February 2007
Features
By Brent Dirks
NAVIGATING the world of federal government contracts can be a head-spinning operation for even the most committed and headstrong business.
But for many, working with the federal government, especially with the constantly growing Department of Homeland Security, is too big a proposition to pass up. With 183,000 employees and a budget of more than $42.7 billion in fiscal year 2007, DHS is the third-largest cabinet department in the federal government and a target for many companies to garner new business.
By Jeff Brummett
Oftentimes, adults find themselves daydreaming of the days of their youth. Most children long for the day when they're no longer a child. They long for the freedom, fun and excitement believed to come with adulthood.
By Sherleen Mahoney
THICK, dusty, three-ring binders are no place to keep school emergency response protocols. In the event of an emergency, information and time is critical. Precious time can be lost in locating the binder, flipping through the tabs to find the correct section and finally finding the vital information. And what if an evacuation is necessary? Lug the binder out and start the information search all over again during different stages of the emergency? Even then, its contents are only as good as the people who wrote the information, limited to how much the binder can hold and only accessible to those on site.
By Travis McGee
AS security issues continue to filter down through the American educational landscape, almost all educational institutions are responding to the need for security. From small, rural public schools to large universities, advanced security technologies are being applied in waves.
By Patrick V. Fiel Sr.
LAST year's wave of school shootings garnered tremendous media attention and left the nation shaken and concerned for the safety of students and staff.
By Mark Mills
AT the most basic level, there are just two types of security: physical security to protect people and assets, and information security to protect bits and bytes in data systems. And, information security products are generally more intelligent than physical security products.
By Yossi Massafi
INTELLIGENT video analysis (IVA) is a surveillance technology that watches one or many video fields of view and detects, tracks, identifies and analyzes movements and behaviors of objects or people.
By noting the presence or absence of objects, and the location, direction and speed of movement, the technology detects movements or behaviors that deviate from specified parameters.
By Steve Blake
IN recent years, investigative reporters have uncovered security vulnerabilities in what are believed to be closely monitored applications: school buildings. In too many instances, investigators are able to slip into school buildings without being stopped, and administrators find out about the security breach on the evening news.
By Calum McLeod
ONE of today's biggest IT headaches is managing privileged passwords, the super-powerful codes such as administrator on a Windows® server, Root on a UNIX server, Cisco Enable on a Cisco device, as well as embedded passwords found in applications and scripts.
By Karina Sanchez
THE future is creeping in, and it brings new opportunities for the security installer and dealer alike. Those in the security industry all know of the buzzwords that infest office chatter each day.
Departments
By Brent Dirks
IT'S a simple enough request at most companies -- the last person to leave the office should lock the doors. But many times, one of the most basic tenants of access control can be compromised by something as simple as a forgetful employee.
By Leslie Stevens
ELECTRONIC integrators rely not only on new customers to grow their company, but also repeat and referral business. This applies to all integrators -- big or small, domestic and international.
By Col. Timothy D. Ringgold
FOUR years in the making, the drive to implement HSPD-12 at long last began by issuing smart identification cards last October. Every federal agency has now opened at least one facility where employees can go to get personal identification verification (PIV) cards fitted to the strict criteria of FIPS 201. This year, federal agencies will begin to activate a massive interoperable system of card readers in which any agency's readers will be able to read and process cards presented by any and all federal employees -- no matter what agency employs them.
By Mike Borths
NEARLY 10 years ago, the security industry was inundated with stories of systems promising to track valuable assets, making objects much more difficult to steal.
By Ralph C Jensen
IT'S nice to see the departments of Homeland Security and Energy working together, implementing the Secure Freight Initiative.