I recently invited Jan Johansen, CEO of Hi-Tech Stragey Consulting, to join me for a podcast about security convergence. It's about the business value that convergence projects can provide for end-users. We take a close look at identity management as one avenue toward business value.

Download podcast_with_Jan_Johansen.mp3

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Thanks, Michael, for sending me the link to this "security by obscurity" lock.  It's a freakin' work of art. :-)

And only 50 bucks!

Up to this point, PSIM has been a nice idea and a marketing expression, falling short of an actual definition. However, Physical Security Information Management is very real. Security directors and manufacturers are embarrassed by the primitive tools of event management in our command centers today. They’ve chosen to ignore the elephant in the room, but it’s starting to take up too much space.

PSIM is an opportunity for end-users to manage situations more quickly and effectively; for manufacturers to produce new software and networking solutions; for integrators to up-sell to their existing customers, and for investors to enrich their portfolios. That’s a tall order for one nascent market niche.

At the next SecurityDreamer event we’re going to dig in to PSIM and un-earth its treasures, sharing best practices, deployment secrets and hidden dangers. For investing opportunities, for deploying PSIM solutions, for partnering with the right people, you'll want to be in the room.

This event is for investors, integrators, resellers and end-users - - anyone interested in making money and solving problems with PSIM. Grab hold of this opportunity and act on what everyone's been talking about.

Where: Bethesda, Maryland

When: Wednesday, June 4^th

Time: 7:30-10:30am

Breakfast will be served

Contact Rachel to register:

Rachel.Cusick@HuntBI.com,          847.733.0200      

Improving business was at the core of an event Rachel and I put on at the Venetian the night before the ISC West show.  We called it The Future of Video Surveillance, and it sure was fun.  About 60 top consultants, integrators, security executives and investors schmoozed and feasted at David Burke restaurant at the Venetian while I shared a few thoughts about the future of video surveillance.  Video sure is hot these days.   There is tremendous demand, and everyone (and their brother) is coming out with a camera or service to sell in order to carve off a bit of pie – a pie that seems to double in size every couple years with no end in sight.  For the security industry, video surveillance is like a mini Internet bubble, getting the investors, manufacturers, service providers and end users all frothy and wild eyed.

For me, video in security is boiling down to a few trends.  First is the notion that video can be something other than data.  Today, we think of pumping video through a pipe – more video more stuff.  The IT intelligencia calls that stuff data.  However, when we assemble and analyze data, it becomes information.  Information creates value for our organizations.  In the future, video becomes something more than bits through a pipe – something more than video.  It becomes “intelligence” just like any business application enriching productivity and profit.

The next trend is ubiquity.  Video will soon be everywhere – on every street corner and building lobby. Sharing (and in some cases not sharing) that video becomes an important discussion.  Making video available to those who are authorized to it and who need it will bring pressure on price, interoperability, ease of deployment, ease of management, integration with analysis and response systems, compression, storage, and many other factors contributing to making video available on demand.

One other trend affecting the future of video surveillance also touches all of the physical security industry, and that is consultative selling.  The so called sales channels of this industry are more like order-taking channels.  As we do with Amazon.com, we call our integrator when we already know what we want.  The future will find us talking about security more as a business enabler.  In fact, the best consultative sales people will be able to purge the word security from their vocabulary and as a result increase sales.  New sales techniques and channels will evolve to sell the new business application of intelligent video to business unit managers, CIOs and COOs.

Let’s keep advancing the conversation.

Exact Name and Version of the Product: Waterfall IP Surveillance Enabler Plus - WF ISE+

Manufacturer and Website: Waterfall Solutions www.waterfall-solutions.com

Type of Product: Video Camera Security

Uses: Protect IP camera infrastructure from hackers and malware

What We Loved: Easy setup and no-nonsense architecture.

What We Didn’t: The price

Price: Prices are not available for public distribution.

Overall Rating: 4 out of possible 5

Overview

Lior and Avner took the redeye to Chicago, so when they walked in I immediately started the coffee pot. One cup to set up the equipment, another to describe the overall architecture and functionality. By the third cup of coffee, I completely understood the Waterfall technology. A single pot of coffee is the entire investment I made to qualify as a systems engineer of this elegant and useful product.

I’m a big believer in the value that IP video surveillance cameras give to large organizations. Easier video sharing, analysis and data gathering are just a few of the benefits. Unfortunately, IP cameras have a serious drawback. Not cost - prices are dropping and functionality is rising quickly enough that price doesn’t concern most buyers seeking flexibility and functionality. No, my concern is security. Security of the cameras and the network they share. Bad guys can turn a network camera into a network access point, shutting down or diverting video, or worse, connecting to internal systems and stealing corporate data. Think of the camera as a little, unprotected web server and you get the idea.

Network pros immediately think of standard IT security measures like firewalls, encryption, authentication, anti-malware software and the like. However, building that kind of infrastructure will take extensive involvement of IT professionals, and even then, the firewall may prove powerless against an internal Trojan horse.

Waterfall employs a networking concept called an air-gap to create a secure infrastructure for IP video surveillance. The IP connection from the camera is actually severed, then, reducing the payload to pure video stream in a non TCP/IP format, forwarded over a one-way optical connection to the receiver. The transmitter physically cannot receive, nor can the receiver send, so it is impossible to send any malware upstream or to divert video traffic. For those rare times when a PTZ command must be sent upstream, or when the camera needs a configuration change, the system opens a separate, firewalled, temporary connection that closes immediately after use.

This type of straightforward IT security, using standard technologies and best practices is just what the physical security industry needs to win the embrace of their IT brethren. We liked the easy setup and no-nonsense architecture. We didn’t like the price. We think the product should be priced about the same as an IT firewall protecting an equivalent number of ports. We recommend the Waterfall solution for any end user, distributor or integrator of large numbers of IP cameras.

Download This Review

[Following is the first of what I hope will be regular posts by our new Creative Associate, Rachel Cusick. Watch for Rachel's Corner on the blog all year.  -- sh.]

I started working for Steve at the beginning of this year with a lot to learn about the security industry.  I guess I’d call my perspective fresh, with a healthy dose of naiveté.  With so much to learn I really enjoy listening to the discussions at our events. They’re usually bold and loud which always makes for an interesting evening! So when we hosted The Future of Data Protection in Silicon Valley last month, I got a crash course in the IT world.

Bill Munroe joined us from Verdasys to engage our guests in a topic that’s easy to discuss but very hard to agree on: The future of data protection. I expected the concept to be overridden with terminology and extremely difficult to grasp. In a way it is, but in a very big way, I get it.

Although the setting was serene and the wine was calming, the conversation was tumultuous. Bouncing from all sides of the room were opinions from IT security architects, principal analysts, VPs, CIOs and COOs, all with an interesting tweak to each other’s opinions.

What to do? Steve let the conversation flow, taking the opportunity to slow things down and point out conclusions when he could. The biggest deduction of all, is how darn hard it is to actually derive one.

First there’s the debate of information versus data, and then comes the real argument of who cares about what it’s called, let’s address the value! Then there’s the challenge of who gets access to what, and no matter how secure the business is, there’s always the internal threat. How do you know who you can trust? What if you hire someone you can trust and they turn into someone else? The one overriding agreement was that security is inconvenient and only appreciated after something bad happens.

Security is not in place for security alone, but to protect the business, the money. And of course the most efficient way to do this is to put the proper devices in place before bad things happen. But any IT professional will tell you, that they’re mostly called upon for reaction, not prevention.

It must be hard to constantly protect and improve protection without much reward.

Did you notice all the SecurityDreamer maps being carried around the show floor at ISC West in Vegas last week?  Our Future of Video Surveillance map showed where to go for the best video surveillance technologies.  It was a completely non-sponsored list of the companies that we at SecurityDreamer felt were pushing the industry forward video surveillance.

In hindsight, I don’t think I’d make any changes.  Plenty of exhibitors had nice displays and good technologies, but lacked that technological or sales edge which might have gotten them on our list.  If your favorite company didn’t make it on our list for ISC, don’t worry, we will be watching closely to see if it makes the cut for our ASIS map.

The ISC West 2008 Future of Video Surveillance companies listed on our virtual walking tour map included:

3VR www.3vr.com/Solutions

Agent VI www.agentvi.com 

Avigilon www.avigilon.com

Axis www.axis.com

Cernium www.cernium.com

Cisco www.cisco.com

COHU www.cohu-cameras.com

Exacq Technologies www.exacq.com

Extreme CCTV International www.extremecctv.com

IQinVision www.iqeye.com

Firetide www.firetide.com

Genetec www.genetec.com/english

Hirsch Electronics http://www.hirschelectronics.com

Intransa www.intransa.com

Ioimage www.ioimage.com

Mango DSP www.mangodsp.com

MATE – Intelligent Video www.mate.co.il

Milestone Systems www.milestonesys.com

NICE www.nice.com

ObjectVideo www.objectvideo.com

Orsus www.orsus.com

Panasonic Security Systems www.panasonic.com/business/security   

Pelco www.pelco.com

Proximex www.proximex.com

Sentry 360 www.sentry360.com

Steelbox www.steelbox.com

Verint & AirVisual www.verint.com and www.airvisual.com

VideoIQ www.videoiq.net

Vidsys www.vidsys.com

Virage Security & Surveillance www.virage.com

Vumii www.vumii.com

Waterfall Solutions www.waterfall-solutions.com

I remember walking the floor at more than a few trade shows in 2005 and witnessing the excitement around two little letters, IP.  IP cameras, IP controllers, IP this, IP that, worming their way into marketing presentations and press releases, dribbling off the lips of newly enlightened security professionals in every aisle.  It was fun to watch an entire industry break into an awareness of the power and utility of Internet protocol.

This week at ISC, though, it seems IP is trumped by a new alphanumeric jumble.  H.264.  Suddenly compression standards are all the rage, I guess.  Cisco, Axis, and more than a dozen other companies made announcements or breakthroughs related to creative implementation of the H.264 compression standard.  More video squeezing through the wire, more efficient storage, faster searching for video clips, easier sharing of video to your iPhone.  Faster, easier, cheaper – all the promises of IP in 2005.