Case Study: Beyond The Call Of Duty

Most cops will say this is true, and home integrators who design and build surveillance systems should heed their advice, says L. Ken Hancock, president and founder of Cyber Crime Forensic Investigations.

Hancock is a cop. He's also a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the senior law-enforcement official for the Northwestern town that Cyber Crime calls home. Hancock prefers not to identify the town where he's chief of police, and he's careful to avoid any conflict between his public duties as an officer and the private-sector work performed by Cyber Crime. Most times, Hancock won't even mark up Cyber Crime's services over cost, he says. All this makes Hancock's story intriguing.

About a year ago, after more than a decade of police service following a decorated stint in the U.S. Air Force, where he led a multinational task force credited with stopping several syndicated criminal organizations, Hancock founded Cyber Crime. Unlike many home integrators who craft criminologist skills after entering the surveillance field, Hancock had years of training in criminal behavior before he ever hooked up his first IP camera. At first, the effort with Cyber Crime was nothing more than a response to a growing number of complaints from rural residents within Hancock's jurisdiction that they were being targeted for identity theft.

"Mail was being taken often enough that we felt we could capture the act on film, so we decided to use a camera to actually film the mailbox," Hancock says.

But setting up surveillance systems in plain sight along uncrowded back roads did more than just set the table for evidence-gathering. The conspicuous nature of the cameras themselves actually served as a deterrent to a wide range of crime, he says.

"Crimes can be easier to commit in the country," Hancock says. "But identity thieves especially love country areas because there are less people to see them. Usually the mailboxes are on the road, a long way from the residences, and what [thieves] do is drive from mailbox to mailbox and reach into the mailbox and throw everything in the car. Then later that night they look for credit cards, checkbooks, anything they can use to gain identity."

This activity dropped sharply once Cyber Crime began installing surveillance cameras. In fact, everything from ID theft attempts to things like the roadside dumping of trash decreased in areas where cameras were installed, Hancock says. Police manpower resources were better directed as well, he says.

"Crime prevention is one of the best surveillance applications. You won't see very many deputies working on prevention because they are all tied up on calls, and there aren't usually that many [deputies] to begin with," Hancock says. "So we focus a lot on trying to minimize the chance of a citizen becoming a victim of crime. We want to be real obvious with some of our surveillance setups to make sure criminals can see that cameras are there, and that recording lights are flashing. If they see there's a surveillance system in place, they'll choose another location, because they are likely going to commit the crime anyway."

Go-to gear for Hancock includes IP-based Web cameras that do not require the local use of a PC, and wireless cameras that can be mounted in places where it might be difficult to run a wire. In addition, the frequent use of "dummy cameras" by Cyber Crime amplifies the deterrent surveillance can introduce, he says. Dummy cameras have lenses and clearly visible "on" lights that make them seem real, but they have no innards and do not record anything. Still, they increase the perceived density of a surveillance system. "It's pretty tough to know which [cameras] are dummies and which ones are not," Hancock says.

Dummy cameras also are a good way to keep a surveillance deployment under a budget cap, Hancock says. "We had one situation where the customer's request was to keep it at 16 cameras maximum. But I saw a couple of places I could put some dummy cameras, and they work just as well to make a criminal think twice."

With no other security integrator in the area, Hancock's do-it-yourself attitude at times blurs the line between law enforcement and private subcontracting. Because of this, Hancock makes it clear that his efforts with Cyber Crime are not motivated by profit. In fact, Hancock has a hard time even pinning a figure to just how fast Cyber Crime has grown. "I can't quantify it, I just know we are busy," he says. "And we haven't advertised at all. So far it's been us making suggestions and customer word-of-mouth. " But with the surveillance market red-hot, the profit potential is there, says Robert Sylvester, president and CEO of Convergent Technologies, an integrator in Schaumburg, Ill., that often works side-by-side with local law enforcement as a paid subcontractor.

Convergent Technologies offers a long menu of custom services for law enforcement, ranging from basic IT services to support for local 911 exchanges, Sylvester says. In particular, the growth in the number of IP-based surveillance systems being deployed is enormous. And Sylvester routinely gets called in to assist local police in setting up surveillance systems that in many cases require lucrative service wraparounds like additional DSL extensions and other networking gear. "It's happening all over," says Sylvester. "Just look at the recent [surveillance deployments] in Chicago. Look at London. It's a big market."

Meanwhile, on the vendor side, Cyber Crime did its homework before deciding on a supplier of its IP-based cameras and other gear. "We had four different products we tried early on when we were deciding which vendor to go with," he says. The go-to vendor for Cyber Crime ended up being D-Link Systems, Fountain Valley, Calif. In true cop fashion, Hancock took no chances at first. Wanting to ensure that D-Link's technical support was grade-A, Hancock called the vendor's technical support line pretending to be a customer just so he could gauge the speed and effectiveness of D-Link's response. D-Link passed the test, he says.

"It's a story I don't think I've told D-Link yet, but feel free to tell them," he says.

John DiFrenna, D-Link's newly appointed vice president of channel sales for the United States and Mexico, laughed when he heard the story. DiFrenna says he likes the idea of being put to the test by partners, and applauds how partners like Cyber Crime are taking D-Link's products and deploying them in creative ways. Such innovation only drives D-Link to greater things, he says.

"When we see uses of our products that are unique, you bet we look to add those ideas to future products," DiFrenna says.

Cyber Crime now offers services that range from the design and installation of wireless surveillance systems to network consulting and computer forensic analysis.

"But things have really blossomed with the use of cameras," Hancock says. "We find they can be applied in ways we never even thought about, like elderly care. We had one client who had an older parent who's supposed to be taking regular medications, and we found a way to focus a camera on the medicine cabinet so he can check to make sure a regular dosage is being taken. What a wonderful application."