Webcam on an external computer

[JamesA60]

I'm currently trying to make a webcam system with Python for my A-Level computing course using the Raspberry Pi and the camera module. I think I know how to do most of the programming, but I have run into what appears to be a really big hurdle: I can't seem to access the data on the Pi from computers outside of the home network.

I've done lots of Googling (and Binging) to try and find a solution, but they either don't seem to work or mean changing the router settings. I'm tying to avoid directly changing the router's settings because I'm making the system for a local town council who probably won't be happy with my poking around with their router (Which probably also rules out using port 80).

Does anyone have any ideas about how I could access the data on the Pi outside of the local network (e.g. possibly using an IP address like 90.194.119.31:1234)?

[ghans]

Rent a VPS or add a second Pi on your own premises where you control the router. Now setup a VPN server or enable SSH on the second Pi / the VPS.
On the Webcam Pi , you can now join the VPN or use reverse SSH tunneling to your home Pi.

If this sounds too complicated , you may use a service like Hamachi LogMeIn , yaler , ngrok , PageKite or Weaved.

ghans