In celebration of my geekiness I downloaded ispy camera software prior to a recent
hotel stay. A person very close to me
(name withheld due to my desire to continue life as I know it.) suggested I was
paranoid. Well...
Imagine our surprise the first time I left my laptop running
with the software active, we saw disturbing photos of someone in our room. The person seemed to be looking at our
stuff, peered into the camera and then left without taking anything. This was
not a room cleaning person. I sent one
video set to my phone and took the video to the hotel management for their
reaction. I asked if this person was
employed by the hotel and if he was supposed to be in our room. The manager said the intruder was a
maintenance man and he would check into it.
After waiting several days I approached another manager who got back to
me within 15 minutes and explained there had been a maintenance issue in our hall and the intruder was checking all
the rooms. Frankly the excuse reeked of
cover-up as the intruder was definitely looking over our stuff.
Interestingly enough after I asked if they wanted different
angles from my other cameras and I confirmed multiple cameras accompany me
everywhere, we only saw cleaning people after that. BTW it is disturbing to see the cleaning
person put clean pillow cases on your pillows and then throw the pillows on the
dirty floor while she made the bed.
The laborious point I am trying to make is that you can
increase your personal safety and decrease the likelihood of being a victim
with free software. ispy is free unless
you want the video sent remotely or have the ability to view your camera
through the WEB. Having the software
running and storing the video on your personal computer is free. The camera is motion activated and operates
in the background. You can have a screen
saver running as camouflage. It is easy
to install and certainly is eye opening.
WardenCam
is another free software package that allows you to use an old cell phone as a
camera and the Internet to view said camera on your cell phone. The only problem with that is you need a
decent wifi signal to connect to the Internet.
The hotel's wifi was pitifully slow so WardenCam did not work but I have
tested it with a good wifi and it works really slick too. Again,FREE!
Paraphrasing Frank Burns of Mash, "you aren't paranoid
if everyone is after you". Check
out these free aps and protect yourself when you travel.
If reviewing a product, it may have been received free of charge. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.
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