CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) Cameras

CCTV (Closed Circuit Television)

Cameras

Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) Cameras are the key facilitator of all homes, business areas, educational institutions, and other public places as they provide ultimate security and ensure safety. Today, we come across CCTV monitoring systems and CCTV surveillance equipment in almost all places we visit. With the wide usage of CCTV cameras, the number of CCTV vendors CCTV installers is also considerably increased in India.

Out of other CCTV equipments used by people, CCTV cameras are the maximum preferred equipments by majority. So what makes these CCTV cameras so unique and dependable? Here are some most important benefits of CCTV Camera System.

Benefits of CCTV Cameras(by CyberLab)

1. Compact – CCTV camera and CCTV camera system is a compact package. The sizes of the cameras and the camera system will be small and will be less spacious. These compact CCTV surveillance cameras will not occupy more space in only your house or office now the CCTV cameras can also used in cars!

2. Available in Different Sizes & Shapes – There not just one size or shape in which CCTV camera system is available but in various sizes and shapes these cameras are available. There are CCTV surveillance cameras that comes in various sizes and shapes that will not make people realize a CCTV surveillance camera is fixed in the particular area.

3. Climate Compatible – CCTV surveillance cameras can be used both in indoor and at outdoor locations. The CCTV camera system is water resistant and also dust resistant so that it can also be used in outdoors like traffic signals, entrance gates, in extreme outdoor areas like amusement parks etc. where the CCTV camera system will prove its durability even in the extreme weather conditions.

4. Economical – A CCTV camera system is highly economical and affordable for all.

5. User Friendly – The mechanism of CCTV camera system is very much user-friendly and so that everyone can easily handle them (provided they have the access). The CCTV camera system also provides high-end security and privacy options so that not everybody can access the data recorded.

6. Keeps a Clear Record – The CCTV cameras are capable of functioning even for 4 days without power supply and maintenance! The CCTV camera system keeps a clear record of the data recorded without any interruptions in the recordings so that the surveillance process becomes easy and simple.

7. Control Access to Various Equipments – CCTV camera system has a highly sophisticated control access to a huge number of devices. Not only computers but also through your televisions and mobile phones you can now gain access to the CCTV surveillance cameras.

8. For Home Security – CCTV surveillance cameras provides absolute security to the houses when installed in the right places. CCTV cameras for home comes in many forms apart from its classic camera look. There are CCTV cameras available in forms of pen, door locks, bags, flower vases etc.

9. For Office/Shops/Malls Security – CCTV cameras not only works good as surveillance cameras but also for other important office purposes like attendance system, customer care support (answering the customers without directly talking to them), and also for the data management purposes.

RFID Technology

What is a RFID 

System ?

Radio frequency identification (RFID) first appeared in tracking and access applications during the 1985 . These wireless devices systems allow for non -contact reading and are effective in manufacturing and other hostile environments where barcode labels could not survive . RFID has established it self in a wide range of m ar ket s including livestock identification and automated vehicle identification (AVI) systems because of its ability to track moving objects .

What is an Attendance Monitoring System ?

An attendance-monitoring system serves as a time log that is set up as a computerized database. An attendance- monitoring system maintains a daily record of a person's arrival and departure time from work or school. The attendance-monitoring system database is an application that contains electronic files about a person's history. An attendance-monitoring system contains a person's name, address, date of birth, medical history and attendance history. 

What is a RFID Card Based Attendance Monitoring System ?

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) based Attendance Monitoring System is a compact unit to monitor the employees attendance through proximity access ID cards. The cards are supplied with the unit. They serve dual purpose, for both identification and for time entry.
Attendance monitoring is very simple. This System assigns a unique card number for each employee. An employee places the RFID card within 10 cm distance from the RFID Reader. The RFID Reader writes down the time, date and type of departure / arrival. The type of arrival / departure is indicated on the LCD display. The display also indicates the current time.
One RFID Reader can hold up to 50,000/80,000 event records. There 30,000/50,000 or more number is the card resister capacity. The Interface software is responsible for attendance record processing and it produces attendance reports in the customer-preferred format.

Why a Computerized Attendance Monitoring System ?

• Want a comprehensive, flexible and extensible yet user friendly time clock software for PC?
• Want to accurately track your employee time, attendance, punctuality and leave?
• Want to save time by drastically reduce the time spent in calculating employee worked hours and pay?
• Want to save money by not overpaying your employees?
• Want to instantly know which employee is in or out of the office?
• Want to prevent buddy punching (i.e. employee asking another employee to punch in/out for him)?
• Want to provide your managers the convenience of tracking employee attendance remotely from their own computers?
• Want to provide your employees the convenience of punching in/out on their own computers and at the same time have a secure network instant messaging system within your company?

BlackBerry App Can Spy on You, US CERT Warns

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has warned BlackBerry users that a new application has the ability to turn their smartphone into a surveillance tool.

"This software allows an attacker to call a user's BlackBerry and listen to personal conversations," says US-CERT's public warning. "In order to install and setup the PhoneSnoop application, attackers must have physical access to the user's device or convince a user to install PhoneSnoop."

But there's a catch: if you want to try the application, you have to e-mail the IT security consultant who wrote it.

Sheran Gunasekera, a Sri Lankan programmer who heads the security division for Hermis Consulting and blogs at Chirashi Security under the handle Chopstick, is looking for beta testers to try out the application so he can write a paper on it.

In the blog post announcing the application, Gunasekera explains how the surveillance application works.

You install and run PhoneSnoop on a victims’ BlackBerry.  PhoneSnoop sets up a PhoneListener and waits for an incoming call from a specific number.  Once it detects a call from that specific number, it automatically answers the victims’ phone and puts the phone into SpeakerPhone mode.  This way, the attacker that called can now hear whats going on at the victims end. 

But because Gunasekera isn't interested in snooping on anyone, the application is less than stealthy, reports The Washington Post.

There are some very real limitations of this spying app: For starters, an attacker would need to have physical access to the victim's phone in order to install the app. PhoneSnoop also can't listen in on the victim's phone calls, and it leaves a conspicuous new program icon in the victim's app list.

The application also leaves a conspicuous icon on the phone's interface and a victim could also discover the application when the attacker called to activate the speakerphone.

Nevertheless, Gunasekera is trying to prove a point, which is why he called his application a proof-of-concept. "BlackBerry is one of the most secure platforms out there, so what I wanted to do was highlight that even though you have a secure platform, in the end the user is probably going to be the weakest link," Gunasekera told the Post.

What he's saying is don't leave your phone laying around. And for those who are given their phone, say from their boss or their spouse, it's probably not a bad idea to see what software's installed on it.

If you think something malicious might be lurking on their phone, Gunasekera has also written and released "Kisses," a free application that detects hidden programs on various BlackBerry smartphones.

DHS Improperly Investigated and Surveilled U.S. Muslims, Documents Reveal

Documents obtained by two civil liberties organizations reveal that during the Bush administration the Department of Homeland Security improperly investigated and surveiled American Muslims who had no ties to criminal activity or terrorism. The information collected, however, was destroyed after internal processes uncovered the violations of intelligence oversight guidelines.

In the first incident, uncovered by a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) wrote and distributed "an intelligence note" in September 2007 on the lines of succession at the Nation of Islam, an African-American Muslim organization, after its leader Louis Farrakhan ceded control of the organization, reports The Los Angeles Times.

In a quarterly report from DHS to the Intelligence Oversight Board, the department called the incident a "questionable" activity. The note, entitled Nation of Islam: Uncertain Leadership Succession Poses Risk, was distributed to 482 e-mail addresses, including those of other federal agencies, the intelligence community, and one state government entity.

Immediately after it was sent, the report notes, a lawyer and an intelligence oversight officer at DHS I&A expressed concern and the office recalled the note and asked all recipients to delete it. An inquiry into the incident subsequently determined "I&A had violated internal intelligence oversight guidelines by collecting and retaining information on the Nation of Islam and other U.S. Persons named in the intelligence note."

In a letter attached to the quarterly report, then-Undersecretary of Intelligence and Analysis Charles E. Allen told DHS' Acting General Counsel Gus Coldebella and Inspector General Richard Skinner that the intelligence note on the Nation of Islam should have never have been issued because "the organization-despite its highly volatile and extreme rhetoric-has neither advocated violence nor engaged in violence."

In 2008, another DHS quarterly report to the Intelligence Oversight Board details a May 2008 incident in which I&A once again overstepped its bounds by collecting and storing information on a Muslim conference in Georgia and its speakers, some of whom were U.S. citizens, while it conducted surveillance on two individuals that go unnamed in the documents.

According to the letter explaining the incident:

I&A did not have any evidence the conference or the speakers promoted radical extremism or terrorist activity, and their activity is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. Reporting on it violated I&A's Interim Intelligence Oversight Guidelines.

The report goes on to state that the "source information has been destroyed or deleted."

“I think it’s a positive sign that these agencies responded to this and took steps to correct the situation,” Marcia Hofmann, a staff attorney for the EFF, told The New York Times. She added, “We would never have known that this happened had we not seen these internal reports.”

DHS also responded to the incidents discovered by the FOIA release.

DHS spokesman Matt Chandler told the LA Times "DHS is fully committed to securing the nation from terrorist attacks and other threats, and we take very seriously our responsibility to protect the civil rights and liberties of the American people while fulfilling this mission." He also said DHS has instituted safeguards to ensure intelligence notes like the one referring to the Nation of Islam do not happen again.

This isn't the first time that DHS I&A has come under scrutiny. During the spring, it produced and disseminated an internal threat assessment to state and local law enforcement that theorized returning U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan could be recruited by rightwing extremists to attack the United States. After the document was leaked, it resulted in a firestorm of criticism for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who recalled the document and instituted processes to ensure it does not happen again.

DHS Wants to Turn Cell Phones Into Chemical Sensors

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) research and development arm wants to turn the smartphone in your pocket into the high-tech equivalent of a canary in a coalmine—all for about a dollar a phone.

On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security's Science & Technology Directorate (S&T) announced it has begun to fund its Cell-All program, which has been in the research phase since 2007, reports Information Week. The program would embed a chemical sensor worth about a dollar into every cell phone, which would detect deadly chemicals without harming the smart phone's battery life.

“Our goal is to create a lightweight, cost-effective, power-efficient solution,” says Stephen Dennis, Cell-All’s program manager. To help make the concept a reality, S&T is pursuing cooperative research agreements with Apple, LG, Qualcomm, and Samsung. If successful, Dennis hopes to have 40 prototypes next year. The first-generation sniffing smartphones would start small by detecting only carbon monoxide and fire.

The DHS Web site explains how "this wizardry" would work.

Just as antivirus software bides its time in the background and springs to life when it spies suspicious activity, so Cell-All regularly sniffs the surrounding air for certain volatile chemical compounds.

When a threat is sensed, a virtual ah-choo! ensues in one of two ways. For personal safety issues such as a chlorine gas leak, a warning is sounded; the user can choose a vibration, noise, text message, or phone call. For catastrophes such as a sarin gas attack, details—including time, location, and the compound—are phoned home to an emergency operations center.

And the technology's effectiveness will only increase as more and more smartphone users acquire it. This will allow the technology to "crowdsource," or use the sensors from multiple smartphones to adequately diagnose and relay a release quickly to first responders. S&T hopes this will reduce, if not eliminate, human error.

Rather than relying on a person to phone in a chemical release or remain calm enough to describe what's occurring, the chemical sensors in the cell phone will automatically contact emergency personnel when it detects a chemical release, identify the source, and provide first responders with the location. This means the sensor will detect and notify authorities of a chemical release even when it's undetectable by humans. And as more and more people utilize the technology, S&T says it will help eliminate false positives as the sensors detect the same release from multiple smartphones at a specific location.

"The end result: emergency responders can get to the scene sooner and cover a larger area—essentially anywhere people are—casting a wider net than stationary sensors can," DHS explains.

S&T also says Cell-All will not jeopardize personal privacy. A smartphone user would have to opt-in to the program and the data transmitted by the phone would remain anonymous. “Privacy is as important as technology,” avers Dennis. “After all, for Cell-All to succeed, people must be comfortable enough to turn it on in the first place.”

While acknowledging the idea is a work in progress, S&T seems upbeat chemical-sniffing cellphones isn't science fiction, but a commercially viable option in the next few years.

"Just as Bill Gates once envisioned a computer on every desk in every home, so Stephen Dennis envisions a chemical sensor in every cell phone in every pocket, purse, or belt holster," the DHS Web site proclaims.

How Your Outdoor Surveillance System Can SeeThrough Mother Nature's Wrath

The great outdoors can be not-so- great for those who are setting up outdoor surveillance systems and attempting efficient perimeter detection. The equipment has to deal with weather, wind, possible tampering, and even the occasional wild animal or two. Additionally, there are trees, brush, pedestrians, and the toughest opponent of all—the darkness. Here is a look at recent trends in outdoor surveillance and perimeter protection and some best practices that can help to make the systems more effective.

Thermal Cameras

The lack of light outdoors at night is a thorn in the sides of integrators. It isn’t always possible to install more lighting to make visible-light cameras work better in the dark. So security managers often turn to other tools.

Consultants, vendors, and integrators interviewed for this article kept coming back to one major factor: the dropping price of thermal imaging cameras. Thermal imagers read heat energy coming off objects. They provide a picture of the various heat energies in a field of view.

Thermal imagers are increasingly being used in conjunction with analytics and other sensors to reduce false-alarm rates. “Deploying analytics is no substitute for having lighting or infrared illumination. If you’ve got zero lighting at night, then the best use of analytics is linked to a thermal imager,” says John Whiteman, DVTel’s vice president of strategic programs.

In addition, some thermal cameras are used in conjunction with visible-light cameras, although it should be noted that visible-light cameras do need some sort of light or illumination.

Stratospheric UAV Systems: An Eye (Way Up) in the Sky

 

 WASHINGTON -- The new generation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, will behave more like satellites than airplanes. They’ll come in strange shapes and sizes and could fly forever…or at least until operators decided to crash them into the ocean. 

These airships will be solar powered and could fly months or years above the jet stream between 60,000 and 70,000 feet, Ed Herlik, a lead analyst at Market Intel Group, said today at the AUVSI 2011 symposium in Washington, D.C. And because of their design for long endurance missions, they aren’t made with any conventions for landing.

Herlik led a discussion on stratospheric UAV payload applications for both defense and commercial industries at the symposium, which began today and goes for several days.

“We knew how to fly these things in 2007, and they would have stopped the IED threat. Flying at those altitudes you can see a whole bunch of stuff,” Herlik said.

Higher altitude flights allow for a wider area of surveillance. It would take 13 Predators or at least 4 Global Hawks to get the same amount of continuous ground coverage a stratospheric UAV could cover, he said. He predicts that in the text 10 years, money being spent on mid-sized UAV’s will eventually be rerouted to add these crafts to military fleets.

Continuous monitoring provided by a stratospheric UAV flying over a city would create a record of an attack that could be reviewed to yield information that would retrace a attacker’s footsteps backwards to where he originally came from.

One craft in development by DARPA looks like a giant blimp. Having one stationed over Baghdad “would provide total airspace knowledge and unprecedented ground vehicle tactical tracking across more than 80 percent of Iraq,” a 2008 DARPA report states.

Other UAVs look more like NASA’s Helios prototype aircraft – which looks more like a flying solar panel than an airplane. Helios reached more than 96,000 feet in a test flight before it broke apart in flight after 40 hours.

Other defense applications for stratospheric UAVs include complete communications coverage over a wide area for troops on the ground, signals intelligence, and a supplement to the U.S. missile defense system.

Commercially, Herlik said the systems could be an answer to LightSquared’s proposed plan for complete North American broadband coverage.

“It would take them 40 thousand towers for [broadband coverage of] the contiguous United States. It would take 73 of these. I don’t think LightSquared is going to make it, frankly,” Herlik said.

But these craft will face their own regulatory hurdles. Because of FAA regulations, it may be a while before the airships are allowed to fly commercially in the United States. However, Herlik states the view that once foreign markets pick them up, the U.S. will follow.

“In India and Brazil, they will take the technology, and they will start flying it, and then the commercial vehicle will come from overseas to here when the cell companies and Internet companies demand those foreign vehicles fly over here," he said.

For now, business developers are focusing on the defense industry, because "that's where the money is," he said.  

The AUVSI 2011 symposium began Tuesday and will continue through Friday at the Walter E. Washington Convention center in Washington.