TechSec Solutions 2011
Call for Presentations

This year, the call for presentations from TechSec Solutions is different from years past. Please read the below carefully before submitting your presentation proposal.

At its core, TechSec Solutions is about using new technology in the security space to solve real-world end user problems in a cost-efficient and reasonable manner. To date, however, it is the opinion of the conference organizers that we have dealt too much in the theoretical and not enough in the actual. Too many presentations at TechSec (certainly not all) have told end users what they "could" do, but have not accurately enough targeted what end users actually "want" to do.

We seem, in security technology circles, to be continually creating solutions to imaginary problems. End users aren't important because they're the ones who buy stuff. End users are important because they're the ones who actually use the systems to protect people and property!

This year, TechSec Solutions presents to you six real-world problems, outlined below, that are being experienced throughout North America. This call for presentations asks for solutions to those problems. Your presentation should include a way to solve one of the problems. The presentation should involve multiple members of the channel (manufacturer, integrator, consultant, end user) so that it is obvious that the solution is not only technically possible, but that an integrator and an end user can also reasonably be expected to afford to deploy that solution.

Strong presentations that are likely to be accepted will include some sort of testing data and technical specifications that will allow us to evaluate the potential for the solution to actually work. Saying, "we'll just use some analytics," without some kind of data about false-positives or likely correct identifier rate, will be frowned upon.

If you have actually solved that problem in the real world, a case study would be appropriate, yes. If the case study says the end user is happy with the solution, the end user better be available to confirm that he/she is, indeed, happy.

Proposals should be no more than a two-page document, either in Mac-compatible Microsoft Word or PDF format, and should contain the names and titles of everyone who will be part of the presentation. Presentations will be judged by the elegance and simplicity of the solution, its creativity, and its perceived likelihood to actually solve the problem.

This call for presentations is open as of Aug. 1, 2010. The deadline for proposals is Aug. 31, 2010. The accepted presentations, along with the full seminar program for TecSec Solutions 2011 will be announced at the ASIS International convention in Dallas, Oct. 11, 2010. Email your proposal to editor@securitysystemsnews.com.

The TechSec Solutions 2011 conference will be held at the Delray Marriott, in Delray Beach, Fla., Feb. 14-15.

Any questions can be addressed to TechSec Solutions editorial director Sam Pfeifle, at editor@securitysystemsnews.com or 207-846-0600 x211.

Here are the problems. Please assume a "greenfield" environment, unless otherwise noted.

Critical Infrastructure

1. An organization, such as a water treatment facility or a power generation company, has disparate sites under management that need to be monitored 24/7 for all manner of potential mayhem. These sites may or may not have power available. They almost certainly do not have network access. Please provide a way of letting the security director of this organization know when an unauthorized person is in the vicinity of any of these far-flung sites with the potential ability to do harm and provide the ability to investigate from afar through either a work station or mobile device. False alarms must be kept to a minimum.

Retail

2. A retail operation would like to cut down on its shrinkage while utilizing the same system to increase its sales through better customer service. It should be understood that the operation already has in place some kind of article-tagging system that alerts everyone when someone tries to remove an item from the store without paying for it. How could this retail operation accomplish the following goals: 1. Be alerted whenever someone removed money from a register that was not handled like a typical sale, register audit, change request, or cash drop. Then, quickly understand what happened and whether it's likely an employee stole money from the register. 2. Use that same system to let management and customer service know any time potential customers are spending an inordinate amount of time, say four minutes or more, in any one place, so that a salesperson or customer service rep could be deployed to help that person and make sure that some kind of "casing" isn't going on. And provide an alert any time more than five people are standing in any one line.

Commercial/Enterprise

3. A chain operation with close to 1,000 locations and consistent movement of management and line staff monitors its own alarms. Processes have been put into place not to dispatch police when stores are staffed, with the exception of critical alarms such as safes and panic alarms. However, false alarm fees are still significant through misuse of alarms during closed hours, plus balloons and other objects tripping alarms. How can this company prevent false alarms and provide better information as to actual alarms in order to prioritize response?

Commercial/Enterprise

4. A Fortune 500 corporation is concerned about unauthorized persons gaining access to its internal servers and network. The company has a robust physical access control system in place, using cards/biometrics and readers, but not all of those cards/biometrics and readers are standardized across the company's many locations throughout the world, due to acquisitions, consolidation, home control, etc. How can the physical access control and logical access control systems be consolidated into one ID management system, so that, for example, logical access privileges are terminated when physical access privileges are terminated? Or physical location can be correlated with network access? Because this Fortune 500 does business with the federal government and expects to continue to do business with the federal government, this solution must also be FIPS 201 compliant.

Education

5. A school district would like to make a significant investment in video surveillance, for all the usual reasons: settle disputes like hallway fights, prevent graffiti/capture vandals, monitor parking lots and ball fields, etc. However, if they're going to make this kind of investment, they say, they'd like to integrate the surveillance system into the intercom system and the student-records database, so that if there is a shooter in the hallway it's very easy to immediately speak to the nearby classroom teachers, for example. Or if a student is involved in an altercation, it's very easy to pull up that student's history while the security officer is en route. Further, they would like to have levels of access, so that parents could watch the area where kids get on and off the bus, for example, and the janitors could monitor the ballfields, but not the hallways. Remember the caveat about affordability.

Municipal

6. A municipality is having difficulty with "after-hours" vandalism and crime in public areas like parks and public pools. The city would like to curb this activity substantially. If possible, it would like to prevent the crime and vandalism in the first place, rather than simply catch those people after the crime and vandalism has been committed, as the city is concerned with the costs of refurbishing these public areas and would like the ROI of the new security system to be found in the great reduction of these clean-up costs.

CALL ADDENDUM:

TechSec Solutions is also looking for contributors to the following panel discussions. If you feel you have a unique contribution you could make to these topics, please express your interest with a one-paragraph explanation of what you'd have to offer.

1. The cyber threats with which a physical security professional needs to be concerned: Protecting a networked security system.
2. The future of identity: How identities will be managed in the future and what will be expected of the physical security community.
3. Security in the cloud: How cloud computing will affect the future delivery of managed physical security services.
4. Let's be friends: How physical security professionals can best leverage internal IT departments.
5. Look, Ma, no wires: Where wireless security technology is now, and what it will be capable of in the near future.