David Krooshof

Recording somebody's security cam

Analog radiographic surveillance cameras used to simply broadcast all their sound an images unscrambled. One day I recorded myself playing harmonica via a somebody's security camera that was filming the street in front of their garage.

recording harmonica through sombody's security camera

I had bought that scanner after Bas van Abel gave our students a workshop called "The space between" about all sorts of data that is around us and can be picked up. During this workshop, we could show a shopkeeper that her boss did not point the camera at her cash register, but at her decollete.

At the time, I was Ablogger for one of the first large blogs in the Netherlands, and I had posted a video of a discussion I had with a student of the University of Amsterdam, about her image being broadcasted. I had recorded that discussion via the security camera that was, unbeknownst to her, pointed at her workspace. The university was not at all happy with 30.000 views on that video. I would not be sued if I took that video down. But the discussion made them think, and they replaced all wireless security cameras with cabled CCTV.

So this video here, is quite innocent footage.

By the way, if that harmonica sounds different, that's because I retune just about everthing.