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Help Me Scan for Viruses? — Parallax Forums

Help Me Scan for Viruses?

ercoerco Posts: 20,256
in General Discussion
I'm about to recommend some PC P2P camera viewing software in an upcoming SERVO magazine article. The only free version I've found is at a Chinese website, a zip file at http://www.eazzydv.com/c644.html

I installed it on my Craig Win8 tablet after running my checks on it and it works wonderfully. If anyone has some amazing antivirus-detecting software and can help verify it's clean I might sleep a bit better. Any takers?

Comments

  • Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
    Norton Security said "No Threats Found"
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    Good man, Thanks Ron!

    Any Avast/Kaspersky users here, Gordon? :)
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    Hmmm. I just found a newer and larger version of that program SYSM Monitor on Google Drive. Sounds more legit to me. Any reason not to trust Google Drive more?

    I'm testing that one now.
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    This is the official site for the software - http://bulbcam.net

    Seems legit. For now :)
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    xanadu wrote: »
    This is the official site for the software - http://bulbcam.net

    Outstanding. How did you determine that?

  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    I contacted the site you linked via chat and told them I was an agent for a famous writer here in the states and we needed the software author's site.

  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    Ha, good one!
  • xanaduxanadu Posts: 3,347
    I was talking about Gordon btw :)
  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,566
    You should always cross correlate your attempts to seek and destroy viruses so that where one option fails, another option can fill the gap. i.e. the latest and greatest McAfee for Windows 10 did NOT see an adware popup virus I had managed to aquire... but the latest "SpyBot Search and Destroy" found several adware related problems and was able to remove them.
  • koehlerkoehler Posts: 598

    I thought everyone knew about Jotti, and there are other similar IIRC:

    https://virusscan.jotti.org/en

    Also, http://www.sandboxie.com/ is great to have your browser run in and to also test/run those programs without known providence.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2016-01-09 21:29
    Awesome info all, and I am bookmarking Jotti, koehler. Thanks!

    Funny thing, that first file worked better than the one on Google drive. The app records videos in .hkv format and the bundled player "PLAY" in the Google plays them back with a bluish tint. Also plays back videos recorded from the first file with a bluish tint, which worked fine with the bundled player in the first file.

    I'm not surprised that Windows Media Player couldn't play .hkv files but that's the first format I've seen that VLC player couldn't play. This .hkv site points right back at SYSM Monitor as the primary or only player. http://www.file-extensions.org/hkv-file-extension

    So the Chinese have invented their own video format, even if only in obscure little IP camera circles. No obvious video format converter makes it hard to share. I'll have to upload one to Youtube to see if that works.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    koehler,
    I thought everyone knew about Jotti
    Never heard of Jotti.

    Can't imagine why I would send them my files to snoop on.

    Sounds like a scam to me.
  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    Erco, I would not recommend anything that requires a non-standard codec. Viruses are only part of the worry, though it's true non-standard codecs are a common method of introducing malware. Depending on the quality of the decoder and installer, the bad ones can cause serious harm to the playback system of a Windows PC, up to and including rendering all video playback inoperable. This is due to the "plugin" nature of Windows video, and the naive belief of the original designers of the system that all developers of codecs would play nice.

    Basically, it will be hard to find a player that uses a standard codec and is free. Most of the good, well-behaved codecs require licensing, though there are a few open source codecs, such as Theora, that have managed to escape this dilemma.

    Don't know what to tell you other than you might be doing readers a disservice by recommending software of this nature that isn't from a brand name source, and you can't personally vouch for. Just sayin'.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    Excellent advice, Gordon. My upcoming article is about P2P (peer to peer) cameras streaming live video to smartphones. All the smartphone software is out and proven, so the article stands on its own. I only found this PC software yesterday, and it is the only one bringing this funky new codec to the table. The article is in the can already, certainly too late to add in print. I was going to suggest to Robin that maybe she put a link to the PC software on their website, but maybe we'll hold back.

    I do value your input, Boss!

    BTW for those who wonder what all this fuss is about, there's this cute little $15 MD81S camera which has several functions (DVR to uSD card, etc) but I'm only interested in its WiFi function, which streams live FPV video to a smartphone. It has built-in WiFi Much like the drone cams I mentioned at http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/162510/22-fpv-is-for-suckers which was spurred on by my original "need wireless camera" post at http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/162074/need-wireless-camera-recommendation

    Personally, I think these little self-contained WiFi cams are at least as groundbreaking as the keychain DVR cams I first posted about 6 years ago. Zero setup. All sorts of possibilities.

    Remember to Paypal me a dollar for the twins' college fund for each one you order!

    BTW there's another style camera with IR LEDs for "night vision" but I don't recommend it. The video lag is MUCH greater and the IR LEDs glow red in the dark. Not stealthy.

    The camera can stream audio too, but the video quality goes down and the audio gets out of sync with the video on live view, and gets ridiculously out of sync (like 10 seconds lag) when recorded on the smartphone app.

    Video only:

    Video plus audio:

    Android smartphone app demo:
  • koehlerkoehler Posts: 598
    Heater. wrote: »
    koehler,
    I thought everyone knew about Jotti
    Never heard of Jotti.

    Can't imagine why I would send them my files to snoop on.

    Sounds like a scam to me.

    No, they've been around for years... which doesn't really mean anything.

    I don't use them for work/personal stuff, however for stuff I might find on the net that I want to doublecheck.

    Work stuff is scanned going through the email server, and so far no issues.
    I rarely receive attachments in personal email. If I do, it gets scanned going through gMail and then through my local scanner.



  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    Few bad codecs are themselves malware. What they do instead is allow malicious code in video files to run. So passing a scanner over the codec itself may not turn up anything, unless its file signature is already known in a database to be malware.

    The way these codecs cause problems is that when they are installed, they position themselves up the priority ladder to handle formats that would otherwise go to another codec, like the Apple Quicktime or Windows MP4. They might then request an "update" or some other innocuous video, which plays a file that does the actual infecting. (The codec doesn't actually have to be able to play any videos. It just lodges itself into the playback graph, and then calls the real codecs that do the actual playback. )

    Scanning codec installers is really an exercise in futility, unless the file is old and known to the anti-virus programs. Newer codecs and installers, especially those not heavily downloaded, may not be flagged.

    I'm not saying these P2P video codecs behave in such a way, but I wanted to point out that scanning offers only minimal protection.
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