Here’s an infographic from 2M CCTV, an online cctv cameras retailer, that handily explains aspects of a camera’s operation – from lenses to angle of view – important information in selecting a camera system to meet your surveillance needs.

You already know that a security camera is not simply a Kodak on stilts. A few minutes with an infographic like this will help in understanding why that’s so.

Ronald Marks on Security Debrief raises an interesting, if not anxious, question in the wake of the National Security Agency’s monitoring of telephone records as an anti-terrorism tactic. A key subhead: “The New Reality – You Are Never Alone in Cyberspace.”

“The problem with roller coaster rides,” Marks writes,  ”is you get off where you start. In today’s Cyber World, most basic challenges are not going to change.

“First, the bad guys hide in ever-growing cyber space. As they now hunt us in terms of ones and twos and self-recruitment, we need to dig deeply into cyberspace and as fast as possible.

“Second, it is important to have a debate about how far we want the surveillance state to exist. But, if we do talk about that, we should also remember Amazon and Google are playing the same type of surveillance game and should be included in the discussion. Do we really want to stop them from making a buck and selling us stuff we want?”

What Marks is saying is that the surveillance debate is tied up not only with NSA monitoring, but with the use of “big data” monitoring for commercial purposes. And not a whole lot is likely to change now that we’ve populated cyberspace.

It’s a whirlwind world. And, with the Web so much in the picture, getting caught up in the flow from a myriad of sites risks missing some of what’s really important. For instance, have you heard that America’s drinking and wastewater systems rate a “D” on the nation’s infrastructure report card, as compiled by the American Society of Civil Engineers? Probably not.

Which brings us to the function of Barrier Briefs: It’s to keep you up on, not PRO Barrier’s dauntless barriers – there’s information on them on our surrounding website – but, three times weekly,  to provide you with leads on developments in the wider security world that you might otherwise miss. That’s it, that’s all – but we hope it’s helpful. Keep checking out Briefs for security insights you might otherwise miss.

If you know anyone who’s responsible for planning the security aspects of a large-scale event, you might want to reference the U.S. Justice Department’s just-released guidance for law enforcement and local governments on planning and managing such events.

Government Security News advises that “the guidance includes three documents synthesizing best practices relating to security planning. They are the result of an analysis of information provided from the Tampa, FL, and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC, police departments as they planned and executed operations for the 2012 Presidential Nominating Conventions.” The guidance includes advice on heading off clashes between protesters and police.

Thermal cameras, effective in both night and daytime conditions, can be important elements in protecting extensive site perimeters. Here, on the SightLogix blog, is an introduction to their role.

“Because smart thermal cameras ‘see’ heat rather than light,” SightLogix explains, “they are a perfect ‘human detector,’ and will ignore headlights, reflections off water, or other activity. Today’s thermal cameras now operate very accurately in both complete darkness and bright sun, making them a stable 24-hour-day solution. They can be used in all environments around the world, from the arctic to the middle east desert, and are impervious to harsh weather conditions.”

Bruce Schneier contributes advice on creating security passwords that will be hard to crack. Coming up with staunch passwords is  becoming harder as lists of commonly used password sequences grow.

So, Schneier returns to advice he provided in 2008 – turn sentences into passwords. “Something like ‘This little piggy went to market,’” he demonstrates, “might become ‘tlpWENT2m’. That nine-character password won’t be in anyone’s dictionary. Of course, don’t use this one, because I’ve written about it. Choose your own sentence — something personal.”

There’s still the problem of remembering all your passwords (with their upper and lower case and numerical characters); they can become truly numerous. And that makes deciding on a good password manager important, too. There’s also the problem of having  your passwords readily available on all your digital tools… desktop computer, cellphone and tablet, say. But at least would-be intruders will have a lot harder time with your unique protective “sentences”.

Here’s a recommendation from Homeland Security Watch to read the National Preparedness Report for 2013, issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Why would you want to do that? To provide a background of awareness of the nation’s security setting, including cyber security.

Blogger Christopher Bellavita lists the myriad topics covered or touched upon in the 60-page report and advises: “I don’t know a better, or more current, overview of what’s going on in homeland security with respect to preparing for just about everything one could anticipate. (I did not see mention of space weather, meteors or obesity; but I might have missed something.)”

So for security context generation, here, it appears, are 60 pages not to be missed.

Permit us a diversion into the annals of  civil engineering, one with regard to the safety of the nation’s bridges. It’s a scary detour. Following the collapse of a bridge over the River Skagit in Washington State recently, there’s been a lot of coverage on the safety of our interstate highway bridges, and it’s not cheery.

The Economist’s Babbage blog advises that the bridge that collapsed was in the vanguard of the interstate highway building boom from 1956 on that has equipped the interstate system with more than 55,000 bridges, all of them aging (obviously) and many with designs that lacked structural redundancy. To strengthen or replace them over time is beyond the capacity of the interstate highway trust fund. So that introduces the possibility of tolls on the interstate system.

Read the Babbage post and weep as to the “economical” manner in which the interstates were built as a  putative resort in case of nuclear attack.  Now they’re a new sort of “security” issue.

And then, there are bridges on local roads that are likely even older…

The Newsweek (now Web only) story on “the Jester,” a Batman-like cyber warrior, and other computer hackers promises to be fascinating reading. But it’s also a reminder of how subject the Web can be to mischief by intruders far less high-minded than the Jester. Read it to keep abreast of what the spammers may be up to, and continue showing due diligence to the security of your own sites.

Incidentally, the Jester’s on Twitter, @th3j35t3r.

Our heart almost went out to all the first responders who deployed themselves to help out in the aftermath of the Moore, Okla., tornado two weeks ago. Then we were appropriately reminded by a Fire Chief post that self-deployment can cause problems that disaster managers don’t need.

The right skills can come at the wrong time, in conflict with a plan that already exists, or that is still being shaped up. Self-deployed responders need quarters, food and direction that may already be in short supply. Sympathetic instincts curbed at a time of someone else’s crisis – until it’s known what their needs really are and how they’ll manage outside assistance – are the best kind.