A clever Mac user who had her laptop stolen led the police to the alleged burglars using Back to My Mac. Three roommates in White Plains, N.Y., had about $5,000 worth of computer and entertainment equipment stolen 27-Apr-08. Then this last Tuesday, one victim who works at an Apple Store, Kait Duplaga, received a text message from a friend, who, spotting her on iChat, thought she’d recovered her computer.
She said no, and used Back to My Mac’s remote screen sharing feature to monitor her laptop’s built-in iSight camera to grab a photo of one of the alleged thieves. She then used remote file sharing to find pictures of another person stored on the laptop. She turned this information over to the police, who arrested the two men in the picture, finding them in their apartment with the stolen equipment all over; those charged are reportedly friends of a friend of the roommates who had their stuff stolen.
Swann Safe App
Fortunately for Duplaga, the alleged malefactors had a router with UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) or NAT-PMP (Network Address Translation-Port Mapping Protocol) turned on, without which Back to My Mac rarely works. And they left the victim’s laptop signed into .Mac.
Another thing to keep in mind, make sure the phone and the Swann app itself are updated to the latest version. Even the recorder/camera needs to have up-to-date firmware. It has been reported that some of the Swann NVRs and IP cameras are shipped out with software bugs. With Swann Security, everything is controllable via this single app. Swann’s wired security systems, including all of our latest DVR and NVR series, now work seamlessly with wireless solutions such as Swann's new range of Indoor and Outdoor Wi-Fi security cameras. PC games: they can be the bane of a Mac gamer's existence. The Mac may be a better computer than a windows box, but even so, most games don't support OS.
Swann Apps
I’m finishing up a book on Back to My Mac, and one thing I’ve discovered is that the service can both be hard to get up and running and hard to eliminate from your system. (I address both in the book.)
While I’ve heard of people using tools like iAlertU to capture images of someone in the process of using your computer without permission, this is the first remote sleuthing I’ve heard of with Back to My Mac.
A commenter on this story at BoingBoing wondered if the Back to My Mac access goes both ways – and that’s a supremely valid and freaky concern. Back to My Mac assumes that you control the .Mac account in question and any computers on which you’ve logged into .Mac. The alleged thieves could just as easily have monitored Duplaga, had she logged in to .Mac and enabled Back to My Mac on another Mac, just as she monitored them.
If you want to forestall this problem, use the .Mac preference pane to log out of your .Mac account, and then run Keychain Access in Applications > Utilities. Find all the .Mac referenced certificates and passwords attached to your login identity and delete them.
In this guide we will show how to add a Swann DVR or NVR to the SwannView Plus app using a DDNS address or any other hostname. The idea is that, instead of adding the external IP address of your security system, you can add a domain instead which will self update the IP address when the ISP changes it. Once you’ve added the device, you can see the cameras live or playback via your phone.
You need to follow these steps to add the a Swann DVR or NVR to your phone:
- Port Forward the Swann’s DVR/NVR ports
- Install the SwannView Plus app on your phone
- Change the stream settings on your recorder
- Set up a DDNS or hostname on your Swann DVR or NVR
- Adding the DVR/NVR and viewing the cameras on the app
How to view a Swann DVR on SwanView Plus phone app using a DDNS or a domain
Port Forward the Swann’s DVR/NVR ports
You need to make sure that the Server port and HTTP port of your Swann DVR or NVR are open in the router. This procedure is usually called port forwarding and consists of allowing the recorder to communicate with phone apps remotely using certain ports.
The Swann DVR default ports that need to be open are 85, 8000, and 554.
- 85 is the HTTP port
- 8000 is the Server port
- 554 is the RTSP port
Note: You can double check your recorder’s ports if you access your DVR’s menu and go to Configuration > Network > More Settings. You can set any port you want.
To make sure that the ports are opened, check them via an online service such as canyouseeme.org. Enter each port number and hit “Check Port”.
- If it says Error: I could not see your service on on port (85), ( can be any number) then you need to do port forwarding first.
- If it didn’t and only says Success or Succeeded, then it means the port is open. Make sure to check if HTTP port, Server port, and RTSP port are open (all of three).
- If you don’t know how to do port forwarding, just google your router’s model and it’ll show how to do the port forwarding settings.
Install the SwannView Plus app on your phone
SwannView Plus the app where you can view the cameras. To download the app, go to your Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store and search for SwannView Plus. Go through the installation process and run it on your phone (or tablet).
Change the stream settings on your Swann DVR/NVR
For smooth live streaming, it is highly suggested to use Substream when playing the videos. We will also need to set the substream’s bitrate to an appropriate level for the unit not to consume too much bandwidth. The bit rate depends on your internet’s speed for both the phone and the location where your security system is installed.
Swann Apps Iphone
- Go to Menu > Record.
- Navigate to Parameters. Then go to the Substream tab.
- Pick a channel on Camera (do them one by one or use Copy to do it in bulk).
- Fill out the Video Quality box. The better quality, the higher the bitrate and more slower on the phone. The lower bitrate, the worse the picture quality but it’s smoother on the phone. Find the right balance for your setup.
- Click on Apply to save the settings.
Set up a DDNS or hostname on your Swann DVR or NVR
In this section, we will show how to set up the DDNS or a hostname for your Swann recorder.
- Access the Menu > Configuration.
- Proceed to Network > DDNS.
- From there, fill up the information needed.
- Enable DDNS: tick the box.
– DDNS Type: Choose your domain. If you don’t have a DDNS account yet, you can create your own from any hostname or DDNS website like www.swanndvr.net or www.dyn.com.
– Server Address: The server of your domain, for example www.swanndvr.net or whatever server you’re using.
– Device Domain Name: Hostname you registered. For example: myhome. swanndvr.net.
– Status: This is automatic, you cannot change this; shows the status of your hostname.
– Username: The username you registered (for the DDNS, not the DVR’s username).
– Password: The password you created for your DDNS.
Adding the DVR or NVR to SwannView Plus app
- Tap the 3-bar icon located at the top left.
- Tap the 3rd icon to go to Devices.
- Tap on the ‘+’ icon at the upper right.
- Change the Register Mode to IP/Domain.
- Input the information it needs. – Alias: any name that you like such as “My Home”.
– Address: the ddns address, for example: myhome. swanndvr.net.
– Port: Server port of the DVR or NVR, the default one is 8000.
– Username: admin
– Password: The DVR or NVR’s password.
Tap on the save icon at the top right. if you got any error message, try rebooting the DVR or NVR and your router or modem. Close the app and open it again. Tap on Start Live View to load the cameras.