What do Louis Vitton, Oakley, Calloway and the State of Louisiana have in common?  They all have felt the sting of counterfeits.  In the case of retailers and manufacturers, knock offs cut into profits.  For those fashionistas looking to save a buck, it’s a choice.  But who wants to unknowingly pay $800 for an imitation Prada bag?  In the Louisiana example, the issue was voters not handbags.   The register to vote dot org website looks like a legitimate government website but does not reveal its contact information and is not a registered governmental or non profit agency.  The site may well register voters but in the meanwhile also obtains personal identification information and is alleged to assess reoccurring monthly fees for their services.  Let’s just say there have been complaints about it.

For the average computer user, knockoff domain addresses also pose a real threat.

These doppelgangers take advantage of a misspelled domain name in the context of a site or email address.  By omitting the dot between main and sub what should be “us.company.com” ends up as “uscompany.com.”  All possible mistyped domains are bought up and used by unscrupulous typosquatters.  Some fake sites and emails look deadly real.  This ploy is on the rise.

At a glance, it looks fine.  But when you come back from a week-long holiday and there are 548 emails in your inbox, you may not exercise the kind of diligence needed to catch this stuff.  Let’s add doppelganger websites and domains to the ever growing list of scams of which we need to be aware.

PREDICTIVE PROFILING is a method of situation assessment designed to predict and categorize the potential for inappropriate, harmful, criminal and/or terrorist behavior that leads to the deployment of procedures and actions necessary to confirm, reduce and/or eliminate such threats.

This approach is at the core of successful and efficient security systems, and has enormous applicability for a full range of both open and closed environments.

Click here to view a demo of Chameleon’s Predictive Profiling Online course.

A client of ours, a Security Training Supervisor at a federal financial institution in the Midwest, called to chat.  They have been using Chameleon’s Predictive Profiling Online course as part of their curriculum for about a year now, and he called to tell me how pleased he is with the program.

Tell me more, I begged.

This is what he liked:

• The course information is taught using actual events and real situations via videos or in abundant reference materials.  The students aren’t given purely hypothetical scenarios but (more…)

My first encounter with handwriting analysis many years ago was quite positive.  On a lark, I asked  graphologist expert Lena Rivkin to look at writing samples from a few close friends of mine.  There was nothing hocus pocus or vague about her observations.  She hit the nail on the head in every case, in surprising detail.

Graphology can be a useful tool for analyzing a wide variety of potential behaviors, aspects of a person’s personality as well as for detecting forgery. The term derives from the greek graphein (to write) and logos (to study), in this case the study of a person’s psychological makeup via handwriting.  It is an effective and reliable indicator of a person’s personality and behavior and is used in human resources, private and criminal investigations and jury selection.

Ms. Rivkin told me a story about a pre-employment screening she conducted where she recommended against a hire.  The client hired the person anyway but before long (more…)

A story I heard from a client the other day confirms the simple power of security questioning as a really effective tool.  I’d like to share it with you.

A security officer who works for a large U.S. company had taken our Predictive Profiling and Security Questioning course.  Let’s call him Mike.  Mike was working the access control checkpoint at their main headquarters where both a metal detector and screening machine are in place.  These are located in a large lobby with a good deal of people traffic and activity.

A visitor to the facility approached to be screened and was flagged by the operator as having a questionable object in their bag.  (more…)

With all the expense, effort and time that a political campaign entails, I am always amazed when a candidate or sitting politician is brought down by scandal.  More than ever, an intense and persistent spotlight shines on politicians whose every move and every skeleton is fair game.  Hundreds if not thousands of reporters and generic dirt seekers unearth and disseminate their findings at lightning speed across a hungry internet.  Scandal sells.  If you polled today I’m betting more people have heard the raunchy details of Herman Cain’s latest sexual harassment accuser than have heard the details of the G20 conference whose outcome directly effects (versus titillates) everyone on the planet.

Whether allegations are true or false is (more…)

More often than not, security systems miss the mark when they skip a vital step in developing their security standards and procedures.  They do not first clearly define the threat.  But only once you understand the threat, can you understand what is suspicious and then have a road map for procedures.

Take random checks as an example.  Think about how ambiguous it is when an officer is asked to “randomly” check a given number of people or objects.  Given the open-ended nature of that directive, the officer chooses what to check motivated by what amounts to whim: perhaps the officer has a non-confrontational personality and will avoid anything or anyone that appears troublesome.  What and whom he chooses to check could likewise be motivated by subconscious sexism, racism or some other psychological mindset.  With humans, there is no such thing as random.  A random check procedure can translate to a real vulnerability for a security system because it allows an officer to make screening decisions based on his own inclinations.

What’s more, a random check procedure is passive.  It requires no (more…)

I heard a nice analogy about engineers and basketball players recently that well describes the role of security: what it is at its best and at its less-than-best.

Some folks approach security as though it were an engineering project.  Security managers map out regulations and protocols to be adhered to by the letter.  Like an engineer designing a car or a building they consider budget and costing, throughput and appearance.  In this approach, there may be a security team but there is no clear opposing team.

In basketball, as this analogy goes, there is a clearly defined opposing team.  Indeed, the adversary is at the top of the coach and players’ mind at all times.  They spend hours upon hours studying the adversary’s every move and trait in order to understand and therefore best anticipate how they will play and how to win against them.

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The amygdala, or as some prefer to call it: the A-Spot, are two almond shaped bunches of brain cells at the heart of security threat assessment.  Security threat assessment?!?  How so?

The amygdala, part of our limbic system, plays a role in the processing and recall of emotional reactions.  It sends impulses that activate the sympathetic nervous system.  It’s the amygdala that relays stimuli that in a fight and flight response, push an adrenaline rush.  It’s why our pupils dilate, heart rate quickens, we fidget and start to sweat when we perceive danger or threat.

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Some subjects do lend themselves to a classroom setting: philosophy, statistics and literature to name a few.  I can learn what I need to about Immanuel Kant, calculating a standard deviation and the collected work of Tolstoy without leaving my seat.  But other subjects cannot be learned nearly as well without application and practice:  things like brain surgery, rifle assembly and knitting come to mind.  Wait, let me add another: developing an effective and efficient, threat-based Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Security.

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