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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Hidden Cameras

There are two main reasons for the need to use a hidden camera today. One is that the economy has driven many people to commit crimes in business places and private homes. Another primary reason for hidden cameras in the home is that there are people who want to get into your home and harm your children or the elderly. These people will operate under the disguise of a caretaker or baby sitter. Another problem is the tremendous wealth of private information about individuals available today, to the public, so that someone might know at all times who you are and where you are at any moment. This information can make you vulnerable to crime in your home or business.

The hidden camera, nanny cam, spy camera, secret camera or home video surveillance camera is a video camera that is disguised as another object. These small video cameras have tremendous resolution, yet are small enough to hide in a radio, smoke detector, mirror or many other familiar objects that would be in a room. Hidden Cameras can be used not only in the home, but commercially or industrially as security cameras.

Today a hidden camera can record video for viewing at a later time or connected to the internet for viewing from anywhere in the world at real-time. To connect to the internet you simply need a small device called a USB DVR - Digital Video Recorder. This device connects directly to your camera and your computer to make your video available on the internet. An IP Camera does not require a USB DVR, but is hard to disguise because of its size.

The next choice to make is do you want a wireless or wired camera system? A wired system is just what it sounds like; you take a wire from the camera to your DVR or computer to transmit the signal. A wired system is not limited by distance, but the wires need to be concealed. A wireless system has a range from the camera to the DVR or computer or between 75 feet and 250 feet or more under normal conditions.

I've mentioned a DVR, and most of us are familiar with the DVR (digital video recorder) connecting our cable TV or a TiVo DVR recorder. A security DVR connects your camera or cameras by wire or wirelessly to your computer or a monitor to view what the camera views. A DVR can record the video on the computer's hard drive or on a memory card so you have a permanent record if needed for proof or prosecution. The DVR can be motion activated so you conserve recording space and you are not recording when there is nothing to record.

The Quad Processor or HDMI Splitter is a device that allows you to view more than one camera image on a video monitor. Usually the Quad will split the image into 4 separate camera views on one monitor. When using a video surveillance system with a Quad and video monitor, someone is usually watching the monitor, such as a security guard.

A wireless home video surveillance camera system will require a transmitter at the camera and a receiver at the computer or DVR. Hidden cameras primarily use 2.4 GHz as a frequency, so it will not interfere with other common household wireless devices. Hidden cameras today usually have the camera and transmitter together inside the object such as a radio, clock, smoke detector or other object you have chosen for your home or office.

A person can buy a wired hidden camera for just over $100 and get good resolution and the option of recording on a DVR or broadcasting on the internet. However there are systems that have the camera, DVR and memory card all-in-one unit, so you can place the object on a table or bookshelf and just plug it into an outlet for power. No other wires to expose its purpose, and usually the radio, lamp or fan used to hide the hidden camera works normally as any other radio, lamp or fan.

Every situation and location has different needs that must be analyzed before the purchase of a hidden camera. Just buying the most expensive hidden camera with DVR may not be what you will need. The determining factor is not price, but location and purpose. Monitoring your home while away on vacation with an all-in-one hidden camera with DVR recording on a memory card may not monitor your home in real-time. A hidden camera connected to the internet with a USB DVR would be less expensive, and give you the ability to monitor your home from anywhere in the world on your laptop computer.

Review all your options before purchasing your nanny cam, hidden camera or video surveillance camera for your home or business. Remember also that in court there is no better evidence than a video recording of a crime or abuse.

How Is Your Personal Data Protected Online? The Law

With the rise in online activities such as social networking, shopping and banking, we now share vast amounts of information on the internet, personal and non-personal, but it should ultimately be down to each individual as to how much information they may want to disclose and what it is used for.

Why Your Information is Wanted Data is a valuable commodity with many online business including the giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon effectively trading on its value to power their advertising revenues and marketing strategies. These companies use profiling information to target their audiences more specifically for each product and service they are promoting. The more accurate the profile is the better they can judge whether the individual is likely to convert, i.e., respond to the advert and buy the product. How much information you disclose to these companies is ultimately down to personal choice and it may be that you are willing give more away in return for more personalised services. The common pitfall for online users when signing up for services they want, is to be tempted or encouraged into giving a little extra away without really realising it.

However, personal information is also used for more nefarious means by people in the criminal world, creating stolen or fake identities under which they commit crimes, most commonly fraud. If you're not careful you can leave a trail of personal information on the internet which can be obtained and aggregated by anyone without any need to break the law. Many cyber criminals, though, also resort to illegal tactics such as phishing (emails which misguide you and encourage you to visit a fake site and supply personal information), pharming (where people try to redirect you to fake sites while surfing the net) and malware (viruses which can steal information stored on computers or log activity such as the keystrokes for passwords)

Data Protection Act It is easy to see that attempts to steal your information would be classed as illegal but there are also laws that govern the appropriate use of data that you have willingly supplied online.

In the UK we are protected by the Data Protection Act. This act applies to all information whether paper based or electronic and at the heart of it is the stipulation that organisations can only use the personal information they have gathered for the explicit purpose for which you supplied it (this doesn't apply to non-personal/non-identifiable information). To that end there are further specific principles such as the requirement that data is not held longer than is required for its purpose and that it is kept secure and accurate.

Organisations can however ask for permission to use your information for other purposes when you first supply it. You'll often find that when you provide your name and email as part of a purchase process for example there is a checkbox asking if the same data can be used for marketing purposes too. The key is to be aware of what you are agreeing to - unfortunately that may mean reading the small print.

Privacy and Electronic Communications You are also protected by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations which cover the information that organisations use for marketing, data about online behaviour and data on user preferences. The regulations compliment the data protection act, providing more detailed guidance for online marketing, ensuring that your information, whether explicitly obtained or gleaned from online activity, cannot be retained, traded and used for any purpose that you are not benefiting from or have not agreed to. This applies even when the data can't be used to identify you (e.g., a company just has your telephone number which they want to use for marketing purposes).

A recent update to the regulation in May 2011 tightened up the rules on cookies in particular. Cookies are the temporary files that a site can leave on your computer to help 'remember' you when you next visit the site. There are many different types of cookie ranging from those which contain no other information other than you have (or your computer has) been on the site before, to those that remember particular preferences. The majority will not contain any identifiable sensitive personal information. However, because they have often be deployed without much awareness from the end user, the new directive requires that you are initially asked to explicitly agree (to opt in) to each site that wants to use them when you first visit the site. You must also be provided with a sufficient level of information as to what the cookie will do and what information it holds before you do so.

There are of course those who will break the law either with the intention of committing further crimes such as identity theft and fraud or just to improve their business prospects. Part 2 of this article will look at what technology can help us stay secure.

What You Really Ought to Know About Internet Safety for Kids

Living without having access to the internet these days would be hard to imagine. On any given day you'll find over 40 million people browsing the web just to pass time, have fun, connect with friends or just hang out. A large percentage of these web browsers are children, and with that comes a responsibility to provide Internet safety for kids.

There are millions of websites to visit and explore, several ways to waste time and also get in trouble! Just as in the non-internet world there are people out there who will try to take advantage of you.

I'm sure you've already heard the stories about those kids who have gotten into trouble in chat rooms. It's very easy for users to remain completely anonymous and ask visitors (kids) information about their families, where they live and their phone number just to name a few. This type of information should never be given away.

Unfortunately there are several predators that make a living by taking this information and use is to harm a family's property, steal financial information and even as disgusting as it sounds start inappropriate relationships with children.

However, the internet is home to a multitude of websites you can and should visit. It is home to an endless supply of information. It is great for research, homework and you can even check out what college you may be interested in going to when you graduate.

When you're surfing the web you are going to need to learn how to protect yourself, your family and your children when you're online. The key is to practice smart and safe web surfing, and here are some Internet safety tips for kids:

· Remain anonymous

· Keep all your private information safe and secure

· Never, ever give out your Full name

· Home address

· Phone number

· Passwords

· Social security number

· Credit card numbers

· Names of your family members

Make sure that you think carefully when you make your e-mail address or screen name. Most experts will recommend that you make a combination of numbers and letters to provide extra security and not identify if you're a male or female. As well as using a nickname that is different from your screen name.

If your kids choose to have an online friendship, make sure that it is kept in the web world. When you meet your online friends face to face there are a lot of dangerous situations that can develop, because it's easy to pretend to be someone or something that they are not. If your child is in a chat room where they feel uncomfortable or in danger for any reason they need to exit immediately.

Don't be alarmed though, most people and companies are responsible and legit. There is also parental control software available for you to buy and install on your computer, to keep your kids and family safe. Internet safety for kids is the duty of every parent, family member, concerned citizen as well as just being the right thing to do.

Why Having a Secure Wireless Network Is Important SSL Certificates Help You to Secure Yourself and Website to Prevent Holiday Hoaxes This Christmas How To Avoid Credit Card Fraud Software License - How to Avoid Future Hassles Get the Email Protection You Need From a Google Message Security Reseller When It Comes to Protecting Your Personal Information or "Identity", Here's What You Need to Know

Don't Give Attackers a Chance by Leveraging Strong Authentication to Combat Data Breaches

Evolution and adaptation are the topics of discussion when it comes to data breaches, but why is it that we are growing or changing for incidents that have already happened? Is it really easier to react than it is to be proactive in enhancing an organization's security? After a company loses confidential documents, whether to data breaches or careless efforts, most organizations only start to change their information technology security when responding to the data breaches or attacks.

When it comes to confidential customer information a more proactive approach is better if you want to keep you customers happy and safe. Utilizing electronic documents combined with two-factor authentication, or also called strong authentication, offers both the portability and privacy an organization needs. Privacy concerns can ruin a relationship between an organization and consumers if the proper care is not taken to ensure a person's privacy. Not only does a consumer lose confidence in their security with an organization, an organization can also be fined for not having the proper security measures in place. So why would an organization ever take the chance of exposing confidential data by not properly securing it?

In recent news, a doctor at an established hospital in Boston lost an external hard drive which contained 638 files of confidential patient information. This is not your typical data breach because a hacker never tried to plan an attack. However, information on the physician's device could potentially be harmful to the privacy of patients. Technically, the doctor did put his patients at risk, however, the amount of risk was minimal, but that is not to say preventative measures could not have been taken. Had the doctor utilized electronic medical records stored on a server that is protected by two-factor authentication there would have less likely been a chance of a data breach.

A common need for medical physicians is to access medical records at any given time is why the doctor had the documents on a portable storage device. Encryption is the usual defense for hardware security however there are many chances of something happening to a device, it being hacked or even damage to the information on it. Beyond that, encryption will never change or grow in the amount of security it offers unless you constantly update your encryption software. Eventually, confidential data could be accessed even if it had been encrypted.

Storing information on a secure server using strong authentication could be the most effective way of accessing confidential data remotely and securely. Not only does using a secure server with strong authentication offer a higher level of protection, but it is more cost effective than many approaches that do not even offer the same level of security. You would never have to worry about losing a portable device and the chances of a hacker based data breach would be almost nonexistent. Also, all the information stored on the server is always up-to-date because even though one person is not in the office, the servers are often maintained and running.

Using a secure server using two factor authentication to store sensitive information drastically lowers the chance of losing, damaging or misplacing containing confidential data compared to storing it on a device like an external hard drive. Two-factor authentication reduces the risk of an organization losing sensitive health information and it minimizes the chance of a patient's health information being compromised. If there were a data breach or information was lost it would only reflect poorly on the organization and the hardware used to create and secure the data. Using two factor authentication, there would not be an instance of an individual losing a device in the first place, but more importantly it would eliminate possible malware that could record and transmit confidential data.

Preventing an attack does not always depend on technology although it does prevent some forms of data loss. Never let attackers take a chance with your encrypted files by storing confidential data on storage devices. By utilizing secure services and by utilizing two-factor authentication, you can access your electronic information securely all while staying compliant with industry rules and regulations such as HIPAA and FFIEC which require forms of strong authentication.

Do Free Anonymizing Services Protect Everything?

Free anonymizing proxies are available all over the Internet. There are programs that you install on your computer to access these proxies and there are proxies that you can access over a webpage. What these services do is secure your IP address so that you cannot be directly traced when you visit a website. These are actually very handy for most users. If you're only worried about one particular website getting your IP address - one that might be associated with adware, for example - using one of these anonymizing proxies is probably fine. There are some things that you should seriously consider about anonymizing services, however, before you use them for anything serious.

They're Software Specific

If you're using some of the more popular anonymizing services that you employ by installing software on your computer, there's an important caveat that you should be aware of. These services actually only protect traffic that comes from and to your browser. They are, in fact, specific to a particular piece of software on your computer. Consider the following example of how these services do not protect you.

If you installed one of these services on your computer and visited a website on your Internet browser with the anonymizing proxy turned on, your IP address would be up secured. It would be extremely difficult for anybody to trace your IP address back to you and, if they weren't doing it while you are actually on the site, it may well be impossible for them to do so. Imagine, however, that at the website you hook up to the address of an FTP server where you want to download software or other files. The anonymizing proxy would not protect the connection that you are making with your FTP server, in all likelihood. This means that your real IP address would show up plain as day on the logs for the FTP server.

A VPN network protects every type of traffic that originates from your computer. Whether you access a resource from your Internet browser, your FTP program, your e-mail client or anything else, that traffic will be routed through the VPN, it will be anonymized and it will be encrypted. In this regard, VPN services are orders of magnitude more secure.

They Can Fail

When you subscribe to a paid VPN service, there is a company behind the service that is responsible for making certain that you are getting the product that you're paying for. In some cases, free anonymizing services are worth every penny that you pay for them. If something goes wrong with the free service you're using, there's nobody to call, there's no tech support other than what you might find on forums and there's no way to actually test the software to make certain that it's working. With a VPN service, if you have doubts about whether it's working or not, you can simply call the service provider, have them test the software or take whatever other action is needed to make certain that you are, in fact, browsing securely.

Get to Know More About Intego Internet Security Barrier X6 for Mac OS X

With a large number of online threats hovering over your computer it becomes reasonably difficult to protect your PC from threats like viruses, malware, worms, Trojans etc. Statistics reveal that majority of PC problems occur due to virus infections and issues caused thereby. To deal with such a situation, the Intego Internet Security Barrier X6 offers you comprehensive security for your Mac computer running on Mac OS X operating system.

Your Mac OSX embraces discrete design and programs and it is not wise to use any ordinary security program for your PC. You should opt for a program that is compatible with your operating system and enables you to use your PC without any hassles. Intego Internet Security Barrier X6 has been designed keeping in mind the compatibility issues that can arise with Mac OS X.

This is why this particular security option is appropriate for your PC. This comprehensive security suite comes with the following features:

• Anti-phishing • Network protection • Anti-spyware • Firewall • Backup and anti-spam programs • Parental control for your Mac and many more.

Why would you need the Intego Internet Security Barrier X6?

Cyber criminals work with the malicious intent of stealing important data, infecting your system and impounding your online activities; are always on the prowl. Authors of viruses, Trojan horses, malware are releasing their agents in the form of these threats to disrupt your smooth computing experience. New techniques are being devised by these people to infect and overpower your Mac. Considering this, it becomes clear that having a security program just to prevent malware or network attacks is not enough to keep your Mac safe. You need a comprehensive security program like Intego Internet Security Barrier X6 that can offer foolproof security to your Mac from all the above mentioned threats.

Why the Intego Internet Security Barrier X6 is superior

Comparing two security programs is a complicated task for any Internet user. This article will help you understand how your Mac remains fully protected with Intego. This security program is an outcome of extensive research on online threats. It has more than 200 new features to improve its compatibility with Mac OSX.

Some innovative features that you can count upon are:

• Multiple technique of threat detection • Complete range of functions to protect from malware • Features for backup and antispam • Mac parental control.

Thus it is not far from the conclusion that Intego Internet Security Barrier is tailor-made for your system running on Mac OSX. The above-listed new and improved features would aid in keeping your Mac safe from all kinds of malware attacks, network related-threats and many other associated security issues that might lead to OSX malfunctioning.

Security programs that keep your Mac safe and protected

Intego Internet Security Barrier X6 is a dedicated security program for your OSX-based Mac computer. These programs weave a virtual veil around the system's network which nullifies the malicious intentions of online threats:

• Content protection with ContentBarrier 10.6 • File security with FileGuard 10.6 • Complete virus protection with VirusBarrier X6 • Comprehensive data backup with Personal Backup 10.6.

You will find that the Intego Internet Security Barrier X6 working absolutely smoothly with the Mac OSX but issues cannot be ruled out entirely. An inappropriate installation or wrong settings of your PC can cause a lot of trouble. In such cases the best way of getting out is to call an experienced computer support service provider.