BrickHouse Security Blog

The city of Desert Hot Springs, California just unveiled their newest city works project to help increase surveillance and make it easier for police to keep the city safe. The city hopes that by increasing the way people use surveillance, they will be able to help the police catch criminals.

What makes this system different than most surveillance systems: “This is the first truly mobile, high-speed data network anywhere, and it’s definitely the first one for police vehicles for public safety,” said Justin Benoit, chief technology officer with Lockheed Martin who said he consulted with other vendors.

This 1.2 million dollar system includes 30 cameras in public areas as well as in 16 squad cars. Accessible from both the police station and from wireless laptops that transmit data over a secure network, the system will give police a panoramic view of the surveillance sights with touch screen zoom capabilities. If they see something suspicious, they can simply touch the screen on their laptop and zoom in on any suspicious people or activities.

“It’s a huge leverage, a plus factor for us that we can remotely be able to provide the information and the data live time to our staff, and they can use it to be safer and to respond effectively,” police Chief Pat Williams said Tuesday.

One resident, Tom Wilhem, 49, stated that he thinks this type of surveillance is useful: “They can see what’s going on, which will help the officers. They’re out there kind of blind without it,” he said. “We have the technology. Why not use it?”

(Via My Desert)

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A few months ago we reported that Blu Dot, a Minneapolis based design firm planned to plant their signature chairs around New York City, and to use GPS technology to see what would happen to them. Would people grab them? Would they adopt them into their homes? Would they sit on them? Using a combination of GPS technology and covert surveillance, Blu Dot found out.

“The key to this idea was involvement,” Michael Hart, founder of Mono, said. “Not just them taking the chairs, but the whole community with this notion of an experiment and ‘Where will the chairs go?’”

The design firm hired video company Supermarche to document the entire operation – complete with code names, hidden video cameras, and treetop perches where they would videotape unsuspecting people interacting with the chairs. Some chairs were sat in, others were nabbed, others were adopted in homes. The videographers found that colorful chairs were snatched up more quickly, while plain chairs were considered institutionalized and therefore sat in, but not taken as often.

Check out the video and see what people have to say about  curb mining!

(Via The Wall Street Journal Blog)

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An e-mail circulating the Internet claiming to be from shipping giants UPS, FedEx, and DHL, is actually a virus – so don’t open it! This phishing scam looks like its alerting customers or late or undeliverable packages, but in actuality it’s a virus attached to the e-mail. If you receive an e-mail like the one below, make sure you delete it immediately and refrain from opening the attachment.

(Via Snopes)

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What was once viewed as complicated, pricey, and confusing, is now being employed worldwide to help increase efficiency and cut costs. What is it? It’s GPS tracking. GPS tracking is used almost everywhere ranging from private businesses to family tracking, to now the Scottish Sunderland University transit system. Previously adopted by English pub owners, Scottish administrators are now using GPS to track their own transit system to ensure that buses are on time and running smoothly.

‘Our software can send the data back every second through the GPS network to a remote, web-based server,’ said Neil Herron, marketing director for FleetM8.

‘As a fleet manager you can watch what your vehicles are doing and make real-time decisions,’ he said. Herron said Arriva has already fitted FleetM8 telemetry devices to buses on one route in Glasgow and the technology has since demonstrated that it can prevent buses from ‘bunching up’.

‘We hope to one day remove the phrase from the English language: “all the buses seem to come at once”,’ he said. ‘Our system is accurate to less than one metre.’

Herron says the next step is mobile updates for the bus system that will alert passengers when the bus is nearing. This system will also support mobile ticket purchase.

(Via The Engineer)

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On November 24th rumors of a Tiger Woods affair surfaced, and on December 2nd, Us Magazine uncovered a panicked voicemail from Tiger Woods to his mistress, confirming the affair. In the voicemail, Tiger left 24-year-old Los Angeles cocktail waitress Jaimee Grubbs a panicked voicemail saying:

“Hey, it’s Tiger, I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and may be calling you. So if you can, please take your name off that. Just have it as a number on the voicemail. You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye.”

Apparently Jaimee Grubbs has no problem releasing information to the press about the affair including over 300 racy text messages, details of their encounters, and now this voicemail.

“I loved how we got along,” Grubbs tells Us Weekly. “But I knew, in the back of my mind, there could never be just us. There would always be the wife, or somebody else.”

This particular case doesn’t represent a breech in phone security, because Jaimee released these voicemails and text messages to the press willingly. But what this case should tell you is to be more careful with the types of voicemails and texts you’re sending. On the other hand, it’s not impossible for people to easily hack into a cell phone. Read more ways  to keep your voicemails safe here.

Listen to the audio via Us Magazine

UPDATE: Tiger Woods admits to affair, Kalika Moquin comes forth as third woman.

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Food banks in the United States are going high-tech in an attempt to automate and effectively distribute food to the people who need it the most. By using bar coding, GPS tracking, and automated warehouses, administrators hope to use technology to their advantage to feed more hungry people.

“What we tell people a lot is that we are a food distribution business wrapped in an altruistic skin,” says Jan Pruitt, president and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas.

Pruitt’s food bank along with the Food Bank of Central New York in East Syracuse are testing a $60 million effort to create state-of-the-art national computer network that will help automate services. This system called the Athena Project will let food banks standardize accounting, inventory, and donor software, use the Internet and manage pickups and deliveries using GPS tracking. Feeding America is installing the systems at no charge.

“We are going to gain so much efficiency,” says Linda Nageotte, Food Lifeline’s president and CEO. “We’re going to be able to provide so much better accountability, and this also really increases our credibility.”

Athena, she and others say, opens a world of possibilities:

-GPS tracking and instant communication to send trucks on the most efficient routes. Lutz says this alone can cut transportation costs by40 percent. Food Lifeline is equipping drivers with smart phones that eventually could scan in donations as they are picked up.

-Inventory management systems to track every food item, from truckloads of potatoes to individually donated cans. This not only saves time and reduces waste, but is a safeguard for product recalls.

-Generating lists of food, money and volunteer hours for donors, handy at tax time.

-Common software and backup computer servers, allowing agencies to trade or divert food, share donor information or step in if a food bank is overwhelmed by a disaster.

Such innovations aid a strategy that”needs to be twofold,” she says. “It needs to be about feeding the people who are standing in line better and it needs to be about making the line shorter.”

(Via AP)

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Yowza is offering Black Friday coupons accessible on your iPhone or Android mobile device. The service allows you to search a specific geographic area for coupons, deals, and discounts. When you find a coupon you want to use,  show your phone to the cashier who in turn will scan the bar code provided. This new way of bargain hunting is completely revolutionizing Black Friday madness and replacing paper coupons.

(Via Huffington Post)

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A Spokane, Idaho Washington woman has not only been accused of kicking her child, but she’s been caught on camera. Often times, authorities are unable to properly help or prosecute bad parents because of lack of proof. In Keyana Keys case, this 28-year-old mother has been caught on a Spokane Transit Authority surveillance tape kicking and throwing her child around. A judge formally charged Keys on Monday.

“I think that she just had a momentary…just flipped and lost it because there was just too much for her.  And she’s a very, very good mother.  She makes sure they are fed well, they are cleaned, clothing.  Always buy them everything.  She’ll spend all her money on her kids,” said her friend Paula Nieves.

Regardless of what witnesses, or friends, or family say, this poor parental behavior was caught on surveillance tape and a unbiased judge was able to review the evidence. Hopefully having cameras like this capture bad acts on tape will make people more accountable for their actions, especially when it comes to their kids.

(Watch the video via KTVB)

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A South African jewelry firm was surprised to find that one of their own staff had been stuffing a cooked chicken with gold and precious metal in an attempt to steal the goods. Carrying the cooked chicken out of the building on his way home, the man was stopped at the metal detector with chicken in hand. This is when security officials discovered that instead of being stuffed with sage and onion, the chicken had been stuffed with expensive jewelry.

The jewelry company had recently tightened security when a woman tried to smuggle gold out of the building in her under wire bra. Banning under wire bras, they didn’t think to ban rotisserie chickens. The man is due to appear in Johannesburg’s Hillbrow Magistrate court on Tuesday on charges of attempted theft and possession of suspected stolen goods. The firm’s boss Larry Brown says he has been doing his best to stop the thefts,

“The very nature of the jewelery industry makes it a target for criminals,” he said. “Part of our procedures are to routinely visit dubious dealers who trade in fine metals, diamonds and gold. These dealers are known to buy stolen jewelery, often at enormous cost to lives.”

(Via BBC)

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Today, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a major recall on cribs with dropdown sides. Dropdown sides have been known to injure small children by causing strangulation or crushing. This common design found in many baby cribs is slated to be one of the largest recalls to date. Not targeting a particular make or manufacturer, this recall will affect many crib companies and families.

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In recent years, hackers have increasingly targeted law firms and public relations companies in an attempt to steal their clients’ sensitive information. The hackers are using a sophisticated e-mail scheme that breaks into the company’s computer network and steals data often linked to overseas clients. As a result, the FBI has issued warnings towards the rising amount of computer hacks that have been occurring in law firms. Apparently it was a trend that started as early as two years ago but it has grown dramatically since then. The hackers are using a system known as “spear fishing,” which uses a personalized spam e-mails that can slip through common defenses.

“Law firms have a tremendous concentration of really critical, private information,” said Bradford Bleier, unit chief with the FBI’s cyber division. Infiltrating those computer systems, he said, “is a really optimal way to obtain economic, personal and personal security related information.”

Alan Paller, Director of Research at SANS Institute, a computer-security organization, stated that the hackers going after law firms often target companies that are negotiating a major international deal concerning anything from seeking a patent on a sensitive new technology to opening a plant in another country. While opening a “spear fishing” e-mail itself does not pose a danger, they often contain links or attachments that when opened will infiltrate the network or install malicious programs. The FBI warned that the attachments or links can appear to be anything from a photo to an executable program. The FBI also warns that while hackers used to work in solidarity, they are now working in transnational criminal organizations which pose a bigger threat to businesses.

(Via CW 14)

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In an elaborate plan to hack into ATMs worldwide, four hackers were able to accrue $9.5 million in cash in a matter of hours. The hackers, Sergei Tsurikov, 25, of Tallinn, Estonia; Viktor Pleshchuk, 28, of St. Petersburg, Russia; Oleg Covelin, 28, of Chisinau, Moldova; and a fourth person identified only as “Hacker 3″ targeted the bank card processing company RBS WorldPay. By reverse engineering the PIN numbers assigned to payroll debit card accounts, the hackers were able to access millions of dollars and run.

RBS WorldPay, the payment-processing arm of the Royal Bank of Scotland, first noticed that they were hacked on November 10th. The hackers had actually  gained access to sensitive information for 100 payroll cards and the social security numbers of about 1.1 million account holders on November 4th. Little did the company know that within 12 hours they would be out $9.5 million dollars. Once the hackers broken into the company’s accounts, they raised the amount of available funds on the cards, some withdrawal limits to as high as $500,000. After raising the limit, the hackers are described to have provided the account details to their “army of cashers,” around the world who hit more than 2,000 ATMs in less than 12 hours.

Tsurikov, Pleshchuk, Covelin and “Hacker 3″ face up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy, while Covelin is currently wanted by the NY government for cyber crimes committed earlier in the year.

(Via Wired)

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Tom Basiden, 28, TV chef featured on world renowned Jamie Oliver’s show Fifteen, was recently charged with stealing millions of British pounds worth of Cartiery jewelry. Baisden was the “inside man” in a staged warehouse robbery in Southend, Essex, England in May 2001.

Fifteen is an apprentice program where young disadvantaged chefs aged 18 to 24 are given the opportunity to work in high end kitchens under the likes of celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver. All of the chefs come from difficult backgrounds and this “second chance” or sorts turns many lives around.

Baisden story starts at age 16, when he began working for the freight-handling firm called Serco at the Southend airport in 1998. Realizing how poor the airport security was, Baisden called the police warning them of the possible security threat. When police did nothing, Baisden decided to try his hand at robbing the warehouse, organizing an elaborate hoax to make the robbery look real on his watch. Accomplices gagged and bound Baisden and stole £3 million worth of jewelry. Baisden himself was rewarded £100,000 for his part in the raid.

After graduating from Oliver’s Fifteen experiment, and reassessing his life’s path, Braisden called the police and described the crime he committed. Described by police as “an extraordinary act of frankness and candor,” Baisden is awaiting sentencing for the charge of theft and conspiracy to steal.

(Via The Telegraph)

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Kidnap, sexual assault, and ransom. Sounds horrible, but Florida prosecutors contend that one woman cooked up this lethal combination to squeeze $50,000 from her wealthy husband. 37-year-old Quinn Gray has been charged with extortion for planning her own abduction, assault, ransom, and ultimate return. Prosecutors claim that the woman cooked up this action movie inspired plan with her 25-year-old Bosnian immigrant lover who helped her execute the plan.

Quinn Gray went missing on Friday September 4th from her Jacksonville, Florida home. A ransom note was left in her place, written in Quinn’s handwriting that said:

“There are three men holding me right now, and they want $50,000 cash. Stay at the house NO COPS! Keep your cell phone on you. Keep the kids with you. Please do this honey, please!”

But what lead prosecutors to believe that this was actually a scam? Authorities cited that the manager of the hotel where Gray was allegedly held against her will said that she was not “distressed at all.” If that wasn’t enough to make you think twice, police also uncovered a 90-minute audiotape of Gray and Osmanovic’s romp in bedroom and discussing the details of the fake kidnapping.

Her lawyers content that due to her mental illness and substance abuse, she became an easy target for Osmanovic. Quinn’s lawyer told Matt Lauer on the Today show that Gray is a very sick woman, “Her reaction to the kidnapping, it may seem bizarre, but it’s all explained by her mental illness.”  The lawyers contend that the audio tape is  “an audio recording of a woman who has been kidnapped, abducted and being raped.”

Gray’s husband, Reid Gray, is supporting his wife throughout this ordeal, stating “This has been an extraordinarily traumatic experience for me and my entire family. I am deeply concerned over how this incident has, and will continue to, affect our children. I love my family and will do whatever I can to make sure that Quinn receives all of the help and support that she needs.” Osmanovic on the other hand, states that he and Gray had a six-week relationship. Prosecutors are currently investigating these allegations.

(Via MSNBC)

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