Freebee Friday: Passwords – Here, There, Everywhere

Get rid of that little yellow sticky note with all your school passwords on it because Norton Identity Safe can hold them all and recall them at a moment’s notice as needed as well as basic contact data that can streamline the filling out of online forms. It’s a freebee until the fall. All the information held in a secure online repository and it works with PCs as well as iPads and Android tablets. The software can even make up super secure passwords to your exact specification and keep them secret.

 

Beating the Cell Phone Cheats

We all either know or heavily suspect that kids are cheating using cell phones to text answers to each other. PocketHound is the answer. It’s a handheld scanner the size of a mobile phone that continuously looks for cell phone use across all networks and frequency bands during a test or quiz. When the $500 device finds some suspect cell phone activity, it vibrates and lights up.

 

 

CES for Schools: Web View of the School

The latest surveillance camera, D-Link’s DCS-5222L, has a unique take on how to maintain security at a school: it routes the video automatically to the Web. The camera can be remotely tilted, panned and rotated 170-degrees in either direction, grab 30 HD frames per second and uses the company’s Cloud Services to stream the video to just any computer, tablet or smartphone.  

Safe and Secure

With the Web overflowing with malware and inappropriate sites luring students in, most schools are falling behind in the Web cold war. M86’s latest Web Filtering and Reporting Suite can keep an eye on where students and teachers are going on the Web and steer them clear of the worst online spots. The beauty of Version 4.2 of WFR is that it works, regardless of whether they’re using school computers or their own, including Android tablets or iPads.

 

 

Wireless Lock Up

By bypassing old-school keys, Assa Abloy’s Aperio lock technology lets a school’s WiFi network verify who can gain access to each room in a school, On top of reducing the cost of implementing an electronic key system, the system leaves an audit trail of who has opened each lock. The lock works with 802.11b and g networking gear and a variety of access control software, but don’t require data or power cables; the lock runs on a pair of AA batteries that should be good for about 18 months.

 

 

 

 

Locked Up Tight

The first thing to break in high traffic areas is quite often the door lock, making the school a less secure place for teachers and students. Sargent’s 11-line of locks and hardware can secure the school. Made with the company’s T-Zone technology, the key is that every piece of the lock works together to create a rigid structure. The lock set has a ten year warranty, but in testing has survived 34-million cycles, the equivalent of 130 years of use in the typical school. Available in 11 finishes with four different levers, it can be covered with an anti-microbial coating to reduce the spread of disease.

 

 

See Everything

Whether it’s to keep an eye on a busy hallway or to make sure there are no intruders at night, every school should have security cameras in strategic locations. Vaddio sets the standard with high resolution cams that can be remotely aimed and zoomed in to see every detail. Its ClearViewHD-20 has a 20X optical zoom lens and can capture full high definition video while panning, tilting and zooming in on the action.

 

 

Keeping an Eye on the School

With summer around the corner, there’s never been a better time to outfit your school with a video surveillance system to make sure that it stays shut tight and its valuable equipment stay put until the school year starts in the fall. D-Link’s DCS-6511 HD Day & Night Vandal-Proof Fixed Dome Network Camera can keep an eye on the school and let you know when someone has broken in.

The white circular camera has a clear plastic dome to protect the digital video camera inside. It can be mounted in a variety of ways from screwed directly into a ceiling or wall to using a straight or bent pipe. Inside the box is most of the hardware you’ll need to permanently set it up, including electrical connectors and a star tool for opening the camera’s case.

All of the camera’s wires can be hidden to deter tampering. It’s weatherproof so it can be set up indoors or out, but you can’t replace the dome if it gets scratched or covered with spray paint.  

Underneath the dome is a high quality camera that can produce vivid and sharp 1,280 by 1.024 images and video streams. It is vastly superior to many surveillance cameras whose output looks more like it came from a Web cam than serious security equipment.

On top of H.264, Motion JPEG and MPEG-4 video formats, it can create an analog NTSC video stream for schools that already have the wiring for it. The camera can’t be panned or tilted remotely, but can be zoomed in 10-times to see a detail. Inside, it has a slot for holding an SD card for recording videos of suspicious behavior.

The camera does one thing that few devices of its kind can: listen and talk. It has an input jack for a microphone and an output connection for speakers so that a security guard can interact with the person on camera to determine if they pose a threat or are there to get directions or deliver a package.

Once it’s physically in place, setting up the camera starts with logging onto its IP address with a Web browser. It works with FireFox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Opera, although if you use IE, you’ll need to load an Active-X component. On top of viewing the video stream as a window or full screen, you can set its resolution, flip or mirror the image and set up the camera’s autofocus abilities.

If you want, the Settings menu lets you configure the camera to act as a motion detector so that when something happens in the frame, it either takes a snapshot or starts recording video. This can be excellent evidence of a break-in for a guidance counselor or the police to use. The danger is that it starts up prematurely, like by a loose gerbil. The software has settings for controlling the sensitivity and whether an email is sent when it’s triggered.

If you’re using several cameras, each can be uniquely identified by name and the camera adds a time and data stamp for use as evidence. All video can be saved locally or to a network.

D-Link includes D-View Cam console software that can monitor a school’s worth of individual cameras as long as they are made by Dlink. It can show the output of a single cam or thumbnails of 4-, 6-, 9-, 10-, 16- or 32-streams. If you like, it can shuffle through them in sequence.

The security camera comes into its own at night. There’s a ring of infrared LEDs around the lens for illuminating nighttime scenes, such as in a deserted hallway, gym or playground. It worked well with little or no light, although the images get grainy and it can be hard to make out what’s going on.

It has a green LED that shows that it’s operating, which can help when setting it up and troubleshooting problems. Happily, it can easily be turned off so as not to tip off an intruder that he’s on candid camera.

 Unlike Panasonic’s BL-C230A , it lacks WiFi for wireless connections to the school’s network. It connects to a network via its Ethernet cable, and is powered via a 24-volt source or the included AC adapter. It can use the 802.3af Power over Ethernet standard to run data and electricity over a single Cat-5 cable, simplifying installation.

In daily use, the DCS-6511 was able to see potential intruders during the day and in the dark, catch motion and send me a notification that something was going on. I can think of no better way to protect a school when nobody is around.

Sure, at $960, the DLink DCS-6511 is not cheap, particularly when you figure that even a small school with likely need at least six or seven cams. But, insurance companies typically give a discount if you have a surveillance system and this camera requires little or no extra wiring. In other words, it is money well spent.

 

A

D-Link DCS-6511 HD Day & Night Vandal-Proof Fixed Dome Network Camera

$960

 

+ Day and night operation

+ Excellent software

+ Sharp, bright video

+ Motion detection and remote notification

+ Indoor/outdoor use

 

- Ethernet only

- Expensive

- Can’t replace clear dome

 

Video, Safe and Secure

It’s the rare school or district that hasn’t had a problem with inappropriate videos being watched and version 4.1 of M86 Security’s Web Filtering and Reporting Suite can keep students eyes on their work. The hardware filtering device now includes VuSafe’s secure video library that lets school officials search and tag videos to keep the bad videos and advertisements out of school.

iPad Lock Down

The first thing that schools that use iPads learn is that they are even easier to steal then traditional notebooks. Without a Kensington lock slot, the iPad runs the risk of disappearing when nobody’s looking. The iPad lock comes with a clear plastic case with a security lock so that it can be attached to furniture or a heating pipe. It willc ome with a pair of keys, will cost $65 and will be available in the coming weeks.