Blog Archives
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The right way to fund urban security
By Geoff Kohl - Friday September 21, 2012
Here at SecurityInfoWatch.com, we're all for security, and so it seems is Chicago Alderman George Cardenas. He's proposed a safety and security fee that would be levied upon Chicago's citizens to help pay for more police officers. Improving law enforcement and public safety in Chicago is an admirable cause, but the proposed method of fee capture (in an electric bill) is not so admirable. According to WLS Chicago, Cardenas' fee "would be aimed to ease a manpower shortage in the police department and address a surge in Chicago's homicide rate." There is no question that the motive is positive here. Chicago's 2012 homicide numbers are expected to surpass the number of homicides last year. Just this past week, 11 persons were killed in 5... -
Libya consulate attack and the power of social media
By Geoff Kohl - Friday September 14, 2012
It’s a pretty poor movie. In fact, it’s decidedly amateurish. The acting is terrible, the effects are ill-accomplished, and the script is disjointed. Worse than that, it’s clear that it has voice-overs injected that don’t match the audio or line up with the lips of the actors (if you can call them that). The actors weren’t even told what the movie was about. Its director had no clue what he was doing and managed to dump a reported $5 million into a film that had less than a dozen persons at the premier. Nonetheless, this movie ( “Innocence of Muslims” ) has enraged the Muslim community around the world because of its anti-Muslim propaganda, and in the wake of the violence, it has managed to leave U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris... -
Four very cool video surveillance technologies at ASIS 2012
By Geoff Kohl - Tuesday September 11, 2012
Video surveillance technology companies seem to get all the buzz in the security industry, and rightfully so. These companies are making forward jumps of leaps and bounds, and after a day combing the aisles of the 2012 ASIS International Tradeshow in Philadelphia, Penn., these are four companies that get the “thumbs up” for showing really cool technology. I’m not saying all of these video surveillance technologies aren’t bleeding edge (some clearly are), but bleeding edge or not, they get the gold stars for pushing the envelope in video surveillance R&D. (#1) -- Honeywell is demonstrating an amazing 3D visualization solution at ASIS that stunned even this jaded technology reporter. The company was showing its ability to... -
The business playing field for security dealers must be level
By Geoff Kohl - Friday September 7, 2012
The Electronic Security Association (ESA) alerted the security industry of a court case occurring right now in Massachusetts that could be a watershed case for the industry. The issue is licensing and whether companies like Comcast and Verizon are breaking the law by not having their techs licensed. The Massachusetts Systems Contractors Association (MCSA) is fighting the current conditions to create a fair business environment. Here's how ESA describes the situation: "MCSA contends that the two companies don’t meet appropriate licensing requirements. MCSA members who do security systems work have a state electrical license, have passed criminal background checks, and work for companies that are licensed by the Department of Public... -
7 Years after Katrina: Making Progress in Continuity
By Geoff Kohl - Friday August 31, 2012
Those of you who know me may well recall how I devoted this column seven years ago to Hurricane Katrina and my personal experience of being on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (site of the tidal surge that destroyed most coastal towns) approximately 24 hours after the storm made landfall in that area. In the time since then, we’ve dedicated a massive amount of coverage to that topic, not only because 1,800 people died, but because of how the storm tested (and broke) the resiliency and business continuity plans of FEMA and almost every local and regional emergency management agency in the affected area. So, it was with similarly high interest that I followed Tropical Storm Isaac (which briefly became a hurricane) this week when it began to... -
What's best for back-up storage of data?
By Geoff Kohl - Wednesday August 22, 2012
Wondering how to archive that security information (mug shots, stills from video surveillance, video surveillance feeds, etc.)? Scan through this guide to "The Lifespan of Storage Media" and find out what's going to die first and what will still be working almost forever. Decide whether it's better to back up on hard drives, on tape storage, on CD-ROMs or DVDs, or solid state flash drives. Read on, dear reader, but keep in mind this infographic was created by a company that wants to sell you cloud services. We hope they're right that the cloud is forever. What has been your experience? © 2012 Code 42 Software, Inc. -
Retail lessons from a corrupted Apple store
By Geoff Kohl - Wednesday August 22, 2012
If youd ever had a question about which can be worse -- shoplifters or your own staff -- this Gizmodo story about corruption in an Apple store would answer that question. The report details internal theft scams like this one: "One Genius had a rather elaborate con going. He was taking service inventory with fake customers. His friends would come in to the store and have their devices replaced with an incorrect product (Say, an original iPhone swapped for a 3G, gratis). The new product was put into the customer's hand and the employee would put the defective product back into available inventory. This went on for more than a year before they were finally caught and canned, but up until then he was actually running an online business... -
The Active Shooter What-if Games
By Geoff Kohl - Friday August 17, 2012
Threats evolve. So do we. I was hosting a speaker call this morning with a few people that represented different walks of life: Security consultant, police officer, SWAT team member, trauma surgeon, school training expert. We were discussing an upcoming training program about active shooters in school environments ( register here for this September 27th webinar ). There were two interesting issues that came up as part of the discussion: first, the mutable methodology of active shooters, and second, the “what-if” games you can play to adapt suggested responses for incidents. The reality is that every active shooter incident has special attributes. Think about the different tactics that shooters have used. In Jonesboro, a fire alarm was... -
Opinion: We're going soft on CFATS
By Geoff Kohl - Friday August 3, 2012
My opinion for the week is this: Employees at particularly security-sensitive chemical plants should be screened like TWIC card holders. Currently CFATS has no plans to do that , and I think that's a mistake. Suzanne Spaulding, DHS Deputy Undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate, testified this week that the plan to screen select chemical plant employees against the FBI terror database is off the table. The idea had been floated as part of the Chemical Facility Anti Terrorism Standards (CFATS) and would have mirrored the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program for ports that screens cardholders against the FBI terror database and which also uses the FBI Integrated Automated... -
How to be a better security integrator
By Geoff Kohl - Friday July 27, 2012
If you’re a large, national or multinational company needing a systems integrator, you have it good. Most of the mid-size and large integration firms have set up specialized departments and services just for you, because you need specific services. You get cross-site communication, project management status reports for huge projects, in-house placement of integrator staff to work with your team on a consulting basis, multi-office service projects using dedicated national account teams, and input directly from the brass at your integrator. But if you’re a smaller client, chances are you aren’t as satisfied with systems integrators today. I spoke with a financial market analyst this morning who has been spending the last few weeks...
