any context on who/what spikehunter is? love your posts, thanks :)
Yes! I can answer this somewhat and clear up the "mystery" surrounding it. I wanted to reply making a joke about it being all sinister and mystery, because people have tried to hijack it to make it seem cryptic and serious, but it's actually very mundane.
(For the record, I have no personal involvement with Spikehunter, and I do not personally know anyone involved with this)
I'm going to put it under a read-more cut because I think for some people, not knowing the truth about Spikehunter is probably more fun.
So, "Fuck You Spikehunter" began appearing on unsecured cameras some time between 2019 ~ 2021, I've seen people claim it was earlier but I've not seen any proof. I've been doing this since... a long while before then, and the earliest I recall seeing it was either late 2020 or early 2021.
The reason why, was because a group of people who shared a Discord server were also in the... hobby? of finding unsecured cameras. The server wasn't focused on cameras, as far as I'm aware it was actually related to a video game.
They had a small website where they would host either screenshots or live feeds from some of the cameras; it wasn't a huge website meant for cataloging cameras, as far as I'm aware it was more of a "hey this is neat, I'll put it here so the others can see" sort of set up.
They had the kind of friendship where saying "fuck you asshole" wasn't rude and was a sign of affection, and one of the people in the group was a guy named Spikehunter.
One of them realized that one of the cameras wasn't just unsecured in that it was open to the internet, but unpassworded, allowing anyone to make modifications to the settings, including adding text overlays.
So they set a few of the cameras to say "FUCK YOU SPIKEHUNTER".
I've heard two different accounts, either;
They left the cameras so Spikehunter would come across them eventually and be like "what the fuck"
They added a screenshot/the live feed onto their website, and waited for Spikehunter to notice it on the website
I don't know how Spikehunter reacted (I don't know them), but as time went on, the group did this to more and more cameras to keep the in-joke alive.
Except... there are a lot of people out there in this "hobby", and some people love to get in on an in-joke even if they have no context for it, so other people started adding things like "FUCK YOU SPIKEHUNTER" and "EAT SHIT SPIKEHUNTER" to unpassworded cameras.
So, that's how it spread.
You also had people in the hobby who had no idea who this was, but wanted to counter it for fun. People would add "LOVE YOU SPIKEHUNTER" or "WHAT DID SPIKEHUNTER DO" to these cameras...
(I always wondered, the people who these cameras belong to... what did they think was going on...?)
It was basically impossible to do this sort of thing and not come across a camera which had been defaced with a mention of Spikehunter, especially during 2021 through to 2023.
While this originated from a small group of friends on a gaming Discord, it was nothing malicious, but there were other people who saw it and thought it was something sinister, or out-right bulling.
In circles for this hobby, I have even seen two separate people claim that "no, it's seriously a group of hackers trying to get back at one of them who betrayed them/stole a bunch of shit", and someone else say it was a secret code hackers were using to... denote something about the camera? I think was their claim.
I must admit... I have always wondered where Spikehunter is now. I think I know what Discord server this originated on (though I do not know if he is still a member), and as much as I would like to ask him if he's still in the hobby, and if this is the full version of what happened or if there is some more context we're missing, I also don't want to go seeking out a random person to bother them with such a strange question.
So... TL;DR; An in-joke between a group of internet friends that eventually became a wider in-joke among people who look for unsecured cameras as a hobby. No one was ever really mad at Spikehunter!
is what you're doing legal? also do you have any rules for which ones you're not gonna post, like ones with people or kids?
Hello!
Yes, it's legal. If the camera is open to the internet without password protection, at least where I live, it's completely legal to view it.
However, it becomes illegal if you input a password (via guessing, bruteforce, using default credentials, etc) and you do not have permission/consent from the camera operator/owner to view or screenshot (usually worded as "record") the cameras. Additional to note, if you access a camera and then a week later the camera operator places a password on it, it was not illegal in the past, but would be illegal going forward. Though, I don't know if every country has the same laws regarding this (I'd doubt it), there may be some where there's no legislation around it yet.
Regarding rules, absolutely. In the beginning I set some mental guidelines for myself, though a lot of them are things I would have no interest in seeing or sharing anyway:
No humans, unless they are almost or complete unrecognizable/unidentifiable, like Example One, or Example Two. This includes humans on cameras left open intentionally (eg. the woodworking guy, or the guy who used to stream his apartment 24/7).
Extension of the above, absolutely no kids ever, even if they could never be identified.
No photos inside of homes/private property (exc. businesses*), with the exception of:
1. Camera's intentionally left open and focused on something non-personal (eg. fish tank, bird house, 3D printer, thermostat, boiler, etc.)
2. Camera's pointing out of a window (eg. the camera is inside a home, but is looking at the street or garden)
3. Flat/Apartment stairwells
4. Garages (as long as nothing personal in there, eg. garage workshops)
For businesses, as long as no humans are present it's fine. Except for: inside Doctor's offices, Dentist offices, Gyms, Kid Spaces, etc. If there was some sort of sensitive documentation on display I wouldn't post it (that's not happened before, though).
Places of worship or sacred spaces where I'm not 100% certain they're open to the public/to someone who isn't a member of the faith.
Obvious jokes and silly set ups (**), eg. people with a fake open camera that's a static image of the "backrooms" image; people transmitting messages specifically for people who look for open cameras, etc.
Occasional exceptions to this, so far only this one, but I don't think I would post many others. Strange defaced messages are okay, as those aren't usually targeted jokes.
(**) There is another type of exception, but I won't mention it here.
Hacked/defaced open cameras with offensive messages. (I don't consider "FUCK YOU SPIKEHUNTER" or "PISSFLAPS" or whatever the hell this message is offensive)
There's probably a few more that I'm forgetting, but one of the original intentions for starting to share these was that I couldn't stop thinking about how many cameras there are and how few people I saw. I would come across the same cameras and even in super public places (high street, parks, office districts, etc), there was often no one in them. The lack of humans is a lot more interesting to me (not in like an anti-human way, more in a "how many spaces are being watched when they're empty of humans").
So I have no desire to look inside or share people's homes. I have occasionally stumbled upon interesting things but it looks like the camera might be located in someone's home, so I tend to err on the side of caution and not post it or look at it again.
Additionally, it can be difficult to know what is a joke one or a silly set-up, eg. the Kewpie Doll camera which I've been seeing for years, or this cryptic one which was probably just something escape room related.
Do you pick the images you post through a live feed or do you take the first image that appears when you connect ?
Hello!
It depends, I have a few different methods. When I'm manually looking through open cameras, I'll look at it long enough to work out if it would be safe to post (eg. isn't in someone's living room pointing at their sofa), then I'll take a screenshot pretty soon after. If it's in a public place but there might be someone in the frame, I'll make sure they're not visible at all when the screenshot is taken, though this doesn't happen very often, 99% of the cameras I find have no people in them at all when I see them.
I also have a script I wrote which automatically takes a screenshot from a list of camera feeds (well, the IP address) which also notes IP's country. For these ones, I'll just run the script, and post ones I like, have glitches, etc. (A bit of a simplification, it's a few different scripts, mostly split by different camera manufacturer). I don't use this as much, though, I'm not really proficient at programming so it can be slow and have errors.
Have you found any cameras in México? Because now your blog has got me super curious.
Hello! Yes, I've found a few before. I tag with country, so you should be able to find some under https://solitarycam.tumblr.com/tagged/mexico
Actually, I would quite like to be able to post an image from every country around the world though some are unfortunately impossible... and there are some countries where in all my years of searching I haven't found a camera.
Hello! Very sorry for my late reply, I have been largely away from the internet for the last month, as I got married and then went traveling.
Previously, I wrote a guide, here; https://hemlocke.neocities.org/camerabasic on the basics of finding this sort of thing. Please let me know if you have any questions further on from this guide. Primarily, these can be found through "Google" and "Shodan", but also through "Censys", "ZoomEye", and other such services which search the IoT ("Internet of Things").
However, please be aware that Google actively dissuades people from searching for such things through their search engine. If you do it too often (using "Google Dorks", a term which means to use extremely specific search terms to find usually non-indexed pages or sensitive information), they will often bombard you with reCAPTCHA pages.
Shodan, ZoomEye, Censys, and similar IoT-focused search tools will allow you to search, but often have limits on "free" users. With these, there are many other terms one can use to search, but a lot of it comes from tinkering around and picked up as you gain experience.
Hello everyone, I am not sure if anyone noticed the sudden disappearance of the blog in late November. Unfortunately the blog was auto-flagged by tumblr's spam identifier, and automatically deleted.
I did not get an e-mail address alerting me that this had happened, and the day after I was busy traveling to a convention and did not have time to check tumblr, so did not notice immediately (I had set up the queue to cover the period).
It took a little time (just over three weeks) but tumblr has now reinstated the blog. The only downside is that all of the prepared posts in the queue were wiped. I am very thankful that the blog could be re-instated, and will continue with regularly scheduled posting shortly.
Part of the reason I wanted this blog to exist in the first place, was to keep a record of snapshots in time from CCTV cameras, however partial and small that record may be. I love to see a snapshot of a place where no one is, a record of a space which absolutely exists, but no human is physically there to observe it. It's part of why I named it "solitarycam", rather than a play on something about the nature of liminal spaces or the act of watching something. The camera is alone.
The blog suddenly disappearing made me worried that many images that have never been reblogged would suddenly be lost to time, as I cannot be certain that I have the original files on my hard drive for one reason or another (mostly, space, and I am very disorganized).
As such, I will be trying to take semi-regular backups of all of the images on here, and mirroring them as a zip file over on one of my neocities websites. As of writing this, I have not done so, as the blog has only just been reinstated, and I need to work out the best way of getting all the images (and ideally the captions, which provide location context) downloaded.
Anyway. Before I ramble. Whether you noticed the disappearance of the blog or not, I hope you have a very good time over the holidays, and a relaxed and fun New Year.
Did you ever visit the open CCTV art project website, 'The Virtual Being'? It's long gone now and I miss it a lot, it was always cool to see random people and places all over the world in that exact moment. Thanks for continuing to upload!
Hello!
Oh, I did not hear about that before. I'm sad I missed it! Reading about it, I have heard about smaller projects which are similar, such as zines (physical and digital) (admittedly, I'd like to do my own zine making paintings from some of my favorites from over the years...) or art projects by people at College/University, though often those focus more on the subject of surveillance rather than viewing from the angle that The Virtual Being seemed to.
Are you okay with people putting the locations in the replies to posts?
Yes! I briefly for a time added the rough camera location to posts, but these are very inaccurate due to how the cameras and IPs and such work... Some people seemed confused/annoyed by how inaccurate they were, so I stopped to avoid confusion.
Actually, people can reply with whatever they want to the posts. I must confess I check replies and tags to posts every day or so out of curiosity, I like to know people's opinions and thoughts.
