammo from WalMart will do just fine.