Brickhouse Security was mentioned today as part of a story on iPhone applications on the CNBC website. As part of their business-oriented applications for smartphones, companies are using Brickhouse Security’s Executrac Mobile GPS Tracker to protect businessmen in dangerous parts of the world. The Executrac is a smartphone app that turns company owned BlackBerrys into GPS tracking beacons anywhere around the world, and can automatically be downloaded onto any existing BlackBerry or Windows Mobile Smartphone. As GPS use becomes more and more prevalent among those with cell phones, no GPS service is more reliable 24 hours a day in tracking employees and more important for the businessman with possibly dangerous interests than Executrac. Learn more about it here.
The New York State Court of Appeals recently issued a ruling baring police from tracking the cars of criminal suspects with GPS systems unless a warrant is first obtained from a judge. The ruling was set in motion by a case in Albany County where the state police believed a man may have been committing burglaries. The GPS device was used to place the suspects car at the scene of a shopping center burglary. However, Chief Judge John Lippman ruled that this type of GPS tracking violated the state Constitution.
In the majority opinion, Lippman wrote that “It is quite clear that this would not, and indeed, realistically could not be done without GPS and this dragnet use of of this technology at the sole discretion of law enforcement authorities to pry into the details of people’s daily lives is not consistent with the values at the core of the state Constitution’s prohibition against unreasonable searches.”
A New York State attorney who had been involved in a similar case with a man who was tracked by a GPS device praised the verdict as a strong one. William Tendy, a native of Poughkeepsie, stated that “The decision makes good sense; it’s well-reasoned.” He also said that the ruling was a good sign, as law enforcement agencies are usually believed to be slow in addressing advancements in technology that are seen as eroding citizens privacy.
Ulster County D.A. Holley Carnight, who said that GPS devices are sometimes used in law enforcement cases in the county, particularly in drug investigations, was one law enforcement official who disagreed with the Court of Appeals ruling. He believes that GPS tracking does not give enough information on drivers to be an infringement on privacy.
“It doesn’t tell you who the driver is or what he’s doing, so I don’t think the situation is as sinister as the majority seems to believe,” Carnight said.
The New York State Court of Appeals may have the state’s citizens best interests at heart, but with this ruling, law enforcement may face a major set back in fighting crime. The vehicle GPS tracking systems that law enforcement uses in both New York and other states at this moment in time are very simple and have a clear goal: to track and stop suspected criminals and in doing so, protect communities. Our pinion is that there is no “Big Brother” effect at work here with the trackers. Rather, it is just law enforcement serving and protecting, as it’s their duty to do so.
When Bristol, England thief Jamie Dawey saw a handbag laying on the seat of an empty car, his worst instincts took over. Little did he know, the Volkswagen Passat he was stealing from was one of Avon and Somerset’s police’s covert capture cars, designed excl
usively for catching criminals.
Outfitted with hidden video cameras, the CCTV images captured were enough evidence to secure a conviction and nine-week jail sentence for drug addict Davey, 27, of Sidmouth Road, Bedminster.
Prosecutor Robert Allen stated that the car was parked at the Templegate NCP car park in Bristol on June 26 at 9:45pm when Davey made his move.
The cameras capture Davey breaking in through the driver’s door and stealing a black leather wallet, silver iPod case, and brown canvas ladies bag worth a total of £65, belonging to the police. He then returned at 2:05am the next day and attempted to break into a Vauxhall Meriva parked next to the Passat.
Davey originally claimed to the court that although the main photo looked like him, it was not, but when the case officially came to court, the suspect changed his tune and admitted theft and interfering with a car in an attempt to steal.
The covert capture car is used all around Bristol to catch criminals. Police officers “bait” the car with items such as satellite navigation systems, handbags, car stereos and mobile phones. Davey is the latest of several hundred arrests since the tactic was introduced in 2006. Metigater Selina Hunt stated that Davey is a heroin and crack addict who has been trying to quit and that the incident was “an opportunist’s crime.”
Magistrates sentenced him to a total of nine weeks in custody for the offenses.
(Via This Is Bristol)
Law enforcement’s use of sophisticated cellular tracking techniques to observe suspects before arrest and to build cases against them in criminal cases is building all across the country, and is raising major concern over civil liberties and privacy rights. Existing law is outdated and does not give set guidelines on the use of cellular tracking techniques. Federal wiretap laws are behind the times in passing laws on the use of data to find a person’s location, and guidelines cannot be passed when local laws differ in separate regions of the U.S.
For more than a decade, law enforcement had the technology to match an antenna tower with a cellphone signal so that a cellphone’s location could be tracked to within a radius of 200 yards in urban areas and 20 miles in urban ones. Now, cellular technology is sophisticated enough that its GPS systems can mark a user’s position to within a few dozen yards. Law enforcement can track suspects in real time by having phone companies send signals to a phone that is turned on. [...]
The Homeland Security Department has announced that it will review the multicolored terror alert system that was created after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano has recently created a 17-member task force chaired by former FBI Director William Webster and former White House homeland Security Fran Townsend that has 60 days to determine the effectiveness of the current system, which could be overhauled or eliminated entirely.
The current Homeland Security alert system is a five-tiered one that goes from the color green, which signals a low danger of attack, to red, which warns of a severe threat. The system has proven to be confusing at times, and many critics believe the colors are used too vaguely for the information they signal to be seen as useful. [...]
A Beaverton, Oregon, woman who was victimized by a serial burglar was able to use an ingenious hidden camera to catch the perpetrator in the act. Celeste Labore took the step of setting up the camera after her most-prized possessions began vanishing into thin air, and she had no idea who was responsible.
“We put out money for bait. I knew whoever was coming in would, no problem, take the money,” Labore said.
Just three days after Labore set up the camera it was able to catch the burglar, who to her horror was her middle-aged neighbor Sergio Nabor-Tellez, 39, a man who lives just across the street. [...]
In Rogers, Arkansas, a GPS “money tracker” slipped into a bag during a bank robbery allowed police to track the suspect and make an arrest Friday, July 3rd. The suspect is now being held on a $200,000 bond as he stands accused of robbing one bank and attempting to rob another. Anthony Timothy Barnes, 31, of Rogers faces two counts of aggravated robbery and a count of felony theft of property. The robbery charges are class Y felonies, meaning Barnes could receive a sentence of 10 to 40 years on each of the counts.
Barnes one-day crime spree both started and ended haphazardly. On Friday, a call at 3:16 P.M. made police aware of an attempted robbery at First Federal Bank on West Huston Road. The robber was unable to steal any money due to the bullet-proof glass protecting the tellers. [...]
For a number of years, Grant Opperman’s small delivery company D.W. Morgan was struggling to compete with the leaders in their industry.
Industry giants like FedEx and UPS were able to use tracking technology to find packages within mere minutes of arrival, while Opperman’s tiny 90-man firm’s main tracking tool was the memories of its 30 drivers, who were required to call their boss when their shipment arrived. When drivers committed simple human errors such as forgetting to call Opperman and their managers, it put D.W. Morgan behind and left them at the mercy of their clients, to the point that the company sometimes could not even tell clients where their packages were located.
As Opperman made the decision for D.W. Morgan to go towards international expansion, he realized his company could not survive in a tougher market with a good tracking system. Although Opperman could not afford the top-notch systems that top competitors like UPS had, he took the step of buying the cheapest iPhone ($200) for each driver, paid $300 for a developer’s license from Apple, and had one of his in-house tech specialists build a custom application using the iPhone’s GPS system.
With the new system, D.W. Morgan’s clients can now track shipments online in real time. The custom application shows the precise location of each truck on a Google map, drivers ask package recipients to sign their iPhone screens, and signatures are immediately uploaded to the company Web site.
“Even the big guys don’t get it that fast,” says Opperman proudly.
Thanks to the custom application and other visionary ideas, D.W. Morgan is becoming a more efficient company. Opperman estimates that he invested $21,000 to update his companies tracking technology, but has used that investment to save an estimated $96,000 a year, for a profit of $75,000 dollars. The estimate of $96,000 by Opperman is based on the number of hours his drivers spent filing, receiving signature documentation, and making mutual data entries. This system is allowing D.W. Morgan to expand to the Czech Republic and Thailand by the end of this year.
By taking advantage of today’s growing GPS Tracking technology and companies and corporations ability to use it to better themselves, Grant Opperman has made D.W. Morgan into a more powerful and influential company. Here at BrickHouse Security, we offer GPS solutions for companies that are in a similar place to D.W. Morgan which will allow them to compete with the big boys. GPS Trackers like the Spark Nano and LiveWire NavGenius Gps Tracker & Navigation System allow companies to have real-time observation over their mobile assets and constant updates through mapping. With a simple upgrade, companies can level the playing field.
(Via CNN Money)
Microsoft Corp. may be on the top of the computer business, but it is certainly not perfect, as the company learned Monday July 6th when they had to reveal the details of a computer security threat the company has not taken the steps to fix.
The threat revealed Monday by Microsoft affects Internet Explorer users whose computers run the Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 operating software. This vulnerability allows hackers to remotely take control of any victims machine, after the victim has visited an infected site. Criminals have been exploiting this vulnerability for almost a week, with thousands of sites having been hacked during this time. People travel to these sites by clicking links found in spam e-mails. The threat affects the section of the Microsoft software that is used to play video, and the flaw arises from how the software and Internet Explorer come together with one another. The error in their interaction allows for a hole which hackers can tunnel into. 
Microsoft is telling its users to disable the flawed part of its software to protect their computer. Instructions to do this can be found on Microsoft’s website. Meanwhile, the company will work on a “patch”, or software fix, for the problem.
In Milford Connecticut, a neighbor’s surveillance camera has given the town’s police the hard evidence they need to convict a home invader. Resident Belinda Kowalsky has a home security surveillance camera set up to protect her home against thefts, and her intricate equipment was able to capture a burglary in progress at a neighbor’s home. Police say that the video shows a man parking and entering the home and then driving away a minute later in possession of a wide screen television. The thief apparently broke in through a back window, that one other local home was targeted, and that an alarm may have scared away the burglar. The vehicle seen in the video is a Volkswagen. [...]
