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Oregonian Ingenuity In Emergency Response
by Chloe Albanesius
A security alliance group on Wednesday announced that Oregon will be the site of the nation's first automated response system.
The Regional Alliances for Infrastructure and Network Security (RAINS) has partnered with the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department to let Portland's emergency 911 center send immediate, automated emergency-incident alerts to cellular telephones and personal computers, said RAINS Board Chairman Charles Jennings.
"It is the solution for sensitive information sharing at the local level over the Internet using Web services technology," he said.
In the project's first phase, RAINS will target schools, large buildings and hospitals. Participants will receive software discs to install on their PCs, and the targeted alerts will provide information on any emergencies and the steps people should take.
"[F]or the first time, we'll be capturing that data and targeting it to specific users with the system based on their job function, location and security level," Jennings said. "We do it in a secure way over the Internet that alerts [users] to go to the PC over the cell phone."
Jennings stressed that the RAINS alerts will not be blanket warnings, as is the case with AMBER Alerts for missing children, but will be targeted only to those people potentially affected. "We base it on geography and job description," he said. Thus, a medical-emergency notification would be sent to participating hospitals and not to schools or building managers.
Oregon RAINS Net is a "two-way system," Jennings added, so users can use the software to report emergencies to the 911 center.
Funding for RAINS Net comes from three sources: two state grants, more than 20 company sponsorships ranging in contributions from $1,500 to $25,000, and the donation of product services and engineering talent by the high-tech community.
Jennings credits the Portland 911 center with initiating the project. "They are willing to be innovative and cooperative," he said. "It is the center of trust here in the system, and they determine how the system works, who gets the information and on what basis." The Portland police also are involved in the project. "It's somewhere between a classified system and a police radio," Jennings said. "It provides targeted information to key stakeholders."
Four different companies provide the technology. Swan Island Networks will provide the "primary" technology, while Tripwire will oversee security and data integrity. Centerlogic will handle network translation, and Fortix will provide a network operations center.
"The overall operational impact of this system is probably cost savings," Jennings said. "It's an entirely automated system and does not require more human resource."
Jennings said the program has plans for expansion. "It's being applied [in Oregon] first but is being designed to be applicable in any large or state government," he said. "We envision an expanding menu of interoperable products that will be uniquely applicable to state and local homeland security beats."
What If A Terrorist Strikes A Prison?
Delaware is shifting its homeland security assessment from structures like bridges and roads to facilities such as prisons, Gov. Ruth Ann Minner said during a Tuesday teleconference from the National Governors Association's annual meeting in Indianapolis.
Before the U.S. Homeland Security Department was created, the state submitted a security plan, and it recently was returned with suggested improvements. "They are asking us to revisit our plans [and] include things that perhaps we didn't think of originally," Minner said. "We did get a template from the Homeland Security secretary of what he's expecting in our plans."
Part of that template includes what the state would do with prisoners in the event of a catastrophe at a state facility. The completed plan should be a "total risk assessment," she said.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge spoke this week to the governors, and Minner said the state chief executives stressed to him the need for additional funds and the difficulty many states would have in providing matching funds. "There's no way that the states that are suffering with the budget deficits can put additional money in [homeland security]," Minner said.
The governors told Ridge that if Homeland Security imposes additional mandates on the states, "money had to come with it" to make it feasible, Minner said.
Business Innovation Or Privacy Invasion?
A California state senator on Monday held a hearing to discuss whether radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags that are used to track inventory are a useful business product or a threat to consumers' privacy.
"New technologies can make businesses more efficient and shopping more convenient, but they're going to have an effect on people's personal privacy that we need to explore and understand before they become embedded in our everyday lives," Democrat Debra Bowen said in a release. "Is RFID technology simply a sophisticated way to track inventory and store data, or can it be used to invade people's privacy and be used to compile data on people's movements and shopping behaviors?"
Witnesses at the hearing included people from technology companies that produce RFIDs and privacy advocates who question the technology's legality.
"RFID must be subject to a formal technology-assessment process, one that is not sponsored by industry but rather by a nonpartisan entity," said Beth Givens of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "Second, the technology and its implementation must be guided by a strong set of fair-information principles."
North Carolina Extends Broadband Program
North Carolina Gov. Michael Easley last week signed into law a bill, H.B. 1194, that creates the e-NC Authority, a group that will continue for at least three more years the work of the Rural Internet Access Authority.
Started in 2001, the original authority is credited with making high-speed Internet access available to 75 percent of state residents in just one year. Similar to the old organization, e-NC will be a funded with private and federal dollars and operated out of a private nonprofit group. The updated e-NC, however, will include distressed urban areas.
"Through the e-NC Authority, North Carolina's leaders are assuring the state's economic competitiveness by ensuring it keeps pace with technological changes," James Leutze, chairman of the Rural Internet Access Authority commission, said in a release.
Sematech Will Stay In Texas
The board of International Sematech, a consortium of global semiconductor manufacturers, last week approved a strategic plan that would keep the organization anchored in Austin, Texas.
The group's board authorized the organization to formally enter a multi-year partnership with the state of Texas to create the Advanced Materials Research Center (AMRC), a research and development initiative that will focus on semiconductors, nanotechnology and other advanced technologies. The center is part of the Texas Technology Initiative and will receive $40 million in state funding this year.
As a condition of the partnership, Sematech agreed to keep its facilities in Austin. Backers of the chip organization, which started in Texas in 1988, feared that economic incentives offered by leaders in New York might convince Sematech to relocate its facilities. Texas Gov. Rick Perry proposed the initiative and the AMRC in an effort to keep Sematech in Austin, as well as to attract new companies to the region.
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