HYDERABAD: If you thought that insecam.org, the website which broadcasts live CCTV camera footage, including those from Hyderabad, was creepy then the vision that the website’s developer has for its future would make one shiver. In an exclusive interaction with the Russian-based developer of Insecam over email, he said, “I am a developer who likes cameras and my idea is to make a project to watch the world.”
The developer, who declined from naming himself, opined that mass media was a ‘prism’ which the project was aiming to bypass. “The Insecam project allows people to travel virtually by watching any country online without a prism of mass media,” he said. It was also clear through the interaction that he did not comprehend the basic tenets of privacy and that he sought validation for his actions from responses he receives from a few users.
The developer explained, “I will quote anonymously one of the messages received: I always follow the two regions of the Czech Republic and Austria. (sic) I was able to see and listen to many places through you, and it was like I had actually travelled to them.” He claimed that many people have found his project useful and that they were looking for ‘improved ways to browse cams.’
The developer also claimed that the website routinely removed private streams. “I do not know who is owner of each listed camera. The streams are collected from open sources. Each public-open video stream is added to this directory. After that, manual moderation is performed to check if it is not published by mistake,” he said. There are at least eight live streams from Hyderabad currently available on the website.