Reusing ADT "pulse" cameras: keep from phoning home

BeemerBiker

BeemerBiker

n3wb
May 23, 2017
10
1
San Antonio Texas
My son canceled his subscription and wants to reuse his RC8025B-ADT "pulse" cameras. I picked up one of his cameras and an older computer from him. I managed to get the RC8025B to work with blue iris after I discovered it was phoning home and changing its password.

There should be a way to put the cameras on a separate network, say, eth1 on a PC and have the internet access on say eth0. This PC only has one ethernet port. I am no expert on networks but I suspect this could be done by adding an ethernet port just for the cameras. Alternately, maybe could I put a WiFi card in the PC and set it as an access point for the cameras and use the existing ethernet for Blue Iris to set up its web server. I know enough about networks to get into trouble.

I need to keep the cameras from seeing the internet. Even after I log in and change the default password, if they ever connect to the internet the password is immediately reset.

This is what I got so far

I have WiFi router, Netgear, connected to my computer and to the camera. There is no connection to the internet. The router is 10.0.0.1 with 2 and 3 for the computer and camera.
I reset the camera and have 30 or so seconds to change the password
http://10.0.0.3/adm/enable_ui.cgi with username administrator, no password
http://10.0.0.3 gets me into the configuration and I set the password and configure the SSID and WiFi password and then unplug the hardwire cable to the camera.

I put 10.0.0.3 into Blue Iris and set generic camera to path "/img/snapshot.cgi?size=3"
i have not gotten mpeg to work yet, maybe possible, maybe not.

Anyway, it is working but I need to have blue iris web server on the internet for the iPhone app to work and as soon as I connect an uplink to the internet, the camera changes it password and blue iris link is broken.

Maybe there is a network guru here who can point me into the right direction

Thanks for looking!
 
Last edited:
your can block internet with parental controls on the router, you can also assign a static ip but omit default gateway & dns

These cameras aren't very good.
 
I will consider your suggestion. In the mean time this has become a "challenge". I tried a WiFi card, setting up a hot spot for the camera to connect to but the camera uses only wpa2-personal (or less) and win10 requires PSK / AES or higher so no connection. The Netgear router allows anything so the camera connects just fine. I will try your parental control if available. While the cameras may not be very good, they seem to be much more accessible than a couple of Zmoto I got that phone home to china using clear text and disallow IE.

EDIT - I used a modern WiFi that supports everything. Maybe if I used a really old G only band that didnt have AES I might get windows to allow entry. I read an article in MSDN that stated minimum requirements to be that AES. Maybe that does not apply for old cards that dont have it built in. In any event, "arp -a" listed the mac address of the camera but it would not respond over WiFi hot spot. It responded just find when router was used.
 
OK, got it working the way I want and managed to get video instead of snapshots. The camera does not phone home when on the subnet. Not sure why, maybe the dns is not correct.

What I did: Configured WiFi Pcie adapter card to connection to the internet "n" band in my home. Computer got 192.168.1.x with 1.254 the gateway
Attached Netgear WiFi router to the only ethernet port on the win10pro system. Computer got 10.0.0.2 with 10.0.0.1 for gateway (the Netgear).
Netgear assigned 10.0.0.3 for camera which I had programmed to find the Netgear SSID.
Used /img/video.mjpeg for the url to camera
Picture below shows the ADT camera setup with its 3 streams. Right pic shows the blue iris setup.
imgvid.png
 
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I accomplish this with VLANs. I have a managed switch and a Ubquiti EdgeRouter that can be configured in ways your typical ISP combo box or router from Best Buy can't. The cameras are on their own subnet and I deny all incoming traffic from it except established connections. So from my main network, I can connect into the camera subnet, but the cameras cannot initiate connections. The only exception I made was access to one NTP server so they can keep accurate time.
 
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BeemerBiker said:
OK, got it working the way I want and managed to get video instead of snapshots. The camera does not phone home when on the subnet. Not sure why, maybe the dns is not correct.

What I did: Configured WiFi Pcie adapter card to connection to the internet "n" band in my home. Computer got 192.168.1.x with 1.254 the gateway
Attached Netgear WiFi router to the only ethernet port on the win10pro system. Computer got 10.0.0.2 with 10.0.0.1 for gateway (the Netgear).
Netgear assigned 10.0.0.3 for camera which I had programmed to find the Netgear SSID.
Used /img/video.mjpeg for the url to camera
Picture below shows the ADT camera setup with its 3 streams. Right pic shows the blue iris setup.
imgvid.png
Click to expand...

Who cares how crappy the camera was, sometimes you just wanna crack a code just because It’s good exercise.

You don’t exactly solve a Rubik’s cube for the functionality of the cube... It’s just fun.

Kudos to you BeemerBiker for pulling it off...
In all fairness, I came across this camera in a thrift store and I was gonna hack it to see what it was capable of. That’s actually the only reason I stumbled into this thread. well, with all due respect, now I don’t have to waste my time doing it. Lol
 
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Hello I know this is an old post but I have a few questions. I tried what beemerbiker has posted but for some reason I cannot log into the oc835. I get to the log in screen and enter administrator for UN and password I leave it blank but for some reason I cannot log into the dang thing. I disconnected the internet and reset for 20-30 seconds same issue.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Shawn2321
 
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