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.

This week’s Chameleon Riddle asks: what is being defined below? Answer will be posted next week.  Comments are welcome, as always.

I am a method of situational threat 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.  (According to Security Girl), I am the best practicable methodology for terrorist threat mitigation.  And the only method that adheres to legal, commercial and civil liberty concerns while still offering an effective security solution.

I aim to categorize threat based on the predicted methods of operation that would be used by a given aggressor to attack a given protected environment.

A person holding a box cutter on a train going 100 miles per hour presents a threat in the form of hijacking a train while in transit.  However, holding a box cutter in the middle of a train station is not threatening from the point of view of a mass-casualty terrorist attack.

Whether it involves people or objects, every situation is evaluated according to time, location, and the possible threatening scenarios associated with the specific protected environment.

What am I? <<Link to answer

The answer to last week’s riddle is Patrick Arguello. Our clever raffle winner is Dan H.  He wins a free individual license for Predictive Profiling Online.  Nice work, Dan!

Patrick Arguello – more completely known as Patricio José Argüello Ryan – joined Leila Khaled in an attempt to hijack an El Al flight out of Amsterdam on September 6, 1970.  Traveling on false Honduran passports, they boarded disguised as a married couple.  His cover was Dr. Enrico Diaz.  Thirty minutes into the flight, Patrick threw a grenade down the aisle which failed to explode.  He then pulled out his pistol.  In the ensuing mêlée, he fired 3 to 5 shots which wounded a steward.  The pilot put the Boeing 707 into a nose dive, throwing everyone including the would-be hijackers off balance.  Passengers subdued Khaled and Arguello who was at some point shot by El Al security officers on the plane which made an emergency landing at Heathrow.  Arguello was dead on arrival at a London hospital.

This week’s Chameleon Riddle asks you to name the terrorist described in a resume that highlights his academic and professional career.  Click on resume icon below to see hints.  Answer will be posted next week.  Comments are welcome, as always.

The answer to last week’s riddle is The Samson Option. Our clever raffle winner is Molly W.  She wins a free individual license for Predictive Profiling Online.  Way to go, Molly!  Here is what she knew to solve it:

The bible story goes that God gave Samson superhuman powers.  Samson ruled as the 15^th Judge of Israel, from 1069 to 1049 BCE (Judges 13:1-16:31.) He was betrayed by Delilah who was recruited by the Philistines to help capture him.   Hair cut, powers gone, he was imprisoned in Gaza.  Eventually, his powers were secretly restored and he managed to bring down the temple where he was held, killing himself and the enemies surrounding him.

The Samson Option is the name of Israel’s alleged (secret) deterrence strategy of nuclear retaliation as a last resort against nations whose military attacks threaten its existence.  Its nuclear potential is rumored to be on par with the United Kingdom plus France.  Israel is the lone democracy in the Middle East.

This week’s riddle should be a real blast.  Good luck (you may well need it)!

I am named for a legendary figure.   Some see me as apocalyptic.   In any event, I am shrouded in secrecy.  In fact, those who named me do not even acknowledge my existence.  My namesake’s beloved was recruited as an intelligence source by the enemy.  That might render me suicidal in Gaza; God knows, it’s happened before.  I am considered by some a disaster of biblical proportions.  Allegedly, the power at my disposal is equal to that of the Union Jack and l’Hexagone combined.  I guard a democracy and act out of self preservation.

What am I?

In response to the most recent series  of TSA screening missteps, New York Senators Schumer and Gianaris are suggesting the addition of a TSA Advocate at each airport who would intervene between TSA officers and passengers who feel violated.  Also on the table is an 800 number for passengers  to call for clarification of TSA procedures regarding medical devices, and to learn what they could expect to face at the airport.

With skyrocketing budgets and sketchy efficiency, I hardly think that another layer of employee is needed.  If a given screener is adhering to TSA policy, then an Advocate would simply be repeating to the passenger what is already known.  If the screener is not adhering to TSA policy then screening management needs to figure out why, maybe boost training and communication, and fix the problem.  An Advocate would not be able to do that.  An Advocate would be unable, as we all are, to answer the question: why do TSA policies lack common sense?

Instead of Advocates what is sorely needed are Threat Assessors.

An elderly woman wearing a brace goes through an airport security checkpoint.  Given the brace, what terrorist method of operation is potentially exhibited?  Is she really a terrorist carrying a bomb or weapon on her person?  How about the first thing we do is ask a few smart questions to ascertain that she is who she appears to be, that her story makes sense, that she is perhaps a grandmother with three grand kids , traveling to Phoenix for a celebration, etc. etc.

If on the other hand, a passenger reminiscent of Mohamed Atta arrives at a screening checkpoint wearing a brace, traveling on a one-way ticket he paid for in cash, with a paltry cover story and oozing malicious intent then I would say, by all means,  strip him.

TSA security officers and screeners are given a rigid procedural playbook that does not allow them to make individual assessments.  Common sense is suppressed by a too often nonsensical SOP that insists on treating every case in a standardized way.  But an airport checkpoint is not a factory manufacturing floor.  The terrorist threat is not rigid.  Fighting the threat successfully is like playing a game of chess.  We need a threat assessing Garry Kasparov, not another customer service attempt in the form of an Advocate.   If we do the same thing all the time, we will surely be beat.

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 real ones that help drive home the point that there are real threats out there.  The supplementary background newspaper and magazine articles and videos place the ideas in a real life context which helps bring the ideas home for the students.

• This emphasis on the need for increasing threat awareness, and the way the course breaks down the reasons, helps shift his security personnel mentality away from “it won’t happen here” to a more proactive attitude.

• The security methods provided in the course are from a security-driven point of view, rather than a law enforcement one.  Many members of his staff come from a policing background and while they are terrific, there are important differences in approach that are carefully explained in the course.

• The Predictive Profiling course challenges assumptions and culture-driven stereotypes, making for a more realistic view of the threat.

Feel free to contact me with your own comments about Predictive Profiling Online.  You haven’t seen it?  Check out the demo at the bottom of this page link.  It’s always nice to hear good things but also important to get feedback on how we can continue to improve the course.