Importance of surveillance camera systems in Our Life Dennis Mancino HD View 360

At the present time, People have become more knowledgeable about their security and protection because robbery, theft and crime are rising everyday.  Your home and place of work can be protected with the help of CCTV security cameras and video surveillance systems.

Earlier, these cameras were very expensive and most  people could not purchase these setups but currently the security camera technology is getting superior each day so it is easy for general people to buy cameras for their home, business and other purposes. These kinds of surveillance camera systems are now accessible in reasonable cost that every person can buy them without any trouble.

Surveillance camera systems for Home Security
Home surveillance systems is a huge way of protection your home from robbery and any other crime. These kinds of security camera systems are very significant to people's security and life for their safety and protection. These varieties of home video surveillance are used in mutliple places such as your business, home, office, shopping malls, shops, public places.  Home security is most essential for relatives and includes various advantages of owning home surveillance cameras. Also, a home owner can check their family members and kids are excellent and watchful by the nanny cams or observe that their home is protected and secure from criminal activies.

Surveillance camera systems for Business Security
The business safety is also vital for every business owners. Through the help of surveillance systems everybody identifies numerous things and these plans can save you alot grief in the future. Because the easy view of them can detect thief and it is very important that people can make use of it as evidence in their insurance claims. For that reason, the video surveillance cameras are very significant security device and by the help of this appliance you can protect your home, workplace and business.

Here at HD View 360 we are honorable and trustworthy partners in that are providing surveillance cameras for home, company and for any other purpose at realistic prices. There are lots of security types presented such as wireless surveillance camera, infrared cameras and dummy cameras that fit most excellent according to customer’s requirements. Each type of camera has its own advantages and also helpful to secure your life as a home property owner, business owner and employee.

Therefore, the security system is very essential for both home area and marketable area. There are numerous types of ways and through the help of these security techniques you can get appropriate safety at your house or business location. The wifi surveillance camera is an outstanding technique because it is not require doing manual effort and also it is able to follow at the occurrence of every theft and burglary.


 Dennis Mancino HD view 360

source: https://securitycamerasystems123.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/importance-of-surveillance-camera-systems-in-our-life/

Top five functions your SAN needs to safeguard your surveillance data - Dennis Mancino HD View 360

 The video surveillance industry has changed over the past three decades. Analogue images are no longer taken and stored on physical VHS tapes. Today, high resolution, color images are captured and stored instantly onto hard drives, often with directives that mandate retention of footage for a period of months if not years. This makes the use of a reliable high performance Storage Area Network (SAN) more important than ever before in order to prevent loss of video footage.
However, to remain competitive in the face of this challenge, surveillance companies need to reduce the cost of their storage while increasing capacity, reliability and performance. This is even further complicated for some companies who are under strict regulation to hold onto data for extended periods. While holding down costs is important, what lies at the heart of the surveillance is reliability and this is why data security and integrity are more crucial for the surveillance industry than anything else. Here are the top five functions you should equip your SAN with to perfectly safeguard your video surveillance data.
 
1) A fully redundant hardware design
The first basic point is that the SAN should be equipped with a fully redundant hardware design to prevent any unplanned downtime in the system. Dual modular redundancy (DMR) hardware, in which components are duplicated, provides security in case one should fail. A well-designed SAN storage array comprises dual power supplies so that, if one fails, the other one is ready to carry on the work, and importantly, dual RAID controllers for full protection. It should also have hot swap components, which allow elements to be replaced without significantly interrupting the system. This forms the basis of a sound SAN and reduces the risk of interruption or data loss, under any circumstance.
 
2) An active-active RAID configuration
RAID’s data redundancy provides a full fail-safe against any kind of hardware failure. Having dual RAID controllers is essential, but equally important is having the right configuration. The ultimate dual RAID controller configuration is known as active-active, which means that the standby controller can immediately take ownership of all drives within the RAID configuration and take over host requests in the event of a controller failure. Many systems only use an active-passive configuration which means that the standby controller has several housekeeping tasks to perform before it can assume responsibility for data I/O which results in degraded performance and the potential for dropped frames in the video footage.

3) A battery-free RAID cache backup mechanism to safeguard data in the event of a power outage
Cache batteries are a service nightmare and only hold unwritten video footage for 72 hours at the very most in the event of a power outage! Batteries degrade over time which reduces their capability to maintain power to a RAID controller for long enough to write any data held in cache memory onto the hard drives for permanent storage. Storage arrays that use batteries for cache power outage protection require regular service to replace cache batteries which is not only an additional cost but may result in downtime or degraded performance during this maintenance. Look for systems which use super capacitor technology to maintain power during an outage coupled with flash card memory to permanently store any unwritten video footage until mains power is restored.

4) Use storage arrays with demonstrated 99.999% availability
Five nines availability (99.999%) is achieved through a combination of high reliability, measured by the Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of the system, subsystems and software, and rapid repair of any failure, measured by Mean Time To Repair (MTTR). A combination of modular design, a high degree of component redundancy, a well-designed alert system as well as an effective service and support structure all contribute to high availability. This typically results in less than five minutes of unplanned downtime per year.

5) Sufficient capacity or easy expansion
As image resolution increases, there is a constant need for more storage capacity, especially in the surveillance industry. Before a system gets close to reaching maximum capacity, there should be an alert and expanding storage capacity should be simple. H.264 compression can reduce file sizes but early alerts before reaching maximum capacity are vital. In addition to alerts, there should always be enough spare capacity to archive at least 30 days of video footage.


source: http://www.surveillance-magazine.com/2015/07/28/top-five-functions-san-needs-safeguard-surveillance-data/

Dennis Mancino HD View 360

Facial recognition: Necessary for security or a violation of privacy?

Dennis Mancino HD View 360

With recent examples, such as the police tweeting a picture of Michael Macintyre taken from one of their surveillance drones in London, there is no surprise that the general public is concerned about the use of pictures taken by CCTV and drones and the effect on their privacy.

For more than a decade, security and police services across the world have been using facial recognition software in conjunction with CCTV in order to help them to catch criminals and disrupt criminal activity.  There has been some encouraging results.  For example, in the case of London riots back in 2011, 80% of arrests were made from CCTV footage which generated an impressive 81% conviction rate.  Yet we can’t ignore the fact that the level of crime solved by CCTV is low when compared with the number of cameras in the UK.  Why is this?

There are a number of reasons.  Police find tracking down images hard work.  You’d think that with the technology available today, this wouldn’t be the case and it certainly isn’t down to reluctance within the police as they have been actively pushing for more data to use for facial recognition.  It is the availability of the images which is an issue.

Business owners have been sold plenty of CCTV packages which seemingly deliver ‘crime prevention’, but when it actually comes to acquiring the images needed they may not find them easy to download and the software format may make them difficult to view when they are required for evidence.  If the timestamps on the images are wrong, this may make the data unreliable and as such it can’t be used for prosecution purposes.  These issues come about due to the DIY efforts of businesses or the poor quality nature of the alarm company they have used.

Facial recognition software is not just used for fighting crime though.  Retailers use facial recognition as a data collection exercise.  Customer profiling is important, because it enables retailers to paint a picture of their customer demographic – male or female, how much they spend, what products they buy and so on.  For example, Amscreen has developed technology that allows facial recognition software to identify all of these things ‘at a glance’, enabling businesses to tailor advertising messages specifically for them.

The public is not necessarily aware that these ‘face-prints’ are being taken and although they may be familiar with the concept on Facebook, once there is more general awareness of the implications, we can expect serious concerns about how and where the data is going to be used.  In public spaces covered by CCTV, the general public is giving assumed permission as they are present in areas where the use of cameras is obvious.  However, it is not only in public spaces where CCTV cameras are used, some potentially alongside facial recognition software; it is also in private companies, department stores, shopping malls and petrol stations.

So when the images can be retrieved, privacy is the main issue.  The general public has every right to ask how the highly sensitive database used to match up faces is being protected by the police, where the retailers’ data is stored and how such images are used generally.  The government, aware of these concerns, set up the role of Surveillance Camera Commissioner under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, whose job is to encourage compliance with the surveillance camera code of practice.

How do we allay the general public’s suspicions regarding the role of surveillance in our lives? 

Businesses need to use CCTV which is fit for purpose and make sure their use of facial recognition software does not stray beyond what is legally permitted.  Crime will be reduced through the effective use of professional Alarm Receiving Centres, who have the confidentiality, integrity and availability of CCTV images and associated data at their core, through using products such as ProtectNet.  And the police need to stop tweeting pictures of unsuspecting celebrities!

for more information on facial recognition and to setup an appointment please visit: www.hdview360.com or call us direct at (786) 292-2001

source: http://www.surveillance-magazine.com/2015/08/21/facial-recognition-necessary-for-security-or-a-violation-of-privacy/

Dennis Mancino HD view 360

Drones not being used for surveillance, OPP says

The OPP started using unmanned aerial vehicles, similar to the one pictured, in 2007, and now has a fleet of seven machines used to investigate motor vehicle crashes and document crime scenes. File photo.

OPP expand drone use to document crime scenes and crashes

In recent years, the Ontario Provincial Police have added drones to their toolbox to investigate motor vehicle crashes and document crime scenes.

But police prefer to call the machines — which have exploded in popularity with hobbyists – unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.

“We don't call them drones for obvious reasons,” said OPP Insp. Mark Andrews. “People always associate bad things with them.”

Whatever you call them, the OPP first used the unmanned vehicles on a pilot basis in Kenora, where they helped the forensics identification unit in that region of Northern Ontario take photographs of crimes scenes from vantage points that could only be achieved by helicopters in the past.

The OPP now has seven UAVs stationed with detachments across the province, that are used as much cheaper alternatives to helicopters.

Each UAV costs around $60,000.

While they are much more expensive than commercially available models — that range from $75 for a small starter kit closer to a toy, to $5,000 for advanced models used by professional photographers and hobbyists — the OPP models are also much more sturdy and built to withstand the wear and tear that comes with police work.

Despite the pricetag compared to other models, Andrews said they are much cheaper than helicopters, and also come with much lower operational costs.

“In the old days before we had these deployed, we would have asked for a helicopter to come land, pick up an officer with a camera, and then fly the scene,” Andrews said. “You can imagine how much that costs compared to using a UAV.”

While there are no OPP UAVs that operate in Sudbury on a permanent basis, there is one stationed in South Porcupine, and another based in Barrie.

Andrews said the Barrie detachment recently used the UAV to survey a motor vehicle accident on Highway 69, and greatly reduced the time required to document the crash – which closed 300 metres of roadway.

The devices could also be used in search and rescue operations, Andrews said, and could prove useful in an area like Killarney Provincial Park, which would be challenging to search by foot.

“In the world of search and rescue, the sooner we can find a person the better chances of their survival,” he said.

But despite their advantages, and technological advances in recent years, the capabilities of UAVs remain limited for police work.

Flight time, for example, is limited to a maximum of 30 minutes before the battery needs to be recharged.

While the cameras on board have gotten better, and now shoot high-definition video, they are of little use at night or in poor weather conditions.

Andrews said they could eventually be equipped with infrared cameras, but that hasn't happened yet.

He added the police force has been very careful with its use of the machines.

“We don't use them for surveillance,” he said.

And as UAVs become more popular with the masses, legislation has failed to keep up, Andrews said.

“There will be a bit of a Wild West show before we get a handle on it,” he said.

There have been numerous reports around Canada of UAVs flying in restricted airspace and causing near crashes with planes.

During the recent wild fires in British Columbia*, firefighters had to ground their water bombers because a hobbyist was piloting a UAV in their flight path.

Transport Canada's website indicates the rules of operating a UAV as a set of “Do's and Don'ts” — calling them safety guidelines rather than laws. Pilots of UAVs can be charged under the Criminal Code if the machines are used to invade someone's privacy or if they're trespassing on private property.

Pilots are also expected to adhere to the Canadian Aviation Regulations.

But until legislation catches up, Andrews said it will remain difficult for police to enforce the law when it comes to UAVs.



source: http://www.northernlife.ca/news/localNews/2015/08/19-police-uav-sudbury.aspx

Dennis Mancino HD View 360 OTC Capital Partners 

Rutgers installing more surveillance cameras following arrests, report says

Rutgers expanding safety efforts; more off-campus patrols, surveillance cameras

September 10, 2015    Last updated: Thursday, September 10, 2015, 8:41 AM

By PATRICIA ALEX and NICHOLAS PUGLIESE

staff writers | 

The Record

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Rutgers University has boosted police patrols this semester and plans to install more surveillance cameras in the troubled neighborhood next to the state’s flagship campus, Chancellor Richard Edwards said Wednesday, as three young men charged in connection with a violent crime spree there pleaded not guilty in court.

R.L. Rebach/staff artist

Starting today, the school also will begin reaching out to the nearly 10,000 students who live south and west of the historic College Avenue campus, in New Brunswick’s 5th and 6th wards, to distribute window alarms and light timers and advise them on ways to be more conscious of their own safety.

“The safety and well-being of all members of our community are a priority,” Edwards said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon.
 
Related:  Two former Rutgers football players, student plead not guilty in home invasions

The issue of student safety was brought into sharper focus last week when 10 current and former Rutgers students, including five members of the Scarlet Knights football team, were charged with robbing and assaulting other students in the area during the spring semester, fueling a new round of security concerns even as Rutgers has spent millions in an effort to attract the state’s best students.

An unrelated sexual assault was also reported in the neighborhood — which is home to the bars, restaurants and stores frequented by students and staff — in the early hours a week before the start of the fall semester.

While officials say the crime rate has actually dropped in the city, crime is still a problem, and many are leery of the residential neighborhoods of older, two-story wood-frame houses that are mostly rented by students.

“I just had a granddaughter graduate from here and I used to stay up nights. When she got home, she had to call me, living off campus,” said Robert O’Donnell, 85, himself a loyal alumnus and football supporter whose son also attended the university. “It’s just constant assaults, muggings and everything off-campus. I think you have a responsibility … to have adequate patrols there.”
Edwards said in the interview that 15 new recruits will be added to the 76-member Rutgers University Police Department at New Brunswick within the next few months. He said there have been increased patrols, in partnership with New Brunswick police, and there are plans to install dozens of security cameras in the neighborhoods in addition to the 2,700 that already exist on the campuses in New Brunswick and Piscataway.

Students and staff at Rutgers can also request escorts from the university police if they are returning to campus from other areas in the city, including the train station, Edwards said.

The university this semester also opened an office of off-campus living and community partnership, which is expected to address security and other issues.

That office is scheduled to distribute the light timers and window alarms today to students and also is starting block watch programs, said Kerri Willson, director of the off-campus office. The school also has used grant money to purchase two more patrol vehicles that will concentrate on the area, she said. “We’re going to focus heavily on where we’ve seen a problem,” Willson said.

Rutgers last year implemented an expanded text-alert system to inform students and staff of serious crimes within the two wards.

Officials say the overall crime rate in New Brunswick is actually down significantly in most categories so far this year. There were 280 reported crimes between January and August 2015, down from 433 during the same period in 2014, according to the Uniform Crime Report released by the New Jersey State Police last week.

But students themselves said in interviews that they need to be on guard.

“You never know what to expect,” said sophomore Bianca Douglas. “I’m a female and I walk at night sometimes and I don’t want to feel like I have to be alert at all times. I want to feel safe on campus.”
She said that students frequently receive crime alerts about incidents that appear to be drug-related. “I think it’s a big thing,” she said. “If people know you’re on campus selling drugs, they’re going to rob you.”

Other students said it’s not just anyone selling drugs on campus; it’s primarily their Rutgers peers.
“If you’re looking for it, you can find it,” said junior Mark Rous­seau. He said last year one of the neighboring houses on Central Avenue, where he lived, was forcibly entered because of what he heard was a marijuana-related feud.

“Some of the kids are selling drugs and if people get wind of it, people break in and take the drugs and money,” he said, adding that it’s a storyline that plays out over and over in the area surrounding the campus.

Some of the 10 students and former students charged last week are accused of armed home invasions in which they allegedly stole drugs and money from fellow students. One alleged incident was in a dormitory in Piscataway, but the other two were near Central Avenue.

And five of those charged, including four football players, are accused of assaulting a group of students on Delafield Street, breaking one’s jaw.

source: http://www.northjersey.com/news/rutgers-expanding-safety-efforts-more-off-campus-patrols-surveillance-cameras-1.1406401

Dennis Mancino HD View 360 OTC Capital Partners