Video

I've reached the point where there is no longer separation between my work and private life. I am a security-honed machine. Last night I was trying to unwind by watching some back-episodes of Comedy Central and low and behold Jeffrey Goldberg was on the Colbert Report talking about the theatrics of airport security, per his article in The Atlantic (which I blogged about in an earlier post). Not sure how many of you are regular watchers of the Colbert Report (my guess is not many, but I hate to make assumptions), so here's the video for your viewing pleasure:

There is never a shortage of potential blog opportunities about aviation security. As a matter of fact, I often have to hold myself back from sharing articles about the latest media firestorm involving the TSA.

For example, I just read this article that two Republican House members are calling for an investigation of the TSA after serious lapses in security led to the firing of dozens TSA employees at the Honolulu airport. Not familiar with that case? Check out this story. Basically, TSA employees weren't properly screening baggage.

Just yesterday, I posted a story about the Texas governor supporting and attempting to push through an "anti-groping" bill making it possible to criminalize enhanced pat downs at Texas airports. This bill previously passed the Texas House, but never made it to the Senate for a vote because the TSA sent a letter saying it wouldn't allow planes to come into the state's airports if passengers weren't being properly screened.

Texas's largest airport, Dallas Fort Worth, has had some security lapses of its own lately. Or that's what some people are saying after two filmmakers posted a video of themselves screwing around at the airport after their flight was canceled. Check it out:

I personally don't think these two men pose a real threat to aviation security (especially since they did have to go through security checkpoints), but the video certainly does reveal some shortcomings of internal security. The fact that they were able to break into the bar and help themselves to a beer would worry me if I were an airport vendor. In the CBS Early Show clip, airport officials say they were keeping an eye on the pair, but if they had seen some of the stuff they were doing (like pounding on the keyboard at the gate or breaking into a restaurant) I'm confident they would have done something about it.

What do you think?

Is this an example of security officials lacking awareness of activity happening in the airport? Or just two people having some harmless fun?

In the relatively near future you may not have to remove your laptop from your carry-on bag or your shoes from your feet before going through airport security. This potential change in security comes straight from the head honcho herself:

“We are looking at what we can do to minimize the amount of divestiture of passengers waiting in line so that it’s possible that most people can leave their shoes on,” DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told the annual conference of the American Association of Exporters and Importers in New York on Tuesday, reported the The Journal of Commerce.

But she was clear this change would take time. Like, say, in a year or two. It takes time to adjust policies, people.

Speaking of policies, I also read this interesting article from The Economist. I'm not sure if you've been following the media stories about the woman who claimed she was molested by a TSA officer during security screening. A large part of the incident was captured on video by her son. That incident (and several in the recent past) have raised questions about the ability of passengers to video tape at security checkpoints. According to Blogger Bob, the official blogger for the TSA, the policy is currently under review.

The Economist author had an interesting point, I thought, and started out by tipping his/her hat to the way TSA saying the agency has been handling these public incidents "quickly and professionally with public statements and explanations of its policies."

Tightening the rules to defuse criticism, the Economist correspondent writes, will just be "another strike against an organization not known for its embrace of passenger rights."

He dismissed the argument that photography shouldn't be allowed for terrorism reasons, although I think that could be a good argument myself.

Also, the TSA is not budging on its liquid policy, apparently. I read this story a few days ago in The Guardian, the U.S. had warned the European Union Commission not to relax its liquids ban:

A planned change in liquids regulations for transfer passengers carrying duty free purchases on April 29, 2013, viewed as a step change to a complete lifting of the ban in two years' time, was cancelled at the 11th hour after the US warned that it would introduce its own measures in response.

That's too bad. I never remember to leave room in my checked luggage for those bottles of duty-free liquor when I fly internationally.

It's slightly more than a month away, but I'm officially gearing up for this year's ISC West Conference & Expo in Las Vegas on March 23-26. While I typically spend these three days sprinting from one 20-minute appointment to the next, this year I'm trying to be smarter about it and generate more content for those who can't attend.

While I think SDN does a great job of sharing information through traditional media resources (i.e. articles), one of our most valuable offerings has become sdnTVnews. And these trade shows represent a rare opportunity to have a vast assortment of security professionals in one place at one time. Here at SDN we've tried to maximize on that opportunity by sitting down and talking to security professionals, one on one, and hearing straight from them about the issues they face, the solutions they use and where they see the security profession heading. It's that simple.

And we've generated some of our best content at these shows. If you don't believe me, here's the proof:

My discussion with Sergeant Chris Kovac of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department about the city's approach to surveillance got 5,488 views. I know. Wow.

What about my interview with Chief James Overton of Delaware State University about the challenges of campus security and the strategies he uses. That got 760 views.

Want to know more about port security? Hear it directly from security professionals at the Port of Houston or the Port of Long Beach. Combined they got nearly 1,000 hits.

But, I'm not using this opportunity to brag about how great we are here (although if my boss is reading this, I sure could use a raise for all the traffic I've generated). Rather, I'm making a point that security professionals want to hear from other security professionals. They want to know what the other guy thinks, what the gal on the other coast is doing to solve the problems that those in the same sector likely have in common.

So, here is my official call for sdnTVnews appointments at ISC West. If you are an end user and would like to share your perspective with me, shoot me an email: LStelter@securitydirectornews.com

If you're a manufacturer and have some clients in town for the show, do the same. In a perfect world, I'd like to meet with everyone, but I'm prioritizing time for companies who have clients at the show.

Great. I look forward to talking with you!
~Leischen

So I hate to brag, but I've gotten pretty good at this live blogging thing. I guess that whole "practice makes perfect" thing really does work. So here we are at TechSec Solutions in Delray Beach, Fla. It's another early morning after a long day of presentations and I'm still processing all the information, but excited to take in more today. The first session of the day is the Lightning Round about JPEG2000 Compression for HD Stream management / Video LifeCycle Management.

8am: Dave Tynan from Avigilon starts us out. A lot of information about JPEG2000 and how this technology has been applied in many different industries. (I think I spoke too early about being a master live blogger. I decided to do this as Dave's presentation was wrapping up. My bad.)

8:16 Charles Foley from Timesight is up. Massive change and I can really relate to the CSI paradigm. Reason because of commodization of technology, which is why there's a proliferation of cameras. Now video is actionable data and it's possible because technology and economically it's feasible. There's a natural lifecycle to video. It becomes less important to customers over time, so don't need to keep over long periods of time. It also becomes too expensive. If it was free would you like to keep it longer? Most security directors say yes. But, the cost to keep the video is constant over time, so now we in security industry need to make it cheaper to keep it over long periods of time. Shrink it down further over time.

If you can afford to have higher resolution cameras you get better data and continue to compress it over time and the result is less storage price and still have usable data.

Customers slash storage costs by 60 to 90 percent is impressive for customers. Bottom line taken technology data centers and we recognize there's a natural life cycle and video declines in value over time and with today's technology video can also follow that life cycle and shrink over time and also you can have better video up front.

8:29 Steven Russell from 3VR is next. Smart recorders from 3VR are on top of video intelligence that are built on video search engine and in addition to storing video also actively analyzing information from video and correlating from other systems (i.e. POS) and all that external data is stored in a search engine and powers other applications.

Able to actively analyze and find tidbits of information that are more important than video itself such as facial recognition. Indexes faces and compare to every other person who walked into that bank, for example. Created a browsable web that allows you to search for faces along with transaction details. Even with a light network (56Kp), customers are able to pull back all the video they need.

8:38 Doug Marman with VideoIQ wraps it up. New trend in intelligent storage. Our industry when comes to IP video always taken approach that centralized storage makes the most sense. Unfortunately assumptions are not correct and create problem such as typical data center many users interacting with centralized area. When take a look at sensor network always better to store data at edge. 99.9 percent of time writing video and only 1% actually looking at video and puts different kind of strain on servers. IT crisis in data center because everyone's coming up with more data.

Often overlooked when take video, streamed, you have to have a certain amount of bandwidth. If you have IP cameras and network goes down you've lost all that video - that's a big risk, so often required different networks for video. Another problem is harddrive failure. When they fail you've lost the footage from how many cameras are recording to that harddrive.

VideoIQ iCVR has storage in cameras and video analytics. Store intelligently and some lifecycle management. Harddrive in camera has lots of storage and not taking up bandwidth with storage. solution to come up with dying harddrive by putting 1GB of flashdrive in it so harddrive is "asleep" 96 percent of time and does cold storage so that increases the life of the harddrive.

8:52 Q&A time:

For Dave: Are most companies supporting JPEG2000?

Dave: We find that most robust combination with JPEG coupled with megapixel cameras so gives most efficient compression technologies.

Q: RAID 5 not being as much of an effective solution?

Doug: Designed to write files. The problem with video streaming is that there isn't a break because always downloading and might not have a break until the harddrive is full and when you find an error you don't have a chance to regather that. When drives as small not such a big deal, but with terabyte showing up more and more often. Casinos, which have a lot of harddrives, we're starting to see issues come up on a regular basis where every few months they have a corruption problem where they lose all their data.

Steven: Straight mirroring. Found it was an education issue, now have RAID 5 not better than RAID 1.

Charles: RAID 5 system that are built for enterprise wouldn't find system have hard time keeping up. It's really the build time and if one fails goes to bigger drives and it takes longer to rebuild that failed drive and if a second fails before first repaired, that's where you're exposed.

Stay away from two terabyte drives, they're not ready for prime time.

Q: Merger of IT and physical of security one thing consider video out to camera level and would lose the storage there, it's cheaper to store but more vulnerable?

Doug: What happens to camera? Sending alarm clip so have redundant backup.

Q: JPEG - in network between cameras and server have 45 megapixel in part of stream?

Dave: You can have x number of cameras feed into server and drawing over to work station only what's necessary to display.

9:00 Session is over. Look at that, we finished up on time. That's a first.

There are many disturbing elements to this article about the rising violence on the campus of Florida Memorial University. This particular story focuses on a video taken of an incident involving campus security officers arresting a student surrounded by a crowd of jeering onlookers. Watch here:

Similar to the video from Colby College here in Maine that caused a big stir regarding excessive force by officers, these situations are never cut and dry. Even if the person whom the officers are targeting is complying (which in the FMU case I don't think he was), it's the crowd that becomes the real concern. As you can see in the video, the officer takes out his weapon. I don't know what the policies are for the majority of universities out there, but I would assume that brandishing a weapon would be something officers did only when a situation starts getting out of control.

"The man that pulled out the gun, like he pointed it, and they were making it seem like we were a threat to him, and we really weren't a threat to them," said a student who only wanted to use the name 'Star'.

That's where students are wrong. They are a threat to the officers, based largely on the numbers, if nothing else.

The most disturbing part of this article is the fact that this doesn't seem like an uncommon occurrence on this campus. Is that what anyone else in the educational security space is experiencing? Is it getting harder for university security officers to secure their campuses? Why?

By Steve Surfaro, business development manager for Axis Communications

Video surveillance is a cost center that can deliver a return on investment well beyond physical security. But to assure that happens, security directors need to think outside the standard bounds of protecting people and property. The most successful and cost-efficient surveillance systems encompass three key elements: compliance, best practices and diversification.

The foundation of the system rests on its ability to comply with the regulations governing the business in which it is running. In casino operations, for instance, the state may require a specific frame rate and resolution for camera operation. In the credit card industry, financial regulations require that video be retained for a specified period of time. So the starting point for system design begins with the basic requirements dictated by those authorities (federal, state and local regulatory bodies) that have jurisdiction over your industry.

But the real payback comes from extending surveillance usage into other areas of operation – helping the business employ best practices and providing business intelligence to further other agendas such as operational safety or increased sales.

How you balance these three elements in designing and operating your video surveillance system depends on the industry in which it is being deployed. Here are a few examples:

The World of Retail

Compliance issues
IT facilities housing systems that store, process or transmit cardholder data must use video cameras or other access control mechanisms to monitor physical access to sensitive areas. The data needs to be collected, reviewed and correlated with the information from other entries, such as access control logs. Video cameras need to be protected from tampering or disabling and their operation needs to be monitored. In-house IT facilities in the payment card industry must meet PCI DSS physical security requirements, including 90-day retention of video in data centers or data processing areas.

Best practices guidelines
Stores that combine network cameras with monitors at the entrance tend to experience lower incidents of shoplifting because patrons are made aware that their movements are under surveillance the moment they approach the threshold.

Diversifying into other areas
Network video is also a great tool that allows other departments to remotely evaluate shopping patterns in different stores, track the success of different promotional strategies and link point-of-sale data with video to correlate demographics with certain purchases. When the network cameras are combined with video analytics, retail operations reap the benefits of real-time business intelligence. Managers can track shopping patterns by time of day and even specific merchandise aisles and displays to fine-tune staffing schedules and product placement.

Transit and Transportation Arena

Compliance issues
The infrastructure security section of the APTA Security Standards Program specifies security for rail station analytical video, bus stop security design, placement of video surveillance cameras within a transit facility, video surveillance of passenger facilities, monitoring of non-passenger areas as well as transit vehicle identification (such as rail cars in a tunnel).

Best practices guideline
When designing public transportation surveillance, it’s critical to strategically place the network video equipment and set the resolution to produce an image suitable for identification or forensic review. One guideline shows how to set the pixel count to extract a clear, recognizable enlargement of an individual’s face from a video image when it occupies 10-20 percent of the original frame.

Diversifying into other areas
With the addition of video analytics, network cameras can be used to promote transit safety – sending real-time alerts to officials and law enforcement if someone falls on the tracks or steps over the safety line as a train enters the tunnel.

Educational Institutions

Compliance issues
Many urban campuses must make the video surveillance cameras remotely accessible both to school officials and local law enforcement. Some universities under state and federal funding guidelines are required to link mass notification and emergency communications systems to their network video surveillance system.

Best practices guidelines
Using network cameras to keep eyes on public areas provides a tool for proactive crowd control. When tied to access control systems, the video cameras serve as a deterrent for unauthorized access to dormitories, laboratories, administrative offices and other sensitive areas.

Diversifying into other areas
Video cameras in the classroom can be used as a mentoring tool to boost academic achievements. Recordings of classroom lectures and activities led by teachers whose students excel in standardized testing can be shared among staff to improve curriculum performance.

Healthcare Environments

Compliance issues
While HIPAA, the industry’s primary compliance regulation, generally focuses on medical records security and patient privacy, there are requirements regarding surveillance and physical security measures to control access to departmental protected health information (PHI). Video surveillance systems provide environmental safeguards to protect PHI, such as transmitting visual confirmation of a fire or sending an intrusion detection alarm.

Best practices guidelines
Strategic placement of network cameras gives caregivers, patients and visitors a heightened sense of security and premise safety. But justification for surveillance tends to come as a reaction to a negative event – a newborn abduction, medical malpractice in an operating theater, or firearms discharged in the emergency room.

Diversifying into other areas
Network cameras can provide revenue opportunities for healthcare facilities, such as setting up fee-based access for families to watch their newborns in the neonatal care unit from their home computers. With the addition of license plate recognition and biometric processing, the cameras can help expedite the screening of visitors and contractors entering and leaving the premises, improving safety and reducing workplace violence by restricting unauthorized individuals from gaining access to the building.

Funding security initiatives
Combining compliance with best practices in your video surveillance deployment improves your situational awareness, enabling you to better manage and mitigate risk. But it’s the application of the technology to improve other areas of your business that provides the persuasive argument for other departments to help underwrite your security initiative.

DHS announced today that it has designated $7.7 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for several airports to install video surveillance systems. The press release cites that Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International, Ronald Reagan Washington National, Spokane International, Gerald R. Ford International and Boise, Idaho airports will receive a portion of the funds.

"State-of-the-art surveillance technology provides another critical layer of security at our airports," said Secretary Napolitano. "These projects will inject critical Recovery Act dollars into our local economies and create sophisticated security networks designed to detect threats and aid our emergency response efforts."

I don't exactly buy the injection of money into the local economy part, but do think it's important for airports to have solid video surveillance systems.

According to the release, ARRA has committed more than $3 billion for homeland security projects through DHS and the General Services Administration (GSA). Of the $1 billion allocated to TSA for aviation security projects, $700 million is dedicated to screening checked baggage and $300 million is allocated for checkpoint explosives detection technology.

DHS has obligated more than 20 percent of its ARRA funds to date, and is on track to obligate more than 50 percent by the end of September 2009.

Not that I've been an overly dedicated blogger recently, but I'm taking the rest of the week off to do some hiking and canoing in the Adirondacks and I wanted to leave my followers with enough blog fodder to get you through until Friday.

I've been a little harsh on campus security officers in recent blogs, so I just wanted to remind everyone what these security professionals are up against. Am I talking about active shooters? Theft? Attacks? Nope, I'm talking about the ignorance of students about campus security policies. It wasn't so long ago that I was a student, and granted I don't remember much about campus security (except one time I went to the security office at 1 a.m. to request an escort to my off-campus apartment and was flat-out denied. That security director was soon after fired, by the way), but this is post-Virginia Tech, people. I guess it doesn't matter and students still remain clueless about security. Take a look at these videos and judge for yourself. I believe these were actually posted by Oregon State University in an effort to market their safe campus.

Just in case you were too distracted to hear what this girl was saying here's a transcript:

It’s safe. I’ve walked around late at night not very coherent and not felt threatened. I’ve done some crazy things. I’ve gotten in cars with random people, and I feel people are friendly here and there's no reason you should ever not feel safe.

How does security deal with this kind of attitude by students? You walk around drunk and get in cars with random people and you think that's funny? This folks, is exactly what campus security officials are up against. If that's not enough evidence for you, try this one:

I think they told us about security on campus, but I was probably too busy thinking about I how didn’t want to be there, so I didn’t really pick up on how they're keeping me safe. But I notice walking around campus there are little buttons you can press if you’re in a panic so if anyone attacks you on campus, you can always have the presence of mind to run and press a button and someone will, I guess, come help you. So assuming that someone actually does come when you press that button - I’ve never tried it - I think I feel pretty safe around Oregon State, I haven’t been attacked yet so feeling pretty good about it.

Ok, if I was going to put videos up about how safe my campus was, I'm pretty sure I would at least brief my interview subjects about the very basics of security initiatives. Little buttons? Oh, boy. All the expensive technology and the best security policies in the world won't keep students safe unless they start taking it seriously. How do you teach that?

I found this ASIS video on You Tube that gives an overview of the group's 2008 conferences.

I couldn't find any other videos from security associations on You Tube, and the few ASIS videos that are up there are provided by the video's producer as part of his demo roll. Many manufacturers are jumping on board as Sam pointed out yesterday, and I do like Honeywell's Security Stories series. But I can't help but wonder if this is a useful medium for security practitioners. Have you used video such as these to research technologies or opportunities?

(I guess if you don't, you are not going to bother to read this blog entry, huh?)

On one side, it is far easier (and less expensive) to watch a product demo from the comfort of your office than it is to attend a trade show. But on the other hand, who has the time? And aren't you watching enough video from your surveillance system anyway?