Now we can feel safe and secure.. Thanks to HCL and its initiative to safeguard the country.. Afterall its an Indian Comapny...

Coming soon! A smart PC that watches all your moves

Original Article by Jaimon Joseph

Friday , February 05, 2010 at 10 : 02

Spend a single day in London, and you'll be videotaped at least 300 times. More than 11,000 cameras watch every move you make. Thank God India doesn't violate your privacy like that - right? Consider this. When London's underground Metro was bombed five years back, the terrorists were arrested within a week. The cops played back hours of recorded footage from the area. Then followed the men back from the station to their homes - sitting at their computer terminals. Have the 2008 Delhi bombers been arrested yet? Or the folks who started the Mumbai riots?

Two of India's biggest airports, some of our busiest sea ports and a few of our most famous religious shrines are now being watched. With technology even more advanced than London's security system in 2005. The company behind it, HCL Security Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of HCL Infosystems Ltd. I'd always thought HCL was full of software geeks who punch out dollars from their keyboards. But apparently, their software can now command everything from NSG paratroopers, to the fire brigade.

Imagine this. A man walks into a crowded market. Loiters around a bench, then walks away, leaving his bomb-laden bag nestled underneath. No one notices. Except the hidden cameras. If the bag's unattended for more than a couple of minutes, a silent alarm automatically goes off in the control room. Other cameras track the man as he crosses lobbies and corridors.

If the man suddenly remembers his bag and goes back, the alarms shut down. If he keeps walking, the computer automatically calls the cops. If one doesn't pick up, it instantly calls ten others, on their cells. Security officers start closing in on the unwary terrorist. Floor supervisors get a map on their phones, to get to the abandoned object and remove it. The fire station's alerted, hospital wardens put on standby.

Of course, this is a simplistic description - these responses are carefully calibrated. You don't want an expensive computer crying wolf every hour and numbing people's reflexes completely. But I saw a live demonstration of all this, just a couple of weeks back in HCL Security's sprawling Noida office. And what I've told you, is just half the story.

This is a smart computer. With a thousand eyes. It records every second of every day. It remembers. And it thinks. Stray incidents that seem completely innocent. Random actions that don't look threatening at all. The same man visiting a tourist hotspot repeatedly, a couple of days apart. A new van in the locality, parked outside a gate for hours without moving. Unusually heavy truck movements, at random times during the day. You and I might not make much of these. But the computer's constantly sniffing for patterns. And asking security officers to investigate.

How did HCL Security suddenly become a pro at all this? After all, American, South African and Israeli security companies spent billions of dollars over many decades, to get where they are today. HCL isn't re-inventing the wheel. What it's doing is making the products these companies make, work together. The X-Ray scanner at the airport check in line, the telephone switching systems that keep employees connected, the ultra small cameras that can be hidden in every nook - they're all made by different companies for different purposes. HCL Security gathered them all together into one streamlined whole, designed to weed out the enemy. For a price I'm betting, that's lower than more established players.

The Commonwealth Games a few months from now, could be the ultimate test of such systems. Networks that let the police, paratroopers, hospitals, transport departments all work in tandem. That eliminate the sort of confusion Mumbai faced during 26/11. Coming out of the HCL Security Office, all this seemed a lot like sci-fi. A bit like Tom Cruise's Minority Report. But the technology exists. And it's coming soon, to a colony near you.


I am really proud to have become a part of this company.. I hope if i cannot get into army(god forbid), then i can take care of my country at least in this way..


Naveen Kumar K