Preventing internal theft, drug use and workplace violence; these are all valid reasons for using security cameras in the workplace. Such activities can cost your business plenty in terms of lost inventory, decreased productivity and injury. But while you are responsible to protect your company’s bottom line, you also need to respect your staff’s right to privacy. This article will give business managers and owners some guidelines for using security cameras as part of a reasonable security policy.

I know of a company whose IT people installed a web cam on a factory floor. They were preparing for a web cast from a trade show, and wanted to run some tests before going live. The conspiracy theories that started to fly when workers noticed the new camera would have made Jerry Fletcher proud. The camera came down, and fears were laid to rest, but the entire dust up might have been avoided by a simple memo explaining why and for how long the camera would be used. If you plan on deploying security cameras in your organization, please communicate with your employees and explain the new initiative to them. Express your concerns with theft, or safety, or whatever the motivation happens to be and give employees the opportunity to ask questions. This kind of openness will go a long way to alleviate the suspicions that security cameras can raise.

Communicating – whether via email, memo, or company-wide meeting – gives you another advantage. When you require employees to acknowledge your surveillance policy, you may be saving yourself from legal challenges down the road.

Stay Visible

In my opinion, security cameras should be kept in full view whenever possible. Not only do visible cameras have a strong deterrent value, but they are another way to encourage trust. Employees may be less likely to believe they are being watched covertly if they know where your cameras are stationed.

However, there are times when covert cameras are necessary. If a crime has been committed, recorded evidence may be necessary to prosecute the crime or prevent further instances. In such cases, a fascinating array of hidden cameras are available. Thanks to advances in miniaturization and wireless technology, cameras can be hidden in computer speakers, smoke detectors, eye glasses, neck ties, pagers, clocks, pens, exit signs and more. Just search on the term “covert cameras” or visit a company like Supercircuits to learn more.

Keep Quiet

The recording of audio is restricted under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. The legal considerations for recording audio are outside the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that when you record audio, you are essentially wiretapping and you have to meet strict requirements in order to do so legally. Silent video recordings are not covered by the ECPA, so limit your surveillance to video.

Be Reasonable

There are certain areas, such as restrooms, that you just shouldn’t monitor. The law recognizes a “reasonable expectation of privacy” when considering surveillance issues. Public dressing rooms, restrooms and phone booths are all examples of places designed for privacy, and so a person can reasonably assume they are not being watched in these locations. Public areas such as shopping malls, sports stadiums, hallways and parking lots are not built for privacy and so monitoring and recording in such locations is usually legal. Let common sense be your guide when deciding where to install cameras. If you have questions, it’s in your best interest to speak with an attorney familiar with your state’s privacy laws before you begin your monitoring program.

Atherton  Locksmith can provide security for your assets, business and family Call Allied Lock 877-611-LOCK (5625)

Sending your bank transactions surfing across the web can be as hazardous as piloting a ship through pirate-infested waters. Here are seven best practices for online banking security.

Use a dedicated PC. The American Bankers Association now recommends that businesses use a dedicated PC for online transactions.

Lock down your computer. So-called “locked down computing” can create a more secure channel to your bank’s server.

Establish dual control. Work with your bank to make sure that two individuals from your organization must authorize any transaction.

Get alerts. Sing up to be notified whenever an online transaction occurs.

Use strong passwords. ‘Nuff said. Read more hear for tips on creating strong passwords.

Check account balances at the end of the day. If you catch a fraudulent ACH transaction at the end of the business day, you may be able to stop it before funds are transferred.

Don’t “friend” strangers. Protecting your online identity is as important for businesses as it is for individuals. Don’t help hackers social engineer their way into your bank account.

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Atherton  Locksmith can provide security for your assets, business and family Call Allied Lock 877-611-LOCK (5625)

Ah, the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day: lots of folks out enjoying “use or lose” vacation time, the pace of work a bit slower than normal, significantly fewer emails and other distractions demanding attention. A great time to reflect on the old, anticipate the new, and cross off some long-standing items from the to-do list.

Given the nature of the season, it’s also appropriate to ponder the topic of sharing. Sure, there’s the sharing of time, fellowship, gifts, and food with which we’ve all been involved recently, but as the year draws to a close, many of us on the RISK Team are also thinking about sharing of a different nature – incident sharing.

It’s doubtful that security incidents made the top of anyone’s wish list this year (or any other), but the knowledge gained through studying them and sharing lessons learned is often considered to be a gift worth keeping. Many of you will remember that our effort to study and share incident information with the world is done through the annual Data Breach Investigations Reports (DBIR). Though the publication is still a few months away, we’re very glad to give a foretaste of what our readers can expect early next year.

We’ve continued our efforts to expand the scope and perspective of the DBIR, and the 2012 version should be the biggest ever in many respects. One of the things we’re particularly excited about is that we will have participants representing the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions. Submitting data and analysis for the 2012 DBIR are:

• The U.S. Secret Service
• The Dutch High Tech Crime Unit
• The Australian Federal Police
• The Irish Reporting and Information Service
• The London Metropolitan Police

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Atherton  Locksmith can provide security for your assets, business and family Call Allied Lock 877-611-LOCK (5625)

ADT Security Services, a unit of Tyco Fire & Security, today announced the introduction of its ADT Custom Home Gold Service platform aimed at providing affluent homeowners with one-on-one, customized security and automation products and services to meet the demands of their lifestyle and home environment.
In addition to customized traditional security services such as burglary, fire, smoke and carbon monoxide alarm systems and services, ADT Custom Home Gold Service includes a selection of home automation offerings including full video services that allow homeowners to look in and record video of their home remotely from anywhere in the world.
“For many years, ADT has been helping our commercial customers meld emerging technologies into their security applications,” said John Koch, president of ADT North America.

Atherton  Locksmith can provide security for your assets, business and family Call Allied Lock 877-611-LOCK (5625)

Borrowers and lenders are starting to grapple with the billions of dollars in commercial real estate loans made during the boom year of 2007 that are coming due this year, in a greatly contracted economy.

Experts have warned of a rash of recapitalizations, refinancings and building sales. In New York City alone, nearly $70 billion worth of commercial mortgages that were bundled together and issued as collateral for bonds are maturing this year. Of those, $26 billion, or 37.4 percent, are five-year loans that were originated during the height of the real estate bubble, when underwriting standards were loosest, according to data from the research firm Trepp LLC.

These include loans on prominent properties, including the Manhattan Mall, with $232 million maturing, and the Jumeirah Essex House, with a $180 million loan, according to Trepp.

“These loans are going to have the hardest time being refinanced since they were underwritten when property values and revenues were far higher,” said Thomas A. Fink, a managing director at Trepp. “We are going to see a wave of loans maturing this year, then again in 2014 and 2017, when the 7- and 10-year deals underwritten during the bubble mature.”

Most large commercial mortgage loans are typically not self-amortizing — that is, they require a balloon payment upon maturity.

While the number of loans maturing is expected to spike this year — $40.7 billion worth of securitized commercial mortgage loans matured last year and $49.5 billion worth is expected to mature in 2013 — the universe of lenders has shrunk. European banks, reeling from the debt crisis, have mostly stopped underwriting loans in the United States, while the market for commercial mortgage-backed securities remains relatively small, at roughly $30 billion in new issuance expected this year. And while insurance companies have increased their appetite for commercial mortgage loans, they are very conservative in their lending standards and selective in their deals.

“This means there may not be enough money available to refinance all of the debt that is coming due,” said Lawrence J. Longua, a clinical associate professor at the Schack Institute of Real Estate at New York University.

In a typical situation, a building that was worth $100 million in 2007 was financed with 80 percent debt, or $80 million. Now the loan — which was interest-only, meaning no principal was paid — is maturing. The borrower owes $80 million, but the value of the property has also dropped, to $80 million. This means that the ratio of the loan to the value of the property is 100 percent. Lenders have little appetite in this market environment for highly leveraged loans, so in one increasingly common outcome, the borrower will recapitalize the property by finding an equity partner to inject new capital into the deal, thereby lowering the overall amount of debt on the property.

Other possible resolutions include the lender extending the maturity date of the loan in the hopes that the property’s value will rise, or pursuing a foreclosure. It is also becoming more common for banks and other lenders to sell their loans to third-party investors who may negotiate with the borrower.

One factor that may drive more deal activity this year is that banks, special servicers and other lenders are eager to find solutions to troubled loans now, rather than postpone a resolution in the hope the market will improve down the road, said Scott Rechler, the chief executive and chairman of RXR Realty, which has recapitalized several properties in the last year, including the recent acquisition of 620 Avenue of the Americas.

“The first half of 2011 was very strong, with a lot of deal-making,” Mr. Rechler said, “but then several incidents, including the European debt crisis and the downgrading of the U.S. debt, made the market seem frothy. This was actually somewhat healthy because it put things back into perspective.”

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Atherton  Locksmith can provide security for your assets, business and family Call Allied Lock 877-611-LOCK (5625)

The 20-year-old charged with burglarizing the Beaver Dam Country Club waived his right to a preliminary examination and pleaded not guilty to the charge on Thursday afternoon.Jared T. Wise, 119 Knaup Drive, apt. 5, Beaver Dam, faces a Class F felony burglary charge punishable by a maximum 12 year and six month prison sentence and a $25,000 fine. The Dodge County Sheriff’s Department received assistance from the Beaver Dam Police Department in apprehending Wise after a brief foot chase when they were tipped off by a burglar alarm inside the club house at 12:25 a.m. Dec. 7. Upon arrival, responding officers secured the exterior of the club house, and began checking doors and windows for signs of forced entry. As officers were investigating a door on the west side of the building they heard a click, and according to the criminal complaint, the officers witnessed Wise using a key to lock a door he had just exited through.

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Atherton  Locksmith can provide security for your assets, business and family Call Allied Lock 877-611-LOCK (5625)

We do take on account many thing when it matters to our business but maybe one of the forgotten aspects that almost any business owner left on the luck or perpetuity when it comes to our business is the security aspect and how it impacts the performance of our company and the expected ROI (Return on Investment).

When we start our family business we got several break-ins most of them during the night and the result of that was a very tight earnings margin, and we have to pay for new locks every time a burglar was able to break the last one.

And this is not an isolated, case many of the business around our block had the same security problems, and some of them just moved out but we couldn’t had the luxury of just moving out to a different location and establish our business elsewhere being one of the reasons that our clients are from the neighborhood.

So our first attempt to fix the situation was to bought more expensive deadbolts and locks and installed them by ourselves (like we had always did), it didn’t work too well because we had another break-in 2 weeks later, after that we decided to install some cameras and motion detector alarms, and yes we had another break-in after doing that and sadly we didn’t install very well the cameras and neither the motion detector alarms.

We didn’t know what to do at that point, we had thrown away a lot of money buying that security equipments and we didn’t get any results at all, and hiring a security consultant was too costly to even think about it.
So a family friend recommend us a Locksmith that he was using for many years to secure her house and business and to fix common problems like jammed ignitions, lock-outs, and locks installations, he give us her number and we decided to call him immediately.

The locksmith was fully insured, bonded and certificated so we put our trust on him, the job that he has done to our business included the installation of high security locks and deadbolts, alarm systems, electronic access control and many other things that basically make our business a really secured business.

Now we finally don’t have any break-ins and our work environment is much more secure, our ROI and profit margin is a growing and all our expectations were fully satisfied.
So when you are starting to have problems with your business security (or even better before that) we recommend you to call your local locksmith and secure your business.
How to know what locksmith to hire? Always be assure that your locksmith is licensed, insured, and fully bonded, you should look for reviews from people that have contracted him, and that he belongs to a recognized locksmith association like ALOA (Associated Locksmiths of America) or the BBB (Better Business Bureau).

Where to find a locksmith? It should be easy to find local locksmiths on your area, look at the yellow pages of better google for it [{city} + locksmith] and you should find plenty of locksmiths in your area but be sure to check out the factors described before to verify the credibility of the locksmith before hiring it.

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Atherton  Locksmith can provide security for your assets, business and family Call Allied Lock 877-611-LOCK (5625)

POLICE are urging businesses to be on their guard following several diesel thefts from vehicles parked in secured yards or industrial estates.

They say that in the four days up to last Wednesday, a number of vehicles were targeted at Whitlaw Industrial Estate, Lauder. This resulted in 150 litres of diesel being removed from one heavy goods vehicle and 100 litres from another.

And an HGV, parked in a yard at Sprouston Road, Kelso, was targeted during the early hours of Monday and 100 litres taken from its tank.

A police spokesman said: “We have seen a marked increase in the number of fuel thefts from HGVs in our area.”

He added: “As a result, we would urge both businesses and members of the public to be vigilant, particularly in or around industrial estates.

“We would like to encourage people to contact police if they observe anyone acting suspiciously or loitering around such vehicles, and urge HGV owners to note their fuel levels and ensure their vehicles are properly secured when left unattended.”

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Locksmith San Jose is a 24 hour Locksmith in San Jose California.

A locksmith has managed to open a 159- year-old safe from Nevada that baffled other professional safecrackers and an expert from MIT.

In 2 1/2 hours, Alex Gorfam of Longview got the safe open by spinning the dial and feeling for grooves to get the combination, a technique called manipulation.

“You’ve got to have a lot of patience, and concentration doesn’t hurt,” Gorham said.

Gorfam trekked to Astoria, a town about 40 miles west of Longview and 70 miles northwest of Portland, Ore., to try his luck with the 1- ton safe found during renovation at a cannery there. The cannery’s owner, Floyd Holcomb, wanted it opened without damage.

Gorfam and his wife, Kelly, also a locksmith, asked to try after watching a television report on unsuccessful attempts to open the safe. He said an expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had tried, as did another professional locksmith who gave up after 14 hours.

Holcomb won’t reveal what was inside until he tells the cannery’s board next month, Kelly Gorfam said.

Maybe here in Plano we don’t have a 159 year-old safe to open, but we are pretty sure that we have some real challenges around here.

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A Locksmith San Jose can provide protection for your assets, business and family Call Allied Lock 877-611-LOCK (5625)

Sales of new U.S. homes unexpectedly declined in December for the first time in four months, capping the slowest year on record for builders.

Purchases of single-family properties decreased 2.2 percent to a 307,000 annual pace, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists called for a rate of 321,000 home sales. Last year marked the worst year for the industry in records going back to 1963.

The threat of further price declines may be dissuading some Americans from buying a new home even with mortgage rates near all-time lows and more people finding work. Following a lull in 2011, a wave of foreclosures may hamper the recovery in real estate as more distressed properties are put on the market.

“Builders continue to contend with a number of existing homes that are deeply discounted,” said Anika Khan, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We’re expecting a bit of a pickup in 2012, but we won’t see a meaningful increase as long as new homes are competing with those existing homes.”

Today’s figures underscore the Federal Reserve’s view that the housing market is holding back the U.S. expansion. In 2011, builders sold 302,000 homes, down 6.2 percent from 2010. Sales in the Northeast and West were also the lowest on record, while purchases in the South were the weakest since 1966.

Stocks reversed gains after the figures. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.1 percent to 1,324.92 at 10:46 a.m. in New York after climbing as much as 0.6 percent earlier. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped to 1.95 percent from 2 percent late yesterday.

Economists’ Projections

Projections from the 75 economists in the Bloomberg survey ranged from 309,000 to 350,000. The government revised November sales to a 314,000 rate from a previously reported 315,000.

The December decrease in new-home purchases was led by a 10.1 percent drop in the South, the biggest decline since May 2010. Sales also fell in the Midwest. Demand increased 46.7 percent in the Northeast, a rebound from the 16.7 percent decrease the previous month.

The median price of a new house purchased last month declined 12.8 percent, the biggest drop since February 2009, from December 2010 to $210,300, today’s report showed.

The supply of homes at the current sales rate increased to 6.1 months’ worth from 6 months in November. There were 157,000 new houses on the market at the end of last month, the fewest on record.

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A San Jose Locksmith can provide protection for your assets, business and family Call Allied Lock 877-611-LOCK (5625)