Scary Stuff - Hijacking Baby Monitors

I put the baby monitor on top of a book shelf in the hallway. I could hear everything the kids were doing. Don't mind knowing who was telling the truth when it came to "He hit me!!!!!" "She pinched me first!!!".

Sad that anything with a computer (which is everything these days) can be hacked. I have already heard about appliances and TV's getting hacked. It's not just computers anymore.

We never used a baby monitor.
Our son's room was across the hall from ours and the rest of the time he was with us.
I don't even like cams on laptops.
My husband had me use one for a little while and I put a sticky tab over it.

If you don't change the password you're really asking for this sort of thing.

Plus, and this may make me sound old and "get off my lawn you damn kids!" but unless your child has a serious health issue, there's no reason for a video monitor. We have an audio only because I have bad hearing and can't hear anything upstairs when I'm downstairs.

As this is exactly why I stay away from as much technology as possible. You have NO EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY with anything on the internet or wireless devices - just ask the Supreme Court! I don't have a cell phone; wouldn't know how to text to save my life; no facebook, face time or anything else that captures and sends images over the net.

Technology is NOT my friend; it is an intrusion.

My baby slept with me - no need for a monitor.

I never had a baby monitor. We all lived on one level, so there really was no need.

We have video monitors, but they aren't linked to the internet. Still, we've crossed lines with our neighbor's baby's room before and it was quite unsettling to see an empty crib on the monitor when I looked to see if my son was still asleep.

I rarely use the monitor now--I did constantly with babies 1 & 2, less with #3, and haven't in months with #4 (who is now 7 mos).

We had a monitor that was fairly old (former client passed it along to us). I didn't use it a lot, but in the first few weeks it was actually great to be able to let my husband go do something else and just use it as an intercom for backup-- esp. when two-week old Kiddo spit up everything he had just nursed and drenched my clothes and the sheets! Was a blessing then to have the ability to holler "Honey, I need help!"

I think people raised their babies without video monitoring for years and did okay. Just seemed like one more level we didn't need. If I'd had a very young child with health/developmental issues, though, I might have considered it.

Oh my goodness! How scary for that family! My brother uses one of those for his baby so I need to make sure he's taken the precautions mentioned (change WI and camera passwords).

We stopped using the monitors around 2 yrs. I felt that I needed to hear what was going on but after we stopped using them, I realized how little sleep I was getting because I would wake up to every little sound. So I should have stopped once she was consistently sleeping through the night which was around 4-6 months.

VERY SCARY!!! We never had video monitors. Our rooms were really close too so we didn't use the monitor we had that often.

I saw that story and it was spooky.

I didn't use a monitor very long, maybe 6 month maximum and it did not have a camera on it.

We do have cameras around our home but we use Game Cameras which run off batteries and I download images about once a week or sooner if I feel it is necessary.

I've learned from my videos that we have a HUGE raccoon that visits every night in the same spot of the yard! I also saw some teens getting into a bit of trouble as well.

I had a video monitor (it was a gift) and could see the nursery on any of the TV's in the house if I wanted, and I could hear the nursery on a hand held walkie talkie type thing. I learned early on that it was best to turn the monitor off at night, or else I would wake up at every fart and whimper baby made all night long. I did find the video monitor useful when I was using the Ferber sleep method because I could see for myself that baby wasn't crying because he was hurt or in danger or any of the other things that go through your head when you hear baby cry. The rest of the time I just used the sound monitor when baby napped and I wanted to do yard work outside. I stopped using it when they stopped napping, so around two years old. If someone were to be able to tap into our video monitor they would find our nursery a pretty boring place.

Yeah I read that article too.
In this case, it was a computer based "internet" type baby monitor, and IP camera, hence it was hacked and the hackers got into the person's home network etc.

This can happen also with just via computers that have a camera on it for video or doing Facetime, etc., a "stranger/hacker" can sometimes even watch the computer user through, it. If you put a post-it over that video/camera "eye" on your computer, it blocks any unknown hackers from viewing you.

When my kids were babies, we had a baby monitor. But not the video type. It was just, 2 stations that you could plug in and use in any room. Like an intercom type thing. No computer or home network connection needed to use it so no fear of it being hacked.

This was a creepy thing that happened to that family.
Really creepy.
And most people are not "hackers" thus we don't think like one or have the tech knowledge to do those things nor to protect ourselves from tech hits, and so we don't typically think these things can be hacked.
But it can be.

My daughter's friend, was saying that, for example, there was some kind of app, that was corrupt. And if someone downloaded it and got it, that it then enabled the "hacker" to SEE the person, via that iTouch or cell phone's video eye on their gadget. Thus, my daughter always covers the video camera eye, on her iTouch, just in case. With a piece of paper that is taped on.
With my home computer, I have always covered the video/camera eye with a post-it.

Many creepy things nowadays and especially that everything tech based is so connected nowadays.

I never used a baby monitor for my kids. I did use one when my Mom was sick and I was sleeping.

I remember reading George Orwell in high school 40+ yrs ago and i thought some of the things he warned us about were a little far fetched. But now with security systems you can monitor from home I am not sold on them. All it takes is a good hacker and anyone can be in your home and all up in your business . I don't have the trust I once did in our government. All of this technology is fine as long as we remain free citizens. But with cameras every where including our homes how much longer will it be when we accept the government monitoring our every move? And using 'national security' as the excuse.

That truly is scary! Wow. I would've never thought about this. There are some real evil people.

That woman must have been horrified.

Thanks for sharing this.

How about the video camera tape that showed an intruder IN the nursery looking at their child? Spooky!
We had a video monitor and it was great. Bit with houses all using them, I do remember O. time we picked up someone else's nursery! Weird. Only happened once. I glanced at it and was like "that's not my crib...or my kid...or the right angle of view!
I don't know whole someone could "hack into it" it's just a matter of camera & receiver & proximity.

Is it creepy? Yes
Should everyone who has a computer know something about basic internet safety, like having complex network passwords? Yes

Do I worry about this, or would it change whether or not I use a baby monitor? No. I try to avoid reacting to this kind of news hype. I put it in the same category as news hype about kidnappings. Yes, it happens and it's tragic when it does. But the number of kidnappings by strangers is so low that it's not worth spending a lot of mental energy on it, beyond taking basic safety precautions. The thing most likely to hurt someone in my family (or any family in the USA)? A car accident. And yet, no one stays home all day, afraid to drive.