r/videosurveillance

WHAT IF WE TURNED SURVEILLANCE AROUND?

The government is building an enormous automated system to identify, track, and monitor ordinary people.

So why can't we build one that watches them?

WATCH THE WATCHERS would be an open-source, decentralized network of privately owned cameras observing government activity that's already visible from public roads.

And here's the important part:

You don't need special hardware.

You can use a Ring camera you already own.

Your existing home security cameras.

An old security camera sitting in a drawer.

Or, if you want to dedicate a camera specifically to the project, go buy a cheap trail camera or security camera and put it on your own property.

It doesn't matter.

That's the whole point.

The individual decides what hardware they use, where they put it, and whether they participate.

All you need is a camera pointed toward the street.

The software does the rest.

Local AI identifies qualifying government vehicles and filters out everything else.

The video stays on your property.

No live feeds.

No audio.

No neighbors.

No civilian vehicles.

No private information.

The software extracts only the useful information and sends a tiny event record to the network:

Vehicle detected. Time. Approximate location. Direction.

Now imagine thousands of independently owned cameras doing this.

One camera sees a government vehicle.

Another sees it ten minutes later.

Another sees it across town.

The network can correlate those observations and build a real-time picture of government activity.

No corporation owns the cameras.

No government controls the network.

No proprietary black box decides what gets collected.

Open source. Auditable. Decentralized. Voluntary.

They built surveillance infrastructure to watch us.

Let's build citizen infrastructure to watch the watchers.

The cameras already exist.

The AI already exists.

The computing power already exists.

We don't need to build another surveillance system.

We need to turn the one we already have around.

WATCH THE WATCHERS.

Your camera. Your property. Your choice.

Hi everyone hoping for some help.

I’ve recently moved into a new place with an older 8 camera set up. Had an old dvr and all cameras were working including night/day and infrared. Upgraded the dvr to a Dahua hybrid as I couldn’t access any of the controls/menu of the old box. Since then the outdoor cameras (AHD) are still working normally but the indoor ones (zosi) night/day modes still work, I can hear the infrared shutter click but the infrared itself isn’t turning on. I assume they are pretty old cameras as they only work ok cvbs and there isn’t a switch on the camera lead to change signal type.

I’ve been through all the settings on the dvr and can’t get the infrared to work. Still works normally when I go back to the old box.

Anyone have any ideas on what would be causing the infrared lights to not turn on?