[HN Gopher] Kerberos: Open-Source Video Surveillance
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       Kerberos: Open-Source Video Surveillance
        
       Author : Keyb0ardWarr10r
       Score  : 113 points
       Date   : 2021-07-11 11:13 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (kerberos.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (kerberos.io)
        
       | clipradiowallet wrote:
       | Choosing a name like "Kerberos" for a new project will make it
       | very difficult to search for anything related to it. Kerberos is
       | an old concept in many operating systems with 8.4 million google
       | search results(and none of them are related to this video
       | product). Pick a new name IMO.
        
         | aaronchall wrote:
         | It's interesting that the cached summary of the `Kerberos`
         | article on Yahoo search has the text of the disambiguated
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerberos_(protocol), but it's now
         | a disambiguation page that still doesn't include _this_
         | Kerberos.
         | 
         | The biggest problem with this name clash for the creators is
         | that help and documentation will be hard to find, which will
         | stymie adoption.
         | 
         | They also lose potential good will with the rest of the tech
         | community.
        
       | foodstances wrote:
       | Does it support Kerberos authentication?
        
         | leetrout wrote:
         | It's like they didn't even Google the name first.
        
           | marcosdumay wrote:
           | It's surprising that anybody working on something related to
           | security and computers would have to Google that name.
           | 
           | But yeah, goes to show that Windows is not absolutely
           | omnipresent.
        
         | spijdar wrote:
         | To add on to this -- the about page acknowledges how "many are
         | confused" about the name but effectively brushes it off because
         | "kerberos is a good name", then "it's not actually kerberos,
         | but kerberos.io", followed by "it's a mouthful so we'll just
         | say kerberos" (and the HN submission just says kerberos)
         | 
         | I feel like the name really might be an impediment to the
         | project. Not that people can't ever re-use names, but this
         | really feels like a pointless impediment to discoverability.
        
           | rjzzleep wrote:
           | It actually is a really good name. But yeah, I had the same
           | confusion.
        
             | dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
             | It's a name that fits the project description well, but
             | it's a very bad name for an open source security-related
             | project. They could have as well named it OpenCV.
        
             | vhodges wrote:
             | A better name for a multi-headed security system would be
             | Cerberus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerberus
        
               | rjzzleep wrote:
               | That might be something they would be willing to change
               | their name to. It's also a commonly used name although
               | probably nowhere near as bad to google as Kerberus.
        
               | srswtf123 wrote:
               | I think Siemans has that under the Cerberus Pyrotronics
               | brand.
        
               | chedabob wrote:
               | Already taken by this Android app though
               | https://www.cerberusapp.com/
        
               | woleium wrote:
               | that's abandoned now I think
        
               | pjc50 wrote:
               | Same dog, different language.
        
               | wyager wrote:
               | It's pronounced about the same in either case. "Cerberus"
               | in Latin is pronounced "Kerberus", just like "cent" is
               | actually pronounced "Kent".
        
               | vhodges wrote:
               | Thanks, that I did not know.
        
               | pjc50 wrote:
               | All the Greek patheon have dual Latin/Greek names.
               | Mercury/Hermes etc.
        
           | Nzen wrote:
           | Or they could make it a multi-part name, like Bronze
           | Kerberos. That way, they can keep the connotation they want,
           | but _
        
           | austincheney wrote:
           | I wonder if MIT trademarked Kerberos.
           | 
           | https://web.mit.edu/kerberos/
        
             | spinax wrote:
             | US: quick search says Yes, at one time however it's was
             | abandoned in 1994: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield
             | ?f=doc&state=4807:gm...
             | 
             | Current US trademark holder is a financial group: https://t
             | msearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:gm...
             | 
             | Edit: it appears the USPTO has sent a notice refusing
             | activation on the above due to requirements not met if I
             | read this correctly: https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=887
             | 58894&caseType=SERIAL_...
        
           | Nzen wrote:
           | Or they could make it a multi-part name, like Bronze
           | Kerberos. That way, they can keep the connotation they want,
           | but avoid the problems of squatting on a used name.
        
           | Spooky23 wrote:
           | It's a uniquely bad name as Kerberos is used by almost every
           | working adult, but hardly anyone understands it.
           | 
           | Usurping a vaguely familiar and confusing thing that is
           | prevalent seems to be a bad choice.
        
           | _huayra_ wrote:
           | They could just call it kerbaros instead to clear up the
           | confusion. /s
           | 
           | This reminds me of the way the word for "today" in French is
           | aujourd'hui. "hui" meant "today" in old French, but it sounds
           | like oui ("yes"). If you split it apart, aujourd'hui means
           | something like "of the day of today".
           | 
           | "of the open source video surveillance software of Kerberos"
        
           | Santosh83 wrote:
           | Much ado about nothing. We're adults and tech literate people
           | and we can juggle more than one conflicting identifier in our
           | heads considering we deal with stuff like C++ routinely.
           | 
           | If the project is technically good and they market it well,
           | people will get used to the name and learn to distinguish
           | between this and the auth protocol.
        
             | collsni wrote:
             | Java and JavaScript
        
             | ClumsyPilot wrote:
             | We are adults and we can deal with being sneezed on,
             | therefore lets get sneezed on as much as possible for no
             | reason at all!
        
           | Wistar wrote:
           | The documentation introduction is where the name confusion is
           | mentioned.
           | 
           | https://doc.kerberos.io/
        
           | wigster wrote:
           | just rename as Fluffy
        
             | mirekrusin wrote:
             | BigBro?
        
             | woleium wrote:
             | Or Argus
        
               | throw0101a wrote:
               | For anyone wondering:
               | 
               | > _Argus Panoptes (All-seeing; Ancient Greek: Argos
               | Panoptes) or Argos (Ancient Greek: Argos) is a many-eyed
               | giant in Greek mythology. The figure is known for having
               | generated the saying "the eyes of Argus", as in to be
               | "followed by the eyes of Argus", or "trailed by" them, or
               | "watched by" them, etc._
               | 
               | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_Panoptes
               | 
               | > _Argus Panoptes or Argos was a hundred-eyed giant in
               | Greek mythology. He was a giant, the son of Arestor,
               | whose name "Panoptes" meant "the all-seeing one". He was
               | a servant of Hera; one of the tasks that were given to
               | him was to slay the fearsome monster Echidna, wife of
               | Typhon, which he successfully completed._
               | 
               | * https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Creatures/Argus_Pa
               | nopte...
        
           | indymike wrote:
           | Changing the name would be excellent marketing.
        
         | daniellarusso wrote:
         | Well done.
        
         | ulzeraj wrote:
         | I had a very similar moment a few months ago when I found out
         | there is some kind of docker management UI named Heimdall,
         | which is the name of another Kerberos implementation.
        
         | quickthrower2 wrote:
         | k6s? Maybe!
        
       | synergy20 wrote:
       | where is the code? I only see open source client, but the server
       | side(nvr etc) are really the key.
        
       | vdfs wrote:
       | Anyone know how this compare to MotionEyeOS? MotionEye is great
       | but have some limitations like no audio, no way to separate
       | users/camera permissions
        
       | bsenftner wrote:
       | > Single camera per instance (e.g. One Docker container per
       | camera). One camera per Docker instance? This is going to eat up
       | hardware resources like Fat Albert.
        
         | daniellarusso wrote:
         | How does Fat Albert eat up hardware resources?
         | 
         | Also, don't you need to know the specs of the individual
         | container instances before determining it will be resource
         | starved on the host?
         | 
         | I have an off-the-shelf CCTV DVR that supports 4k with up to 8
         | cameras, but it struggles with more than 4.
        
           | bsenftner wrote:
           | I write video security software, and the support logic to
           | manage a single camera is quite low. Whereas the supporting
           | infrastructure for this conglomeration is quite large. I know
           | this field of tech intimately, yet when I see projects like
           | this I ask myself "what are they doing with all this
           | infrastructure? why?"
        
         | okamiueru wrote:
         | What kind of hardware resource would this eat up? Maybe on non-
         | linux where docker isn't as efficient?
         | 
         | There is next to zero extra memory overhead on Linux, as the
         | static parts are shared. Computational overhead is also linear
         | with work, which would mostly be the case regardless.
        
           | daniellarusso wrote:
           | The other cool thing, to me, is you can keep adding cameras
           | and do not have to replace hardware, just add more.
        
         | bsenftner wrote:
         | It's not just the use of Docker, the infrastructure they're
         | using is heavier than necessary. Quite a bit.
        
         | mrweasel wrote:
         | I've noticed that software more and more being designed that
         | way. Multi-tenancy is out the window, just run multiple
         | instances. For some applications it's certainly easier, but as
         | with so many other things it's overused.
        
       | acd wrote:
       | Kerberos name is a security ticket protocol/server.
        
       | millzlane wrote:
       | This post couldn't have come at a more perfect time. I recently
       | got a call from a client who couldn't access their Unifi Cameras
       | remotely anymore. Apparently the EOL for the self-hosted Unifi
       | Video was was announced last year.
       | 
       | And the replacement solution is no longer self-hosted and is a
       | hardware solution that costs a few hundred dollars to keep the
       | system up to date.
        
         | tw04 wrote:
         | Careful with that. Ubiquiti doesn't support ONVIF (industry
         | standard for triggering motion alerts) and stopped supporting
         | RTSP on their new stuff IIRC.
         | 
         | You're going to want to do a ton of testing if you're keeping
         | those cameras.
        
       | counternotions wrote:
       | Frigate is another open-source object detection engine that works
       | amazingly well with Home Assistant:
       | https://github.com/blakeblackshear/frigate
        
         | dementik wrote:
         | Frigate is just wonderful.
         | 
         | Coupled with Coral TPU it manages to perform pretty well on
         | Raspi4.
        
       | ancount wrote:
       | Does anyone have some outdoor camera recommendations?
       | 
       | The ones I had were very low resolution, I could hardly recognize
       | myself in video.
        
         | linsomniac wrote:
         | I ended up getting these Montavue 4k cameras largely because
         | they have really good low light performance. They are ONVIF and
         | work with blueiris, which is good because their NVR sucks for
         | use on a mobile phone.
         | 
         | The hardware is the same as many other cameras, HIKvision also
         | has this hardware but I couldn't get it working with blueiris
         | or the HIKvision NVR.
         | 
         | The cameras are indeed amazing at low light. I felt like that
         | was a good feature, and maybe that was misguided. But I can be
         | fairly dark out, looking out the window, and the cameras are
         | still in color mode and look like it's daytime. Think: Google
         | Night Vision camera mode.
         | 
         | I wish there were a better mobile experience though, that's the
         | only way we use them. Both blueiris and Montavue apps suck.
         | Ubiquiti has the best in class here, but I've been burned by
         | them too many times now. This replaces a unusable Unifi system.
         | 
         | For remote access to BlueIris.i plan to use ZeroTier.
        
         | jzawodn wrote:
         | I'm happy with Amcrest cameras, both for indoor and outdoor
         | use. They have some very affordable 4k options with PoE if that
         | matters to you.
        
           | acidburnNSA wrote:
           | I love their cameras but the app is so abysmal. Whenever I
           | connect over vpn to access the cams remotely it goes
           | effectively into a boot loop. I hate it. I keep reporting the
           | crashes on android but no updates come.
        
           | throw0101a wrote:
           | How do you power your outdoor cameras? Just drill a hole for
           | a PoE cable?
        
             | acidburnNSA wrote:
             | That's what I do.
        
           | bsenftner wrote:
           | I've come full circle with Amcrest. I work in video
           | surveillance, and over time Amcrest just continue to work. I
           | think of them like the consumer priced Axis. As far as their
           | app, ditch it - they are ONVIF compatible. I'm currently
           | using mine with both a rebranded hikvision NVR and a home
           | brewed NVR I'm coding myself, plus a few RaspberryPIs running
           | VLC in different rooms.
        
         | deadbunny wrote:
         | The Hook Up youtube channel has a number of review videos of
         | different types of cameras in different price ranges with lots
         | of examples.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MoynorQ3y0
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZJX8CKR5KI
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGRgZWb5zx0
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXD82epDPE4
        
       | GekkePrutser wrote:
       | Interesting! I was just setting up Shinobi but this looks really
       | good too.
       | 
       | I don't like the idea of having one docker per camera though..
       | But I'll give it a try.
        
         | Johnyma22 wrote:
         | I tried Shinobi but gave up, I even spent some time on bug
         | reports/issues/with their community.
         | 
         | My major issue with Shinobi was each stream is processed by
         | ffmpeg and I had 10+ cameras all requiring 10% cpu each to
         | handle any object/motion detection. The cameras had
         | object/motion detection functionality built in so I figured it
         | made more sense to just do that work on the camera and not on
         | CPU. I also tried offloading some jobs to GPU and that was not
         | working properly, so I tried Nvidia Jetson and still no dice.
        
           | stemc43 wrote:
           | ive also spent entirely way too much time trying to get
           | shinobi and zoneminder to work and had to give up.
           | 
           | xeoma is paid but runs in docker on linux just fine
        
           | GekkePrutser wrote:
           | The problem with offloading that to the camera is that onvif
           | doesn't seem to have a standard way to report this. I only
           | need motion detection on one cam so it wasn't an issue.
           | 
           | But good point, I wonder how Kerberos does this
        
             | Keyb0ardWarr10r wrote:
             | It doesn't use the builtin ONVIF motion detection but
             | instead processes every keyframe and does motion detection
             | between the keyframes. So not every frame is being decoded
             | to process, but enough to perform motion capture.
             | 
             | There's some interesting work w.r.t motion detection that
             | doesn't actually require decoding the packets but rather
             | looks at the motion vectors to estimate motion. That would
             | save up a lot of resources..
        
               | cvwright wrote:
               | > motion detection that doesn't actually require decoding
               | the packets but rather looks at the motion vectors to
               | estimate motion.
               | 
               | There's a very cool package for the Raspberry Pi that
               | does this: https://github.com/billw2/pikrellcam
        
       | eeZah7Ux wrote:
       | docker pull kerberos/kerberos
       | 
       | Should I trust a whole image from docker hub with access to a
       | security camera?
       | 
       | No. I'd rather trust a Linux distribution to do a reproducible
       | build.
        
         | Keyb0ardWarr10r wrote:
         | build from source then https://github.com/kerberos-
         | io/opensource
        
       | thom wrote:
       | Any recommendations for a system like this that runs on old
       | smartphones as cameras?
        
         | Atlas-Marbles wrote:
         | I've used an old phone with kerberos. You'll need an "IP cam"
         | app that runs an mjpg or RTSP stream from the phone, then put
         | the stream url in kerberos. I run kerberos on a Pi.
        
       | whalesalad wrote:
       | Interesting. I've been building a home camera network and the
       | state of this space (the nvr software) is pretty abysmal:
       | zoneminder, blueiris, shinobi, etc... gonna take this for a spin.
       | 
       | This is a terrible name for an open source project though.
        
         | CyberDildonics wrote:
         | The name is a giant red flag. If someone doesn't care about a
         | giant name conflict of a very uncommon word with a very common
         | project, then they just brush it off with rationalizations, it
         | makes me wonder what other reasonable things they are willing
         | to ignore.
        
           | aaronchall wrote:
           | Ah, the reasonableness signaling heuristic.
        
         | edgyquant wrote:
         | It would be a perfect name for a surveillance system in a
         | dystopian government though
        
           | boraoztunc wrote:
           | a system in "The Ministry of Surveillance"
        
             | edoceo wrote:
             | Ministry of Peace
        
         | bitwize wrote:
         | I'd suggest Argus, the name of the hundred-eyed giant tasked to
         | watch over Io for Hera, as a replacement name.
        
         | riffic wrote:
         | Generally I downvote name griping here because it's both an
         | inevitable topic and the ultimate in bikeshedding, but this is
         | one of those rare exceptions. Link to the "other" kerberos (a
         | very well-referenced and utilized authentication protocol and
         | implementation) in case anyone's curious what this is being
         | driven by:
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerberos_(protocol)
        
         | tw04 wrote:
         | Other than the windows dependence, what's the issue with
         | blueiris? I've tried the others you've listed as well and found
         | it to be the most robust by quite a bit. I wish the web
         | interface were better, and having to use a reverse proxy or vpn
         | to get mobile access is also... meh.
        
       | thedougd wrote:
       | I'm surprised more video surveillance software does not leverage
       | the APIs of the cameras. Network cameras have built in motion,
       | object, line cross, and facial detection. The work is done in the
       | camera and the APIs allow you to subscribe through call backs or
       | server side events. You could support event recording for at
       | least a half dozen cameras with a raspberry pi.
       | 
       | I've prototyped this but it ended up on my shelf of incomplete
       | hobbies. Given that many camera brands are white label products
       | made by the same manufacturer, I would think you could cover
       | several brands with just the first API client implementation. Or
       | maybe this is also covered with onvif?
        
         | abstractbarista wrote:
         | I believe some like Blue Iris do support this, but other open-
         | source stuff like ZoneMinder is not as close. ZM does support
         | controlling many PTZ cameras, which is really fun. :)
        
         | tw04 wrote:
         | That is all part of ONVIF.
        
       | kristianpaul wrote:
       | How this could be named open source but actually be licensed
       | under a creative commons non comercial license (BY-NC-SA 4.0)
       | 
       | https://doc.kerberos.io/opensource/license/
        
         | remram wrote:
         | Seems like v3 is MIT (but not yet released):
         | https://github.com/kerberos-io/opensource/blob/master/LICENS...
        
         | fooblat wrote:
         | It does seem like an odd choice given that Creative Commons
         | specifically recommends against it[0]. That alone would make me
         | unlikely to use this project.
         | 
         | 0. https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-
         | comm...
        
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       (page generated 2021-07-11 23:02 UTC)