[ldwolverine]

Ok, so yeah I've seen this on TV and I was hoping it was true.

My husband is currently serving in Afghanistan. I never know when he comes online and was wondering if I could set it up so that he could remotely turn on the webcam to see if I'm home (or if I am naked sleeping but that's another senario alltogether) I have a webcam but I have no clue how to go about doing this.

Does anyone out there know?

[JustinPS]

Unless the webcam is a security camera (with security camera software), and unless he has the ability from Afghanistan to use a total-control type of VPN (which I don't think the military would ever let him do), then there's no way for him to turn on your webcam remotely. Some security camera software has the ability to turn ordinary webcams into security cameras, and then you have the ability to basically "dial into" your computer to take control of the camera and see what it sees, but this requires fairly complex networking and a lot of permissions from the computer you are using and the one which the webcam is hooked up to. I really don't think they'd let him use that type of software over military lines...

[Knotbored]

If your husband could determine if you are home (or as you put it "sleeping naked") then any hacker could do the same. I would think for security reasons the last thing you need is remote control of your webcam.

[Bryan_Clark]

Wouldn't a remote desktop setup (with a strong user/pass combo) and free dyndns.org account solve this problem?

[Bryan_Clark]

Originally Posted by JustinPS

but this requires fairly complex networking and a lot of permissions from the computer you are using and the one which the webcam is hooked up to. I really don't think they'd let him use that type of software over military lines...

This is pretty simple, actually, if he has access to a computer running Windows. Remote Desktop Sharing is usually in the standard installs, and all you'd need on his end is some sort of DNS service so he'd always know what the address is. She could change the port and have a strong login/pass to keep out hackers.

[inuyasha320]

perfect solution for this is a program called orb 2.0 http://www.orb.com/ takes about 1-2 minutes to do, the program is very automated

it supports webcams (can do multiple webcams)

it also supports videos, audio, and images as well as documents (you select what it shared on orb)

it will auto detect the device and connection speed of the device and in real time transcode the stream to be compatible and offer the best quality for available resources.

it is also extremely easy to setup

and once it is setup, all he needs to do is head to https://mycast.orb.com

and log in and he will be able to view the webcam and also and any other files you added to the share list it supports pretty much any device that can load the web page, based on the header or any other info provided by the device, it will automatically transcode video, audio and anything else to work with the device.

and if there is ever a unknown device used, you can manually select the format you want to view the video in.