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On first glance, this may be the dumbest idea I’ve yet to hear about in terms of municipal/city surveillance projects:

http://www.securityinfowatch.com/online/CCTV–and–Surveillance/Adopt-a-security-camera-for-$30K/16741SIW427

Think about it this way:

Who wants to look at a security camera with a flashing police light? That’s exactly where you advertisement would be, and everyone is going to instinctively turn their eyes and face away from that point. And for all the libertarian people who associate police cameras with a police state, your company just was associated with the trampling of liberties. It can’t get much worse…

 Back to the drawing boards for funding ideas, folks!

-Geoff

P.S. I believe the TSA tried this; they wanted to sell ads on their gray bins that you use at airport security checkpoints. That went over about as well as you trying to get a big bottle of water through their X-ray machines.

Last few times I’ve had to fly, I’ve mentioned to my fellow travelers as we undressed in the security checkpoint: “why don’t we all just fly naked?” Don’t get me wrong. I believe in security and will do anything I can to help avert a terrorist act or the works of a malcontent or wrong-doer.

So now it seems we are nearly flying naked. O’Hare International Airport will soon unveil new security scanners that are in essense a full body scan. Think Superman and his X-ray vision. The image generated shows the skeletal outline of the body–so there’s nothing that can be missed or hidden, even in the most unobvious body cavity parts.

The system, manufactured by L3 and called ProVision, is a “virtual strip search” according to the July 20 edition of The Chicago Tribune. It uses millimeter wave technology and antennas which rotate around the person, emitting beams of radio frequency energy toward the body. These millimeter waves bounce off the body and back to the receivers which record the waves that are used to construct 3D images. Screeners, located in a remote location, thank God, analyze the images for weapons or contraband. The faces on the images are blurred and those images are then deleted. 

 The images show breasts and butts and other anatomical features to identify possible hidden objects. The American Civil Liberties Union is already hooting and hollering. (BTW, travelers can opt out of the scanner for a good old fashioned hand-frisk.) The alternative–fly without clothing.   

Many of our readers had heard about TSA’s effort to implement self-sorting security lines to speed things up. The idea is much like skiing, where the dare devils can run the black diamonds, the regular skiers who are still improving jump on the “blue square” trails, and the beginners stick to the bunny slopes and the “green circle” runs.

I finally had a chance to experience how effective these self-sorting lanes could work for airport security, where they are organized as such: Expert traveler (black diamond), Casual traveler (blue square), and Families & Special Assistance (green circle).

I have to say, I think it’s an interesting idea. One of the big things that Kip Hawley is promoting is a more relaxed TSA security checkpoint experience. By that, he doesn’t mean relaxed security procedures, but a relaxed experience for the persons waiting in line.

John Gillie at the Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.) did a great interview with Hawley this week, and the first part of their interview summed up what the overall “TSA experience” is being focused on:

“It’s about increasing the calmness. If I yell out, “OK, everybody get your bags out. Take your shoes off,” then you’re increasing the level of tension. So cut out that. Talk to people. Engage with them. If you have a more confident presence, it works. The black diamond lanes like you have here have already calmed down the checkpoints. You have happier passengers. You have happier officers. We’ve actually improved our officers’ attendance at airports where we have the black diamond lanes.” — Kip Hawley, as told to The (Tacoma, Wash.) News Tribune (see full article)

So, now having experienced the self-sorting lanes, I can say that I do think there is an initial relaxation that occurs. Being someone that writes about security, and who travels often and who travels light, I jumped straight into the Black Diamond/Expert Traveler lane, ready to buzz through security and pick out a good suspense thriller novel to read on my flight back home. I was, admittedly, instantly relaxed … right up until the point that I realized the expert lane wasn’t filled with road warriors who spend more time in airports than at home. In fact, as I looked forward, I saw a half dozen strollers ahead of me, a number of people dragging two carry-ons, a family of non-English speakers who kept staring at their tickets and a number of other oddities for a so-called expert traveler line.

With five serpentine rows ahead of me until we could reach the X-ray machines, I got time to look over to the Casual Traveler and Familes & Special Assistance lines off to our left. The mix of persons in those lines was virtually identical to the black diamond side of the TSA checkpoint. And with five serpentine rows until the X-ray machines, I also had a chance to compare line “throughput”. As it was, the speeds were virually identical.

After 20 minutes of shuffling through the route to the X-ray machines, here is what I’ve learned about the self-sorting lanes: People are going to self-sort themselves into whatever appears to be the shortest lane. That’s a truism, regardless of whether they are an expert traveler, a casual traveler, or traveling as “families & special assistance.” There’s a beauty in the fact that we self-sort to the shortest lane possible, because it reminds me of the equality and egalitarian ideals that this nation was founded upon.

So, why don’t we just get rid of the ski-slope-style classification from the TSA security checkpoint and just recognize that everyone wants through as fast as they can, not just the road warriors who are only carrying a laptop bag?

And as far as relaxing the entire process, I might recommend everyone just bring their iPod or a book they can read in the line. Soon enough, you’ll be at the front of the line where your bag will be scanned and you’ll be pulled aside to enjoy a full body-cavity search.

-Geoff

According to news reports, the crime of retail theft (shoplifting) is spiraling upward. In some cases, like Cookeville, Tennesee, retail thefts have increased 80% over last years numbers - and this is just in reported thefts. Shoplifting from grocery stores has increased 300%. Having worked in grocery loss prevention I can relate that this is the trend whenever the economy goes south. It’s a fact, people have to eat.

It’s not just a trend here in the United States. I recently was contacted by a European newspaper for an article about the sharp increase in food thefts there. The criminal cases are overloading the court system and retailers are looking for ways to reduce their losses.

One British grocery giant, Sainsbury, has added frozen chickens to their “high theft” category. They started applying security tags to the birds, a staple of the British Sunday brunch, as chickens are flying from the freezer cases. If the tagged bird is passed through the security gates without the security tag being removed, an alarm will sound alerting store employees.

When theft increases retailers increase their prices to the consumer. It’s a vicious cycle - we all pay more.

Curtis Baillie - Security Management Consultant

 Security Dealer & Integrator Publisher Peter Harlick sent in these photos from the ESX (NBFAA/CSAA) tradeshow last week in Nashville, Tenn. Mouse over the photos to read the captions.

-Geoff

Admittedly, it’s a little late for me to hear about this, since the news broke about a month ago, but I’m curious as to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a NAFTA-like North American group focused on musica and video piracy. That’s fine, I suppose, but what concerned me was the recording industry has this ACTA framed in such a way that border patrol agents could/would be searching laptops and iPods for copyrighted content.

The last time I checked, taxpayers wanted Border Patrol agents to check for terrorists, illegal weapons, drugs and contraband….not an illegal copy of Justin Timberlake’s latest album.

Here’s the link to a story from the Vancouver Sun on this (please note this is not just applicable to Canada, but was started in the U.S.).

-Geoff

A report from website Dvice.com says that Olympus is building a 360-degree lens and camera package that could be used for video surveillance. It’s a market that’s seen strong plays from companies like IPIX, Grandeye and others. There’s no official word yet from Olympus on what exactly they plan to do with this engineering project.

-Geoff