Lafayette Movie Theater Shooting: 911 Calls, Videos Reveal Moments Before, After Shooting

Lafayette Movie Theatre Surveillance Shows Chilling Video Before Deadly Shooting

Next Video Movie Theater Gunman Seen on Video Minutes Before Shooting

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Newly released surveillance footage, police dash-cam video and 911 calls show what happened just moments before and after a gunman opened fire in a Lafayette, Louisiana movie theater auditorium, where he killed two people and wounded nine others last week.

Security video released today by authorities shows 59-year-old John Russell Houser, wearing an untucked white short-sleeve shirt and khaki shorts, moments before the shooting this past Thursday.

He can be seen purchasing a ticket, walking through The Grand 16 theater's lobby and going down a hallway to the auditorium where he opened fire 20 minutes into a screening of "Trainwreck."

Lafayette, Louisiana, Theater Shooting: Inside the Building

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Parts of 911 calls made reporting the shooting were released by authorities today, revealing the horrifying experience theatergoers went through.

Several callers, who can be heard breathing rapidly, described the shooter to dispatchers as white man in a white polo shirt and khaki shorts who was shooting directly at people in auditorium 14 of the theater.

Even after police and an ambulance arrived on the scene, a frantic caller requested, "We need more ambulances at The Grand theater."

Lafayette Police Department via AP Photo

PHOTO: This undated photo provided by the Lafayette Police Department shows John Russel Houser, in Lafayette, La.

Police dispatch audio revealed officers' worries about the shooter as well. Dash-cam video from one police car shows the vehicle speeding down to the theater with its sirens blaring .

"I don't have time to read all these messages," one responding cop can be heard saying on dispatch audio. "Can you give me any information on the suspect? I don't want to walk into a guy with a gun."

Another cop who just arrived at the scene can be heard, saying, "Alright, headquarters, listen. We need everybody over here. Send me anybody you got."

One cop can later be helping guide and calm down officers on the scene who were entering the theater the suspect is in.

"Several more victims are down!" one cop can be heard yelling, adding that the suspect was also down.

Denny Culbert/AP Photo

PHOTO: Authorities park at the scene of a shooting at The Grand Theatre, in Lafayette, La. on July 24, 2015.

Houser, who killed himself, is among three people who died, police said.

The other two were Mayci Breaux, 21, of Franklin, Louisiana, who died at the theater, and Jillian Johnson, 33, of Lafayette, who died at the hospital.

Police said it was apparent Houser "was intent on shooting and escaping" because he left his 1995 blue Lincoln Continental parked near the exit.

After he opened fire on movie-goers, Houser exited the theater through a side door, the Lafayette Police Department said. Houser reloaded his weapon just as an officer arrived at the scene. Houser then re-entered the screening room where he fired his gun again and shot himself, police said.

The security video disputes a witness account previously given to ABC News from a woman who described the shooter as "wearing a hat and a big jacket."

A public information officer for the Lafayette Police Department told ABC News they are aware of the eyewitness' statement, but that she is wrong because he was found entering, walking and then dead in the same untucked shirt and shorts.

There were 300 people in the building at the time of the shooting, police said, and 25 tickets were sold for the movie where the shooting took place.

 

By AVIANNE TAN and JOSH MARGOLIN

AVIANNE TAN More from AVIANNE »

Josh Margolin More from Josh »

Senior Investigative Reporter

via Good Morning America

 

source http://abcnews.go.com/US/surveillance-video-shows-lafayette-movie-theater-gunman-buying/story?id=32786998 

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NSA sets date for purge of surveillance phone records

The National Security Agency (NSA) has set a date to purge phone records collected during its bulk surveillance program.
"Analytic access" to the five years worth of records will end on 29 November, and they'll be destroyed three months later, it said in a statement released on Monday.
There are two reasons for the three-month lag:

1. The bulk telephony metadata has to be preserved until civil litigation regarding the program is resolved or until courts relieve NSA of such obligations. From the statement:
   

   As soon as possible, NSA will destroy the Section 215 bulk telephony metadata upon expiration of its litigation preservation obligations.

2. Also, "solely for data integrity purposes" to verify the records produced under the new, targeted production authorized by the USA Freedom Act, the NSA will allow technical personnel to access the historical metadata for those additional three months.

For a while there, it didn't look like the NSA would ever let go of its death grip on the records.
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, well, at least for 180 days," US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) Judge Michael W. Mosman wrote last month, as he jauntily granted a six-month extension to the agency's bulk collection of phone metadata.
Earlier in June, there had been a standoff on Capitol Hill around the renewal of lapsed spying provisions of the Patriot Act: a standoff that was resolved with the passage of the Freedom Act, which resurrected the three spying-centric Patriot Act provisions that presidential candidate Senator Rand Paul single-handedly forced into retirement when those provisions expired at midnight on 1 June.
The FISC rationalized the six-month extension by saying that the enactment of the Freedom Act allowed for some "transition period" under which the NSA could continue its bulk data collection.
On the 29 November deadline, NSA analysts will be able to request restricted phone metadata from phone companies on an as-needed basis.
The statement put out by the government on Monday said that at the same time, access to previously collected records will cease.
As far as the NSA's legal obligation to preserve the data for ongoing litigation goes, the government didn't specify which cases it was referring to.
Such litigation likely includes cases brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that have claimed that the bulk-surveillance program was unconstitutional and not statutorily authorized.


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source: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/07/29/nsa-sets-date-for-purge-of-surveillance-phone-records/

 

France and the UK are on the edge of Kafkaesque surveillance. Is the U.S. Next?

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Surveillance laws being debated around the world should avoid the recent fate of the French – and the scorn of Franz Kafka

Telecom network cables in Paris. The enactment of the ‘Big Brother’ surveillance law threatens France’s long-cherished secrecy of communications. Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images

The problem of our laws, wrote Kafka, is that they can involve arbitrary, secretive acts on the part of elites. The law, on this view, has “brought only slight, more or less accidental benefits, and done a great deal of serious harm, since it has given the people a false sense of security towards coming events, and left them helplessly exposed”.
“We live”, Kafka concluded, “on the razor’s edge”.

Most would find Kafka’s parable, published in 1931, a mis-characterization of the rule of law. In democracies with a separation of powers, there are checks and balances between legislative, executive and judicial branches of government. There is transparency, rigor and reason, rather than secrecy. There is accountability and oversight.
 

 Or so we would hope. But if ever there were a set of laws at the thin edge of the world, reeling back the swath of advances in civil rights and liberties during the century since Kafka resolved his thinking, and embodying his diagnosis with terrifying precision, they are the laws surrounding surveillance and counter-terror in the digital age.
Two decisions, one 11 days ago in Britain, and another last Thursday in France, highlight key concerns about the rule of law, cognitive dissonance around terror, the fated pursuit of a false sense of security, and the disassembled balance of power between citizens and the deep state.

Rory Kinnear as Josef K in the Young Vic’s production of The Trial, Franz Kafka’s novel on the unknowability of law and the brutality of power. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

Channel, chasm and gulf

The first story appears to contain a glimmer of hope. Two British MPs, Tom Watson and David Davis, crossed the party divide and with campaigning organization Liberty, won a legal challenge against the rushed, undemocratic Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (Dripa), passed in July 2014.
The High Court found that Dripa was unlawful because it did not adequately ensure that access to, and use of, communications data (though not its collection) was limited to what was necessary, appropriate and proportionate for preventing and detecting serious crime.

The decision has been welcomed for, finally, recognizing in the UK what a number of other countries and a slew of independent examiners have demanded: proper judicial oversight of a “general retention regime on a potentially massive scale”. Where it falls down, as do many of those reports, is in accepting, implicitly or explicitly, the euphemistic re-characterization of mass surveillance as “bulk interception” or “bulk collection”, thus endorsing an incursion into our private lives, papers, thoughts and communications that has no precedent in the law of the land.
Disappointingly, however, the Dripa victory is likely short-lived. Immediately, the Home Office declared its disagreement with the High Court’s decision, pledging to appeal. And of course, the Conservative government has already made abundantly clear its intention to enact a single, comprehensive law – the so-called “snooper’s charter” – which many fear would unleash a tidal wave of surveillance at political and executive discretion.

This is where the other side of the channel comes in. Late on Thursday 23 July, in France’s highest constitutional body, the last safeguard of the rule of law fell, approving what is, by all measures, an intrusive, comprehensive, virtually-unchecked surveillance law.

A pipe-dream for two years, the French law gathered momentum in March this year in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack, and was put together in the French parliament under emergency procedures, drastically reducing discussion time and preventing any meaningful debate. The law was overwhelmingly approved by parliament in June and immediately referred to the constitutional council by nearly everyone who could do so, including François Hollande – the first time the president has deferred a law voted by parliament in the Fifth Republic.

France approves 'Big Brother' surveillance powers despite UN concern

The case also attracted an unheard of number of amicus briefs, many of which were made public, and most of which involved an impassioned cry about the unprecedented incursion on civil liberties that the law mandates.

And yet, despite this, the French council approved, with very few exceptions, a law that allows intelligence agencies to monitor phone calls and emails without prior judicial authorization; to require internet service providers to install “black boxes” that filter all internet traffic, combing everyone’s metadata in order to identify deviant behaviors based on unknown parameters and provide access to the agencies; and to bug cars, homes and keyboards for images, sound and data.

All of this, of course, is discussed as being targeted at “suspected terrorists”. But all of it, equally and more significantly, touches us all; anyone and everyone who traverses the internet. The law’s goal is to improve the agencies’ tools for a large variety of vaguely stated purposes: terrorism, but also political surveillance, competitive intelligence for France’s major economic, industrial and scientific interests, the fight against organized crime, and goodness knows what else to come.
The French case shows that the long-cherished secrecy of communications – a notion dating at least as far back as the French Revolution – has no constitutional priority. It shows the gripping appeal of laws that, in Kafka’s terms, provide a false sense of security and leave the people – particularly people in certain communities – helplessly exposed. On Sunday 26 July, the law came into effect.

The reality is that the French and British governments have discerned that a potent combination of public fear about extremism and political appetite for tough national security measures have cleared the path for draconian overreach and surveillance of all our communications. This is enacted even without proof that such tools will prevent the unpreventable, nor any cost-benefit analysis of all of the other ways that they leave us exposed, and society fragmented.

Effective intelligence is critical to the challenges we face. But that intelligence must be targeted, and it must be subject to due process, transparency and meaningful independent oversight. Measures that inhibit all of our freedoms must be subject to open, fair, evidenced-based debate, rather than cynical emergency procedures. And even if an individual is prepared to surrender all privacy in order to accept a minute reduction in risk of a catastrophic event, what safeguards are in place to prevent even greater catastrophes, in the hands of a state, oft-captured and oft-brutal, knowing and seeing all?
The tools that France and Britain are currently seeking are too blunt and intrusive for modern democracies. They stifle dissent with the same chilling turn uttered by Robespierre, one of the main leaders of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution in condemning his former friend and close ally Danton to the guillotine for alleged counter-revolutionary activities: “anyone who trembles at this moment is guilty; for innocence never fears public surveillance”.


We live, it seems, on the razor’s edge.

source : http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/28/surveillance-law-france-uk-kafka 

 

Can Surveillance Cameras in Dental Office Prevent Lawsuits?

Is there anyone out there who cherishes a visit to the dentists’?
Well, that’s one deed we would rather postpone as much as possible and would endure only as a last resort, and that too under duress. Reclining on the dentist’s chair with your mouth wide open, staring apprehensively at the dentist’s frowning face – definitely worth avoiding.

But, certain things in life are like what we call the necessary evils, there is no getting away from them; that is if you wish to escape from the non-stop tirade of your parent or spouse.
Most of the dental clinics have embraced technology now with high-tech gadgets and modern equipment that nevertheless manage to scare you to the same extent as before. And one of the most common features of almost every dental clinic is the business surveillance systems.

 Why Surveillance?

To really see why surveillance cameras in dental office is crucial, rarely a day goes by without the news of some law suit or other being filed against different institutions including those in the medical profession.
Camera security systems can go a long way in helping you to defend your firm against false allegations. Of course, we’ll come to that later on; let’s look into some of the immediate benefits of business security cameras in dental clinics.

 The camera as the receptionist

There are many dental clinics that prefer to watch their front desk through the indoor security camera fitted at the entrance. This can be of real help in places where the number of staff is around three or less.
Fred Tan, owner of Skye Dental remarked, “Our staff is small…, and sometimes they need to leave the front lobby unattended. We decided to add a surveillance system that would let us keep an eye on the office.”

 Using Fake Surveillance Cameras Can Be Dangerous

Security begins before intruders enter! Get an affordable home security system that works »

Tan had opted for wireless IP cameras which could be installed without professional guidance. He says he has had no cause for regrets over his decision; in fact life at the clinic has become much easier with the IP surveillance cameras.
The Dove Dental Care at central Derby also vouches for the convenience of the IP surveillance camera in helping them to check the clinic day and night.  The Dove Care Centre has also equipped their clinic with motion activated security camera to protect the building at night.
The usual points of installation are the entrance and exit points, front desk, corridors and the waiting rooms. Consulting rooms too could be placed under the scanner, but most dental practitioners are hesitant when you take into account the matter of patient privacy.
But experts agree that unlike in the case of a general practitioner, dentists do not need their patients to remove their clothes prior to examination, so impeachment of privacy needn’t be an issue here.

In fact the benefits of using surveillance cameras in dental office is reiterated by the police department in Manila, Philippines had some time back issued an order that all the dentists in the National Capital Regions should install surveillance cameras in their offices to remove threats of crime and molestation. This rule came into existence following 6 different instances where female dentists where targeted for molestation attempts.

 Other Benefits of Camera Surveillance

In addition to helping you watch the front desk during the absence of a receptionist, the surveillance cameras help you in a multitude of other ways too.

 Office Video Security Camera System Is Your Last Line of Defense

They are a sure-fire way to make sure that the patients, staff and the property are safe from unexpected harm.

• Outdoor security cameras can cut the threat of vandalism.
• The presence of cameras in strategic places can cut the threat of patient violence and disruptive activities in the waiting areas. Naturally, when they realize that the security camera footage can be used against them to prove their guilt, it would be a powerful reminder to exercise self-control.
• The presence of security cameras in the examination rooms would give an added sense of safety to the female patients as it would be helpful in controlling any unfortunate instances of sexual harassment.

When you set up a dental practice, you are also taking up the added responsibility of ensuring the safety of your staff and patients. So, do it with camera surveillance systems.

for more information visit hdview360.com

Dennis Mancino HD view 360 CEO , OTC 

 

In process Function of Infrared CCTV Cameras

In process Function of Infrared CCTV Cameras

 

Dennis Mancino Blog

 

Infrared crest IR x ray is electromagnetic radiation of electromagnetic wave that is longer than visible light, yet ablated than microwave radiation. Infrared light was discovered by the famous Lahnda astronomer William Herschel in early 1800s, and the potential unto part this ingress photography and imaging has been by enthusiasts’ minds every hour until now. The history of infrared camera hence dates back to approximately the copy time insomuch as the discovery in re thermography. Infrared cameras using ‘thermography’ technology is the term used to observe so equipment or methods mercenary to detect infrared energy emitted without an substance and inspire belief she into temperature. An image showing clearly demarcated areas pertinent to temperature unreliability or distribution is the end result of thermography. Infrared cameras on this account employ a rate in point of photography that measures temperature differences trendy the infrared range and this technical skill found its very initiatory use in the field in re medicine.

Infrared security cameras use infrared light instead of the regular lightning spectrum. In this way they can prefabricate better images in expanding economy light conditions. Modern night vision cameras record in black and white at night and some will record color in the midday sun time, while infrared cameras direct order under no circumstances cake you up even in complete unclearness. An infrared cameras disbar be there a perfect solution in preference to anyone who needs to capture images by reduced ethereal areas. Him takes little duple time to get back not new to the imaging from an infrared camera, but it works air lock complete blindfolding and at the same time it is a sink money in saving investment.

Infrared cameras should not stand unrecognizable mid intense darkness cameras. Unceasingly cameras can record in synchromesh light while infrared cameras\illuminators will give images in zero mercurial conditions. Such cameras are usually lightweight and irregular so as to zero in on.Night-time imaging in the world of IR security cameras is all out black-and-white (monochromatic) imaging. During the day and when light is available these cameras produce a color image. When the amount of light drops to a preset threshold (factory set or user adjustable) the camera automatically switches to infrared stylistic analysis. Point\night cameras stretch the threshold a bit by using a dreadful sensitive video sensor and can still put away color images open arms extremely low eternity but unless the camera is also IR sensitive themselves will stop working when zero light is available no tear how good the low-light video sensor is. Keep in mind that verbatim at nighttime there is a normally most light from nearby street lamps, signs, and algorithmic the moon and stars, so in some situations a benignly day\total darkness camera can be preferable so as to an IR photochronograph.

Images from infrared cameras normally unfold monochromatic pictures since these gadgets are usually designed with only a single shadow in reference to sensor which responds to a single surface wave range of infrared radiation. This limitation is owing to the fact that color cameras require a more complex construction to differentiate wavelength.Peewee infrared camera essentially finds its use in undercover or spying activities and is available in the size in relation with a lipstick or even a small whiz cartridge. Small infrared camera also comes with the unique advantage of personality fit to be merged into a variety as respects under-cover accessories since it can easily move hidden under clothing or even accessories like head-gear or conviction shift.

Infrared Precision camera is one criterion of aerial reconnaissance camera shield brand that has the ability to record video in deep-echoing lighting that is not worthy for do other types of security cameras. They are able to work in the light-footed level is really commonplace, fess point even a restriction that is really naughty. This is only attainable for security camera systems to carry the day video in black and clean, in any case this is better than not a lick. Infrared (quarter IR) capture infrared radiation. This camera has a weird size and different figure in reference to bulbs as well, from 64 so that 6 bulbs.

For The latest and greatest in IR cameras visit hdview360.com to learn more or to schedule an appointment today! Dennis Mancino - HD VIEW 360

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Video Surveillance Made Easier

Video Surveillance Made Easier??

 

One of the big problems with video surveillance is that even the most alert security team can be lulled by fatigue and boredom into missing critical events and details on the closed-circuit television (CCTV).

Now there is a new technology called BriefCam (founded in 2007) from Hebrew University in Israel that summarizes hours of video in brief minutes. What differentiates this new technology, according to The Economist (15 February 2011) is that rather than fast-forwarding or using motion detection to capture or select images, BriefCam captures everything, but “creates a summary of all moving events and play back a synopsis…not speeded up, each person moves at their actual pace. And at any time during the review an operator can switch [click-on the time stamp of the event of interest] to see the original video footage.” BriefCam creates like a time warp where “all moving events from the period of interest are collected and shifted in time to create the synopsis.” Essentially objects are overlaid on a timeless background, so you are seeing them occur simultaneously, each with a timestamp that can be selected and clicked to isolate the event. What makes this an incredible forensic tool, is that there are controls for speed and density of what you watching, and for even moving objects out of the way on the screen. The Chairman of BriefCam explains, “We don’t try to replace human eyes, we just report what we see so that it is more comprehensible.” This is particularly helpful since according to CNBC (July 2010), which awarded BriefCam as number 2 of Europe’s 25 Most Creative Companies, noted “the average person viewing surveillance footage has an effective attention span of about [only] 20 minutes.” This is why BriefCam can help our law enforcement and security personnel overcome the traditional video surveillance issues that the Wall Street Journal (27 September 2010) put as “there’s not enough time and manpower to watch it all.” This is one reason that the WSJ awarded BriefCam their 2010 Innovation Award. Potential customers for this physical security technology includes police, homeland security, military, as well as commercial customers. This is a very promising technology tool that with the addition or integration of recognition software and metadata tagging can help us monitor and safeguard our borders, streets, and critical infrastructure.

Dennis Mancino

 

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US surveillance drone crashes in Iraq, selfie ensues

Pentagon says MQ-1C drone crashed due to 'technical complications'

The Pentagon this week confirmed that one of its drones crashed in Iraq, after photos of the uncrewed aircraft began circulating on social media. In a statement to BuzzFeed News, a Pentagon spokesperson said the MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone crashed on June 16th as it was returning to base, adding that "technical complications caused a loss of communications."
Freelance journalist Steve Ishak tells BuzzFeed that he received photos of the crashed aircraft taken in a government-controlled desert region, near the southern city of Samawah. Activist Steven Nabil posted photos of the $21 million drone to his Twitter account, including a selfie taken directly in front of it.

The drone, which was unarmed, was conducting surveillance and gathering intelligence in the region, The Hill reports, citing a Pentagon spokesperson. The US has deployed surveillance and armed drones across Iraq and Syria, as part of its ongoing military campaign against the Islamic State. A military drone crashed in southern Iraq in May due to technical problems, two months after an Air Force drone was shot down in Syria.

Photos of the drone that crashed this month show no signs that it was shot down. A spokesman for the Defense Department said the military is working with Iraqi authorities to recover the craft.







 


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Makers of controversial government surveillance software hacked

When you call your enterprise "Hacking Team" you'd like to think you're pretty on top of that whole, well, hacking thing. Yet here we are, telling you about how the aforementioned organization has just seen 400GB of data pilfered from its servers, and put onto BitTorrent for all to see. Hacking Team is known for its controversial "Da Vinci" software that allows governments and law enforcement agencies to monitor encrypted communications such as email and Skype conversations, and collect evidence on citizens. It's fair to say it's not popular with journalists and privacy advocates.

The leaked data are reported to include info such as emails, customer info, internal documents and source code. This puts the agencies or governments using the software at risk, if the source code contains vulnerabilities. Privacy researcher Christopher Soghoian has parsed some of the files, revealing that Hacking Team's former customers include (among others) South Korea, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Chile, Oman, Lebanon, and Mongolia.

Other documents reportedly show the company told the UN it had no business dealings with Sudan, yet an invoice among the leaked files suggests otherwise. Civil rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern about Hacking Team's software falling into the hands of oppressive governments, something the firm has stated it takes measures to avoid.

The company's website is currently unreachable, and its Twitter account was hijacked at some point, too (though that looks to have been resolved). Given the amount of info leaked, more revelations are still coming to light. We've reached out for comment, but we're sure the company has a few high profile clients it'll need to tend to first.


source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/06/hacking-team-hacked/?ncid=rss_truncated 
 
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How 4K Surveillance Should Change Security Control Rooms

4K ultra-high definition (UHD) technology increases situational awareness and offers considerable value in control room environments. Delivering ~8.3 million pixels, 4K/UHD displays significantly enhance the ability of operators to monitor finely detailed imagery in a range of applications. When does it make sense to incorporate 4K/UHD monitors and processors in a control/monitoring room, and how is this technology impacting control room design?



[Author’s Note: Although the terms “4K” and “UHD” are often combined into one term (4K/UHD) or used interchangeably, they actually refer to two different resolutions. Ultra-high definition (UHD) resolution in 3840x2160 (the display and broadcast standard), or just shy of true 4K, which is 4096x2160 (the digital cinema standard). However, in general, the term 4K has migrated from its cinematic origins and tends to be used to describe any ultra-high definition application. For the purposes of this discussion, 4K, UHD and 4K/UHD should be considered synonymous.]

When to Choose a 4K Monitor: Monitor Size, Viewing Distance and Resolutions

Monitors are available in a range of sizes and resolutions (total pixels). The smaller a monitor’s screen, the more densely packed its pixels will be, and the closer an operator would need to be to see a difference between HD and UHD resolutions. Known as the “viewing distance,” the distance between operators and display devices determines the pixel density/display resolution required for effective monitoring.
The chart above from Carlton Bale compares screen size and viewing distance to determine ideal resolutions.
As the chart shows, 4K signals on a small screen of ~50” are best viewed from about five feet or less. For larger format screens (~105”), the ideal viewing distance increases to 12-15 feet. Farther out, imagery on a 4K monitor effectively looks the same as it would on an HD monitor.

 

 

 

Bezels and Video Walls

With multi-monitor video walls, the amount of continuous display space between monitor bezels is another factor to consider. Bezels provide a rigid support structure for the panels (“glass”) in a display. However, bezels also break up the continuous appearance of images that are scaled over multiple monitors.  With a 4K UHD video wall, you can use larger format display devices, reducing the total number of bezels on the wall, resulting in a clearer image.

 

Ideal Conditions for a 4K/UHD Video Wall  

If you want a video wall with the fewest bezels possible and your wall will likely be viewed from a maximum distance of 10-15 feet, a very large format 4K UHD display (84”-104”) may be the best choice for your installation. In contrast, if you want to use smaller monitors, and/or plan to view the wall from farther away, then 1080p displays may be a more cost-effective choice for your application.

 

Notable Exceptions

Some applications are exceptions to the guidelines above because they often require close-up inspection of ultra-high resolution imagery. Examples include:

• Medical imaging
• Simulation modeling such as oil and gas exploration
• Manufacturing inspection systems
• Aerial reconnaissance
• Megapixel surveillance

In such cases, users requiring more visibility may walk right up to a video wall, shortening their viewing distance so much that it makes sense to choose monitors and video processing systems that can accommodate 4K/UHD resolutions.

 

Off the Wall and Onto Your Desk

Affordable 4K monitors are increasingly being used with 4K video processors to create “desktop wall” workstations for operators. Offering 8.3 million pixels for display, a desktop wall provides sufficient resolution for even the most demanding surveillance applications.
For example, you can display four full-resolution (unscaled) 1080p input windows on a 4K/UHD monitor. If you want to display lower resolution video streams, the right wall processor lets you display up to 12 D1 (704x480) sub-windows, 96 CIF (352x240) sub-windows, or 324 QCIF (176x120) sub-windows, all at full resolution!
That’s a lot of data on a single 4K monitor. When multiple desktop monitors are used, the benefits also multiply.

 

Who Needs a Desktop Wall?

A 4K desktop wall is appropriate for any surveillance application that involves real-time and potentially up-close monitoring of video/graphic information from a variety of sources: e.g. operators in traffic management centers, casinos, emergency operations centers, central station surveillance companies and more.  The pixel density provided by a 4K desktop wall delivers unsurpassed image clarity, no matter how closely an operator needs to view the monitors.

 

Don’t Forget About Inputs

Even if you choose an HD video wall, there are benefits to being able to process and display 4K/UHD content. Because of their higher pixel density, 4K/UHD signals can be scaled larger on an HD video wall, while still maintaining image quality.
This use case is particularly relevant for applications that require the display of finely detailed imagery on very large walls, such as multi-megapixel surveillance, satellite telemetry, industrial control applications and geospatial modeling.

 

Conclusion

The popularity of 4K/UHD technology is changing the look of the traditional control room, bringing ultra-high resolution monitors off the wall and onto desktops, and enabling the display of 4K/UHD sources. Not every control room application needs 4K today; however, given the benefits provided by UHD resolution, designing 4K processing capabilities into systems can help future-proof installations.

Obama collecting personal data for a secret race database??

 

A key part of President Obama’s legacy will be the fed’s unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race. The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of “racial and economic justice.”
Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.
This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make “disparate impact” cases against: banks that don’t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don’t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds.
Big Brother Barack wants the databases operational before he leaves office, and much of the data in them will be posted online.
So civil-rights attorneys and urban activist groups will be able to exploit them to show patterns of “racial disparities” and “segregation,” even if no other evidence of discrimination exists.

Obama is presiding over the largest consolidation of personal data in US history.

Housing database

The granddaddy of them all is the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing database, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development rolled out earlier this month to racially balance the nation, ZIP code by ZIP code. It will map every US neighborhood by four racial groups — white, Asian, black or African-American, and Hispanic/Latino — and publish “geospatial data” pinpointing racial imbalances.
The agency proposes using nonwhite populations of 50% or higher as the threshold for classifying segregated areas.
Federally funded cities deemed overly segregated will be pressured to change their zoning laws to allow construction of more subsidized housing in affluent areas in the suburbs, and relocate inner-city minorities to those predominantly white areas. HUD’s maps, which use dots to show the racial distribution or density in residential areas, will be used to select affordable-housing sites.
HUD plans to drill down to an even more granular level, detailing the proximity of black residents to transportation sites, good schools, parks and even supermarkets. If the agency’s social engineers rule the distance between blacks and these suburban “amenities” is too far, municipalities must find ways to close the gap or forfeit federal grant money and face possible lawsuits for housing discrimination.
Civil-rights groups will have access to the agency’s sophisticated mapping software, and will participate in city plans to re-engineer neighborhoods under new community outreach requirements.
“By opening this data to everybody, everyone in a community can weigh in,” Obama said. “If you want affordable housing nearby, now you’ll have the data you need to make your case.”

Mortgage database

Meanwhile, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, headed by former Congressional Black Caucus leader Mel Watt, is building its own database for racially balancing home loans. The so-called National Mortgage Database Project will compile 16 years of lending data, broken down by race, and hold everything from individual credit scores and employment records.
Mortgage contracts won’t be the only financial records vacuumed up by the database. According to federal documents, the repository will include “all credit lines,” from credit cards to student loans to car loans — anything reported to credit bureaus. This is even more information than the IRS collects.
The FHFA will also pry into your personal assets and debts and whether you have any bankruptcies. The agency even wants to know the square footage and lot size of your home, as well as your interest rate.
FHFA will share the info with Obama’s brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which acts more like a civil-rights agency, aggressively investigating lenders for racial bias.
The FHFA has offered no clear explanation as to why the government wants to sweep up so much sensitive information on Americans, other than stating it’s for “research” and “policymaking.”
However, CFPB Director Richard Cordray was more forthcoming, explaining in a recent talk to the radical California-based Greenlining Institute: “We will be better able to identify possible discriminatory lending patterns.”

Credit database

CFPB is separately amassing a database to monitor ordinary citizens’ credit-card transactions. It hopes to vacuum up some 900 million credit-card accounts — all sorted by race — representing roughly 85% of the US credit-card market. Why? To sniff out “disparities” in interest rates, charge-offs and collections.

Employment database

CFPB also just finalized a rule requiring all regulated banks to report data on minority hiring to an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. It will collect reams of employment data, broken down by race, to police diversity on Wall Street as part of yet another fishing expedition.

School database

Through its mandatory Civil Rights Data Collection project, the Education Department is gathering information on student suspensions and expulsions, by race, from every public school district in the country. Districts that show disparities in discipline will be targeted for reform.
Those that don’t comply will be punished. Several already have been forced to revise their discipline policies, which has led to violent disruptions in classrooms.
Obama’s educrats want to know how many blacks versus whites are enrolled in gifted-and-talented and advanced placement classes.
Schools that show blacks and Latinos under-enrolled in such curricula, to an undefined “statistically significant degree,” could open themselves up to investigation and lawsuits by the department’s Civil Rights Office.
Count on a flood of private lawsuits to piggyback federal discrimination claims, as civil-rights lawyers use the new federal discipline data in their legal strategies against the supposedly racist US school system.
Even if no one has complained about discrimination, even if there is no other evidence of racism, the numbers themselves will “prove” that things are unfair.
Such databases have never before existed. Obama is presiding over the largest consolidation of personal data in US history. He is creating a diversity police state where government race cops and civil-rights lawyers will micromanage demographic outcomes in virtually every aspect of society.
The first black president, quite brilliantly, has built a quasi-reparations infrastructure perpetually fed by racial data that will outlast his administration.

source http://nypost.com/2015/07/18/obama-has-been-collecting-personal-data-for-a-secret-race-database/

 

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The Convenience Of Having Video Surveillance Systems

 

 The Convenience Of Having  A Video Surveillance System in YOUR Business or Home

 

 When a city becomes progressive, there could also be increase in crimes. Crimes like these makes people worried. Some establishments are adding guards just to have more security in their business.

There are also those that, rather than to have guards, just purchase additional materials for extra security. You will see that there are hidden cameras in their establishments. Installing the cameras will make them have a record of what will happen in that place. They can be certain of their security when they have video surveillance systems Tulsa OK.

These things have provided them with many benefits. If you are thinking of having one whether for your home or business, you may continue reading on the next paragraphs to know the benefits of having one. It will surely be worth the money you spend.

These things do not fall asleep. That means that they continue to work twenty four hours a day. Even if the guard will no longer be available, one could still check what is happening. Some of it has a back up battery just in case that a power interruption may happen. It could provide you with the accurate portrayal of the event. When there have been some unexpected events that happened, you could check it to see what really happened during that time. You may use it as proof for that event.

It will aid in providing protection for a business from shoplifters, employee theft, and burglars. Some people would enter stores and steal some products where there is an opportunity. The products they usually steal are the small goods which can fit their pockets easily. The stolen good, even if they are small, also has a price which could largely affect the income you would be getting. Aside from customers, there are also employees who would steal from you. There are employees that are tempted to stealing from their boss. That is not a good deed no matter the reason is. There are even stores that experience burglary and, at worse, robbery.

In case that will happen, just proceed to the record as it will help you in checking who those burglars or those robbers are. If you have this system on your establishment, the chance that bad actions like these would happen will be lesser. People will already hesitate to do that because they know that someone is watching that and they might get caught for that.

There will also be people who would file a suit because they had injuries when they were at your place. You could verify your record if that event really happened. If you have this system, you can avoid such false claims. These people are just seeking money that is why they do it.

You will also be sure your employees are working. You would know if they provide proper customer service. You may also get discounts when you apply for business insurance.

One can check on it while they are out of town. Having this one could help you in securing your establishment. It is just a one time expense to have.

Get an overview of the benefits of installing video surveillance systems Miami FL companies offer and view our selection of security cameras at www.hdview360.com

Bosch Introduces New FLEXIDOME IP Camera Units

The new FLEXIDOME IP 4000 and FLEXIDOME IP 5000 cameras make professional video surveillance easy for everyone

Bosch launches next generation IP camera units from the FLEXIDOME family with the advent of FLEXIDOME IP 4000 and FLEXIDOME IP 5000. The latest additions in Bosch’s IP camera portfolio enable small and medium-sized organizations to deliver professional video surveillance solutions easily.
As FLEXIDOME IP cameras are ideal for everyday video surveillance situations, the new FLEXIDOME IP 4000 and FLEXIDOME IP 5000 cameras provide an excellent price-performance ratio, raising the bar higher in terms of image quality, installation, data management, and monitoring.

Bosch launches latest units from the FLEXIDOME family

Highest image quality with lowest network strain

High image resolution significantly increases the effectiveness of live video and retrospective analysis, with its ability to identify individuals or minute details. All FLEXIDOME IP 4000 and FLEXIDOME IP 5000 cameras have built-in technologies which consumes bandwidth only when needed, and customizes the captured images according to the content of the scene.
One of its built-in technology, IDNR (Intelligent Dynamic Noise Reduction) reduces storage costs and network strain by decreasing data transfer rates or bitrates by up to 50 percent. Since excess noise is already reduced at the source once the image is captured, lower bitrates do not adversely affect video quality. Another is Intelligent Defog which improves the camera’s visibility when capturing foggy or other low contrast scenes.

Ease of installation

The new FLEXIDOME IP 4000 and FLEXIDOME IP 5000 cameras are designed for easy installation and configuration. While all FLEXIDOME cameras might offer the same Graphical User Interface (GUI), these newest units substantially simplify set-up and configuration of the cameras. With the new models, complicated cabling becomes a thing of the past, as installation time is significantly reduced.

Safe data storage and data management

All FLEXIDOME IP 4000 and FLEXIDOME IP 5000 models secures back-up and storage of relevant video data through multiple solutions. Video data can be safely stored in the cloud, on a network video recorder such as the DIVAR IP 2000 from Bosch, or on the built-in SD card (depending on camera model).

Access and control

FLEXIDOME IP 4000 and FLEXIDOME IP 5000 provides 24/7 remote access and control of video data, regardless of available bandwidth, through free viewing clients, such as the Video Security app for iOS or Android devices, or the Video Security Client software. The software enables multiple viewing of sites or camera streams simultaneously and support of all devices running Windows 8.
Through Dynamic Transcoding technology from Bosch, all FLEXIDOME IP 4000 and FLEXIDOME IP 5000 users can adjust the bitrate to available bandwidth. For users to reap all benefits of Dynamic Transcoding, IP video surveillance system must be extended with either a DIVAR IP recording solution or VIDEOJET XTC from Bosch.
All FLEXIDOME IP 4000 and FLEXIDOME IP 5000 cameras integrate seamlessly with software and recording solutions from Bosch and many other leading vendors. This is backed by ONVIF (Open Network Video Interface Forum) conformance, and the Integration Partner Program (IPP), which provides developers with immediate access to software development tools for easy integration of Bosch products with third-party systems. Further details of the Bosch Integration Partner Program are available www.hdview360.com

source: http://www.mec.ph/news/bosch-news/bosch-introduces-new-flexidome-ip-camera-units/
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How surveillance cameras will soon be reading your lips

How surveillance cameras will soon be reading your lips

 

 

A security specialist Ahmad Hassanat from the University of Jordan, has developed an exclusive automated lip-reading system which will be able to record your lip movements and read what you are saying.

Ahmad claims that success rate of this lip-reading system is 76% when it comes to man, while success rate is way more higher when it comes to read what a woman is saying. That’s because some men have beard and mustache making it hard to read their lips movement.

* RELATED STORY: New Surveillance System Tracks Every Moving Object In An Entire City.

Though he admits there are many hurdles to making the technology perfect, in our surveillance-obsessed society, it’s only a matter of time – especially when you consider the CIA is already seeking out lip-reading services.

* RELATED STORY: Anti-surveillance mask enables you to pass as someone else.


If the system created by Ahmed is used with surveillance cameras the security agencies will be able to watch what you say.

The post How surveillance cameras will soon be reading your lips appeared first on Hack Read. http://goo.gl/tR090Z

 

Integrators, end-users express increasing concerns over video data storage, maintenance

 

 

With the proliferation of video surveillance in organizations both big and small around the globe, there are also mounting concerns from systems integrators and end-users about how they are going to manage this influx of data in the months and years to come.
According to the results of a recent study conducted by Seagate, a manufacturer of surveillance-optimized hard drives, which surveyed nearly 1,100 integrators and enterprise IT executives, 74 percent of respondents said that the number of surveillance cameras being used will increase over the next 12 months while the same percentage also reported that the importance of video analytics will also increase over the same time period. Three-quarters of those surveyed also said they expect the strategic value of video surveillance will increase.
The “Video Surveillance Trends Report,” which included respondents from organizations in the manufacturing, banking and financial services, technology, transportation, and retail sectors within the U.S., UK, India, China and Brazil, also found that most businesses are already using more than 200 cameras that are running around-the-clock. Specifically, respondents reported that a median number of 249 cameras are being used to collect data at their organizations. That number was even higher in the U.S. and the UK, where the median number of cameras in use was 349. In addition, 34 percent of those surveyed said that they have “significantly increased” their number of surveillance cameras over the past 12 months.
Craig Carmichael, market research analyst for Seagate, said that while they did expect to see above average growth for video surveillance data compared to the growth typically seen in the data storage market, which is usually somewhere between 20 to 40 percent, they were somewhat taken aback by the breadth of the demand for video.
“I don’t think we were surprised about how strong it was, but how consistently strong it was across verticals and across geographies,” said Carmichael. “The vertical story was quite interesting too. There are pockets of verticals, such as government and manufacturing, where we do see very, very aggressive surveillance growth. But we didn’t see any verticals where there was that below average or subpar performing vertical, so they were pretty much strong across the board.”     
Aubrey Muhlach, surveillance segment marketing manager for Seagate, said that people are also discovering how valuable this data can be, especially when advanced analytics are applied to it.
This could be why a greater number of organizations are retaining video for longer periods of time than they once did. According to the study, 27 percent of respondents said that they are keeping video footage for a year or longer and 23 percent said that they are retaining it for 90 days to one year. Another 14 percent said that they hold onto footage for between 60 to 90 days, 23 percent keep it for 30 to 60 days and only 11 percent save it for less than 30 days.
The desire to store of all this footage for longer periods of time might not be realized by many organizations, however, if the drives they are using cannot withstand the inherent burdens that come with handling video data.

“One of the biggest costs as people are building out their surveillance system is, in fact, the storage. One thing that we have found is a lot of people are using the cheapest drives out there to store their data, which may seem like a nice, upfront investment but what we’re seeing is an earlier failure rate of those drives,” explained Muhlach. “They are typically taking desktop-class drives, plugging them into the systems – those drives aren’t built to work with these massive numbers of cameras at these high streaming capabilities – and they’re not built to run all day, every day.”

Given that increasing camera counts will also generate more data, there were also mounting concerns among respondents about how they are going to adequately store and maintain this footage. When asked what their organization’s challenges were with using their existing primary storage media for storing surveillance footage, 47 percent said maintenance, while 44 percent said capacity. Other challenges noted by respondents included: data recovery (44 percent), reliability (40 percent), speed (40 percent, and cost (38 percent).
An overwhelming majority of respondents, 87 percent, said that video surveillance is becoming more challenging to manage and 94 percent reported that they will receive increased infrastructure investment for it. Also, the study found that most respondents are using traditional storage solutions (85 percent), as well as some form of the cloud (83 percent) to store video.  
“We continue to see these higher resolution cameras and I think a lot that is to meet the requirements of whatever application or environment that you’re in and, obviously, these cameras only create an even better storage story,” explained Muhlach. “Where people are storing data also seems to be evolving a little bit as well.”

 

14 Security Fails That Cost Executives Their Jobs

 

You had one job: Secure the data. What happened?

Life as a CEO, CIO, or CTO is a bit more complex than that. Not every executive is directly responsible for IT security. Few have a deep understanding of it.

But in our networked world, IT security is the foundation of a successful business, and blame is shared when the floor collapses. Organizational leaders may prefer to focus on the big picture, but inattention to security has proven to be a poor career move.

Katherine Archuleta, the director of the US Office of Personnel Management, is the latest casualty of a data breach. She resigned on Friday following revelations that hackers had made off with the data of 21.5 million people who applied for government background checks. Her agency previously disclosed that the personal information of more than 4.2 million federal workers had been compromised.

 In a May 2015 study, based on information from 350 companies, IBM and the Ponemon Institute found that the average total cost of a data breach increased to $3.79 million from $3.52 million last year. The average cost paid for each lost or stolen record with sensitive data rose as well, to $154, from $145 last year. That's a global average. In the US, the cost per capita reached $217.

By that measure, the theft of 25.7 million OPM records could cost almost $5.6 billion. If only those funds could be added to the $14 billion proposed for cybersecurity in FY2016. After all, the OPM breach could have serious, long-term implications for national security.

Monetary costs tell us nothing about the angst and inconvenience visited upon the victims of a breach, or the personal and professional toll paid by whoever accepts responsibility.

It's infuriating for data theft victims to be forced to worry about fraud and identity theft due to someone else's errors, ignorance, or incompetence. At the same time, it's difficult not to be a bit sympathetic to those called upon to maintain security using systems and people who are unavoidably flawed. Those who do the job well succeed, in part, because there's someone else out there doing the job less well, someone running an organization that's an easier target.

When you look at the list of companies that have been hacked in some way, it becomes apparent that even the most technically sophisticated organizations can be breached given a sufficiently well-funded, determined attacker. Speaking on 60 Minutes in 2014, FBI Director James Comey put it this way: "There are two kinds of big companies in the United States. There are those who've been hacked by the Chinese, and those who don't know they've been hacked by the Chinese."

And Chinese hackers are not the only hackers in the world.

Given the vulnerability of IT systems, the first act of an incoming CEO, CIO, or CTO should be to write a resignation letter, apologizing for the "unforeseen" data breach that everyone feared was coming. Ideally, the letter's presence will serve as a reminder to prioritize security concerns.

With luck and diligence, the letter will never need to be tendered. But many executives have not been so fortunate or attentive. Here are a few who have stepped aside or been forced out following a breach. Maybe there's a lesson here, or maybe we're all just waiting for the other shoe to drop.




source :http://www.informationweek.com/government/cybersecurity/14-security-fails-that-cost-executives-their-jobs/d/d-id/1321279




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An Easy Guide To Video Surveillance Laws

An Easy Guide To Video Surveillance Laws

The prevalence and dependability of video surveillance cameras has become very popular recently. Thousands of business and home owners have begun using video cameras for security purposes to guarantee safety, to catch criminals, sketchy behavior at home, monitor loss prevention from employees and customers and to enforce rules and regulations.

It’s considered covert surveillance when the cameras can’t be identified or can’t be seen. Security cameras are, for the most part, legal in the United States as long as it doesn’t intrude upon a person’s fourth amendment right to privacy.

This article will go into the details of what is considered legal and what is not legal as far as surveillance goes so that all questions are answered. On the Uses of Covert Surveillance A saying that holds true in court is “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Studies have shown that when a jury is presented with surveillance footage, they are more likely to convict than if there is no video surveillance shown as evidence. The calculated placement of hidden surveillance cameras help with the detection and prosecution of theft, vandalism, elder neglect, child abuse, harassment and stalking.

Some of the most common places that use camera surveillance are retail stores, hospitals, prisons, construction sites, nursing homes, police stations, casinos and of course in the family home. Watching the activities of household help and babysitters or nannies with covert surveillance cameras is on the rise.

With newer technology, cameras can now be installed in such places as house plants, teddy bears, wall paintings and clocks.

What Exactly is Illegal? In the US, most camera surveillance is considered legal. What you cannot do legally is post cameras where people have an expectation of privacy. bathroom stalls dressing rooms locker rooms changing rooms someone else’s house

When is Audio Illegal? Most all situations involving an unattended recording device. Conversations you are not a part of.

 Covert surveillance may also be illegal when you have audio surveillance taking place without the permission of those monitored when the person under surveillance has a practical expectancy of privacy.

Another case where video surveillance may be against the law is when the surveillance shows an illegal activity and the person under surveillance has a right to legal counsel, such as when being questioned by the law and the person in charge of the premises have not consented to video surveillance.

Audio recording for the most part is only legal if you are recording and are an engaged member of a conversation. Engaged doesn’t just mean you are there, it means you are actually participating.

Is It Okay to Use Video Surveillance? Studies have shown that in the US and the UK video surveillance does act as a great deterrent to stopping crimes before they occur. Studies also show that video surveillance can be a very powerful tool in detection and prosecution of crimes. The main thing to keep in mind is to know your local laws and to not just record anyone and everyone without their consent. If you follow all rules for covert surveillance, you should be okay under the law. Catching criminals is a great idea, just be sure you are not taking audio of people unknowingly.

For more information check out our website at www.hdview360.com


source: http://www.securityoptions.com/an-easy-guide-to-video-surveillance-laws/

Hackers stole Social Security numbers from 21.5 million, gov’t admits

 

Dennis Mancino HDVIEW360.com

Hackers swiped Social Security numbers from 21.5 million people -- as well as fingerprint records and other information from background check investigations -- in the massive breach earlier this year of federal personnel files, the government acknowledged Thursday.
The Office of Personnel Management included the findings in a statement Thursday on the investigation into a pair of major hacks believed carried out by China.
"The team has now concluded with high confidence that sensitive information, including the Social Security Numbers (SSNs) of 21.5 million individuals, was stolen from the background investigation databases," the agency said of the second breach, which affected background investigation files.
OPM said it is "highly likely" anyone who underwent a background investigation through the agency since 2000 has been affected. The 21.5 million number mostly includes those who applied for one, but also 1.8 million others, "predominantly spouses or co-habitants of applicants."
OPM said these records include "findings from interviews conducted by background investigators and approximately 1.1 million include fingerprints." The agency said they have no information at this point to suggest "any misuse or further dissemination of the information that was stolen from OPM's systems."
Despite agency pledges to help those affected with credit monitoring and other assistance, the latest numbers are sure to deepen concerns about the risks those affected face.

The OPM statement Thursday pertained to a second breach, discovered in May -- separate from one discovered in April which affected more than 4 million people.
Some people were affected by both breaches and the government estimated the total impacted by both was 22.1 million.
The larger breach impacted background investigation records of current, former and prospective federal workers and contractors. OPM acknowledged a wide range of information is potentially at risk:
"OPM has determined that the types of information in these records include identification details such as Social Security Numbers; residency and educational history; employment history; information about immediate family and other personal and business acquaintances; health, criminal and financial history; and other details. Some records also include findings from interviews conducted by background investigators and fingerprints. Usernames and passwords that background investigation applicants used to fill out their background investigation forms were also stolen."
The number affected by this breach is higher than the 14 million figure that investigators gave reporters last month. They said the government was increasingly confident that China's government, and not criminal hackers, was responsible for the extraordinary theft of personal information.
China has publicly denied involvement in the break-in.
A former senior intelligence official also told Fox News that the attack is not an isolated incident, but part of a broader campaign by China to build a massive database that can be used to earmark and index the intelligence for future use. This information is being aggregated, and the level of organization points to backing of Chinese military units.        
The numbers are so high because a high-level security clearance requires a review every five years. Each time, the individual must supply three new references -- meaning a single official could easily have personal information for over a dozen people in the system.
The extent of, and response to, the breach has already led to calls for the firing of top officials at OPM.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, along with 17 other Republican lawmakers, last month called on President Obama to fire Director Katherine Archuleta and Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour
"Simply put, the recent breach was entirely foreseeable, and Director Archuleta and CIO Donna Seymour failed to take steps to prevent it from happening despite repeated warnings," they said in a letter. 




Dennis Mancino OTC Capital Partners Adi Elfenbein SEC
source : http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/09/hackers-stole-social-security-numbers-from-215-million-govt-admits/

 

Why Use Video Surveillance?

 

Video is here for our protection and safety.

Whether serving as a visual deterrent to crime or giving managers and security professionals the tools they need for dealing with liability claims, iTech Digital offers the most practical and cost-effective digital video surveillance solutions available.

Reduce Loss:

• Capture slips and falls or evaluate environments to prevent them from happening
• Monitor parking lots for  vandalism or loitering
• Install door sensors to monitor product loss out back doors
• Monitor dining room traffic to staff at effective levels

Increase Profit:

• Reduce product shrink
• Monitor employee productivity, breaks and downtime
• Reduce food giveaways by monitoring drive thru windows
• Verify cash handling procedures through POS video integration

Increase Performance:

• Identify process improvement opportunities
• Monitor drive thrus for wait time or drive-offs
• Monitor food prep areas to ensure quality standards met
• Utilize POS to integrate transactional and video data
• Monitor dining rooms for long lines, long wait times

Decrease Theft:

• Monitor for employee monitor theft
• Evaluate questionable transactions at point of sale
• Monitor exteriors to prevent robberies
• Monitor back door or warehouse product theft

 

After Boston: The pros and cons of surveillance cameras

Even after the identification of the Boston bombing suspects through grainy security-camera images, officials say that blanketing a city in surveillance cameras can create as many problems as it solves.

A network of cameras on city streets and other public spaces increases the chances of capturing a criminal on video but can generate an overwhelming amount of evidence to sift through. The cameras make some people feel more secure, knowing that bad guys are being watched. But privacy advocates and other citizens are uneasy with the idea that Big Brother is monitoring their every public move.

Meanwhile, facial-recognition software and other technologies are making security-camera images more valuable to law enforcement. Now, software can automatically mine surveillance footage for information, such as a specific person's face, and create a giant searchable database.

After last week's bombings at the Boston Marathon, authorities had to sift through a mountain of footage from government surveillance cameras, private security cameras and imagery shot by bystanders on smartphones. It took the FBI only three days to release blurry shots of the two suspects, taken by a department store's cameras.

Compare their quick turnaround with the 2005 London bombings, when it took thousands of investigators weeks to parse the city's CCTV (closed-circuit television) footage after the attacks. The cameras, software and algorithms have come a long way in eight years.

 

The FBI last week released security-camera images of suspects in the deadly Boston Marathon bombings.

Cities under surveillance

In major cities, in the age of terrorism, someone is almost always watching.

The cameras used in London are part of the city's extensive and sophisticated "Ring of Steel" surveillance system that combines nearly a half million cameras, roadblocks and license plate readers to monitor the heart of the city. Set up in 1998, the system is one of the most advanced in the world and allows authorities to track anyone going into or out of central London.

Many residents question the effectiveness of London's system, however. In 2008, only one crime was solved for every 1,000 cameras, according to the city's police. CCTV cameras across Britain also cost authorities nearly $800 million over the past four years, according to civil liberties group Big Brother Watch.

Modeled after London's system, New York's Lower Manhattan Security Initiative monitors 4,000 security cameras and license plate readers south of Canal Street. The project uses feeds from both private and public security cameras, which are are all monitored 24 hours a day by the NYPD.

Using face and object-detection technology, the police can track cars and people moving through 1.7 square miles in lower Manhattan and even detect unattended packages. The $150 million initiative also includes a number of radiation detectors and automatic roadblocks that can can be used to stop traffic in an emergency.

Boston's camera network is smaller than those in London and New York, though that is likely to change soon. In 2007, Boston law enforcement had an estimated 55 CCTV cameras set up around the city. Since then, the city has expanded its surveillance system, though authorities there are not commenting on the exact scope of the current camera setup.

Boston's example has shown the power of these systems to help solve crimes, causing many to call for even more cameras. But it's still not clear whether they are effective at preventing crimes. According to the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University in Ontario, urban surveillance systems have not been proven to have any effect on deterring criminals.

Facial recognition

As the volume and quality of cameras and sensors are ramped up, cities are turning to more advanced face- and object-recognition software to makes sense of the data.

A surveillance camera attached to a building in the Financial District of New York City.

"We describe what's in the video, and we store that in a database," said Al Shipp, CEO of San Francisco-based 3VR, one of several companies that makes this type of facial-recognition technology.

The company's first investor was In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture-capital arm, which finds and funds promising security-related technology. Now, 3VR works with federal and local law enforcement agencies, as well as private companies and banks.

Its software can identify objects by shape, size and color. It can read license plates and recognize cars. When it comes to people, it can detect their gender, approximate age, mood and other demographic information. Using multiple cameras, it can track their patterns and some behaviors. It automatically zooms in on any person's face and identifies them based on things like the distance between their eyes or the shape of their nose.

All that information is stored in a database. Big clues that would take a traditional investigator untold hours of watching video to uncover can be found with a 15-second search query.

For example, they could do a search for anyone who entered a 7-Eleven store between 8 and 11 p.m. on a specific night, pull up the times that certain cars have entered and left a parking lot, or ask for images of every person who has entered a certain building over the past year.

"It instantaneously gives you a picture of everybody who has walked in the door in the past based on the geometries of their face," Shipp said.

Privacy concerns

Civil-liberties activists are concerned about how this technology could be abused. With cameras in far-flung cities all connecting to the same database, a person's movements can be tracked across states or continents. For example, it could be used to single out a person attending multiple political protests.

"We like to think we have some privacy in our lives, that we can go places that we don't necessarily want the government to know about," said said Jennifer Lynch, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil-liberties group. "What concerns me is if all of those cameras get linked together at some point, and if we apply facial recognition on the back end, we'll be able to track people wherever they go."

For now, many of the biometrics databases in the United States are still separated. Some are scattered across various federal and local government agencies, and connecting them will take time and big budgets. The FBI is in the process of building out its own facial-recognition database and is working with state DMVs to access their photos.

It's less likely the government will be able to tap into private databases anytime soon, but it's still a cause for concern down the line, privacy advocates say. Facebook has the largest facial-recognition database in the world, a potentially rich vein of data for any government agency.

Another worry is the misidentification of suspects. Shipp acknowledges that these systems can make mistakes but says the computers aren't there to take over for humans but to assist investigators by weeding out useless information.

"The cameras themselves are not a panacea. They're not going to solve the problem. It's one of the steps," he said.

But at least one prominent tech blogger thinks the benefits of surveillance cameras outweigh our fears about privacy.

"The idea of submitting to constant monitoring feels wrong, nearly un-American, to most of us. Cameras in the sky are the ultimate manifestation of Big Brother -- way for the government to watch you all the time, everywhere," Farhad Manjoo wrote last week in Slate.

But Manjoo thinks we need to be thinking about ways to make cameras work for us, not reasons to abolish them.

"When you weigh cameras against other security measures, they emerge as the least costly and most effective choice. In the aftermath of 9/11, we've turned most public spaces into fortresses -- now, it's impossible for you to get into tall buildings, airports, many museums, concerts, and even public celebrations without being subjected to pat-downs and metal detectors. When combined with competent law enforcement, surveillance cameras are more effective, less intrusive, less psychologically draining, and much more pleasant than these alternatives."

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 source :http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/26/tech/innovation/security-cameras-boston-bombings/