Not «smart» systems, but smart systems.
Published in the author's version (End. Beginning — No. 5-2008)
I burst in with boxes that could not be dragged in one go — we said hello and started dragging all our presentation gear together with the driver. This was my first face-to-face meeting with Fyodor Mikhailovich, and from his reaction I realized that he immediately liked our so-called marketing solution. Then we turned on our equipment live, allowing the customer to see with his own eyes what we were going to build his system from, while answering all the questions of those present.
Then we asked Fyodor Mikhailovich himself to outline his view on the tasks of the potential system. Simply put, what and how we would like to see. No abstruseness or technical sophistication — only common sense.
And the task was really set as simply and logically as possible — the system should allow the guard on duty not to wander around the facility once again: he should see all possible approaches from the outside (i.e. the entire perimeter, or more simply the fence), places of possible penetration into warehouses and the parking area for trucks. In general, Fyodor Mikhailovich was distinguished by his well-thought-out common sense, he spoke exclusively in common language, without any special terms. But judging by how harmonious, well-thought-out and logically the concept of facility security was built from his reasoning, it became clear that you were dealing with a very high-level professional.
No recording was required. The system did not conceal any secrets for any of the base employees, the security personnel enjoyed complete trust, and regarding the prevention of possible threats to the facility, there was an arsenal of measures based on no illusions of searching by video recording. Although, despite the relative high cost of special recording equipment for that time, the budget of this company would not even notice such a purchase.
But the competitor had already presented his project of the system, without even asking what the customer wanted. Here I had already won much more seriously than by simply dragging boxes of equipment with me. Here I won in essence, and not just technically.
Well, and then they suggested that we go directly to the site to discuss together what and how from what they had just seen could and should be most effectively placed around the site in accordance with their just stated wishes. And the entire delegation went around the site. Our competitor went with us.
We come to the farthest end of the territory, to a completely blind corner formed by the wall of the warehouse and the fence, the entire area of which is somewhere 8 x 5 m, but the farthest from the security post, and the deputy head of the security service, who had previously only listened to my proposals, suggests that the competitor's representative present his proposals for protecting this dead corner. And he gets in response — a video camera on a rotating device, with a lens zoom, with a 360-degree horizontal rotation angle, controlled from the remote control at the security post. Probably, the desire to get additional money by selling expensive equipment, although absolutely unnecessary in this case, prevailed over common sense; my arguments in favor of the simplest all-weather stationary camera installed on the roof of the warehouse turned out to be more than convincing. In general, I realized that the battle was already won, because no one asked anything else from the representative of the competing company.
The finale was already back in the security room. Together we adjusted the installation locations on the plan I had, I gave the finished technical proposal for general review, which later, after all the corrections, practically turned into the technical assignment, and gave the preliminary calculation for review. There were many questions on a number of points, but I was able to answer them all completely honestly. The calculation of our competitors looked much less attractive in terms of its validity. Realizing that his company had finally lost this most open tender in the world, our opponent from the competitor decided to leave loudly slamming the door, publicly assuring that from now on there would be no more relations between our companies. To the credit of the company itself, on the same day its manager called and apologized for the unsportsmanlike behavior of his employee, saying that they had made a mistake, underestimating us. Fyodor Mikhailovich, with his characteristic calm and smile, said that we had won this order fairly, that this was the market, and such situations were completely normal for the market, that this should not be a reason to become enemies. And he shook my hand. The deputy for technical equipment also congratulated me. When I brought the contract to the base director for signature, he congratulated me separately, saying that he was very happy for us, who had come up with such an idea with this open tender.
This was our experience of winning a tender!
And I ask myself again: why in our entire history such a tender has only happened once on the market? Maybe because there weren't many of those top government officials whose security chiefs took the places of heads of security services of companies? There aren't many high-level professionals on the market like Fyodor Mikhailovich? Maybe the safe city would have been different if the tenders had been different?
And the system wasn't that complicated by today's standards.
At the very first stage, only eight cameras were installed, which, in fact, were enough for the entire perimeter of the area in front of the entrance and the most important places inside the territory. Perimeter control cameras were installed along the fences. The distance between the cameras was about 100 m. The focal lengths were, if I am not mistaken, 12 mm. At the same time, the camera saw the next camera. The viewing angle with these parameters is, of course, small, but since the cameras were installed along a fairly high fence, it would be impossible to quickly climb over it without the guards noticing. Naturally, if the operator was looking at the screen. But all the guards understood that the alternative to the video surveillance system is to walk around the territory themselves in the rain and cold. They immediately appreciated such comfort of service and faithfully carried it out in front of the monitors. In any case, whenever we were at the site, one of the two guards on duty was always looking at the screens without stopping. I think that the main reason for such an attitude to their duties is the contingent of the guards themselves. Probably, Fyodor Mikhailovich was guided by the KGB recruitment principle in selecting personnel — initially higher education. True, this was only possible at that time. Today, fortunately, these former security guards can afford to do exclusively their main job in their specialty, without the need for additional earnings.
And then we only had time to install imported equipment at the facility (for example, quadrators), for which there was not even an instruction in Russian, and the next day we received this instruction from the security guards — in order not to get bored at night, we translated it ourselves, studied the equipment and were trained at the same time.
By the way, quads are a separate story. The system included two quads to switch 8 video signals to 2 monitors. And quads were quite expensive equipment at that time. The one we included in the calculation, being one of the cheapest on the market at that time, cost about 430-450 dollars in absolute terms. So we motivated their offer by saying that, supposedly, it’s a good thing, useful in your system, not like a switch that won’t let you see everything at once, but it’s not cheap. But we still offer the cheapest of the decent options – Taiwanese. And our customer asks: “What are the most expensive and most branded ones?” That’s when we realized that all the questions about the calculation, price comparisons with competitors’ offers were just a test of our honesty. And when such a test took place, the price itself ceased to have any significance for the customer in principle. And instead of our simplest Taiwanese quad for $450, we chose a «two-page» Sanyo quad for, as I remember now, $980. And there were two of them. Although one such quad allowed us to connect all our 8 cameras at once, but to view the second four, we would have to specially press a button or watch continuous scrolling on the screen. So, in order not to press this button an extra time, but to see everything at once, without touching the control buttons, we decided to pay another $980 for the second one. And this quad also had a built-in motion detector for each channel. This was proudly written in the technical manual.
Today I imagine the reaction of our specialists to the term «motion detector» and its embodiment in this product — a small single line on the image, which represented the controlled zone. Now, if something in the image changes against the background of this line, the quadrator will beep, and the inscription ALARM will appear on the image. Nevertheless, this detector subsequently really worked to the benefit of the case. As I have already noted, the system was completely open to all employees of the base. And, in particular, the first to appreciate all the charms of this detector were the drivers of those very long-haul trucks, on the roofs of which our fitters escaped from the local dogs. The truck arrived at the base from a trip and was not always immediately unloaded. And the valuables in that truck were considerable. Then the driver turned the car with the door of the body in the direction of the video camera, went to the security room and asked to install the motion detector zone directly on the door leaves. Very simple, but very reasonable.
In principle, for the price of these two quads, you could buy a very good 16-channel multiplexer at that time. The same Robot MV-16, also branded — made in the USA. Of course, the main function of the multiplexer is to work with a VCR, but it allowed you to simultaneously get a picture on one monitor from 16 cameras (so to speak, for the growth of the system), and from 9 (for this system). Nevertheless, the customer, represented by the head of the Security Service, initially understood that watching 4 images on two monitors is much more effective than viewing 8 on one, not to mention 16. And most importantly, switching the entire system through a single central device to one monitor is much riskier than through two switching devices to two monitors. In the first option, in the event of a failure of this central device, all that can be quickly restored is to give an image from any one camera to this single monitor. In the second option, almost the entire switching system was duplicated — if a quadrifier fails, all 8 signals can be switched to the second quadrifier. You will have to manually or automatically switch the image from the first four cameras to the second four in sequence. But the entire system is in operation. If any of the monitors fails, the same actions will be taken.
And how did the market come to the point over the past 13 years that it proudly displays support for images from 64 cameras on one monitor at the same time, is unclear? Where did common sense go?
But the company let us down. After turning on all the cameras, it suddenly turned out that all the images were shaking. The reason for this interference was again found by the security guards themselves — candidates of technical sciences. It turned out that it was not the images that were shaking, but the captions and grid formed by the character generator of the quadrator itself. And the eye intuitively attaches itself to them as to stationary landmarks. As a result, it seems that the image itself is shaking. We had to choose the mode with disabled captions and grid as the main operating mode. I know that the supplier company from which the quadrator was purchased repeatedly addressed this question in writing to the manufacturer, but no answer was ever received. We assumed that this was due to the network frequency in Japan of 60 Hz, but this remained an assumption.
Well, and simply about the price level of that time:
All-weather video camera with a climate mode of operation from -40 to +40 0C, with a power supply and a mounting bracket. Black and white, 380 TVL. 0.3 lux. And even with an M12 lens — $ 280. B/W monitor, 12-inch — 215.
The routes were far from big by our current standards – the cable length from the post to the farthest camera (that remote place where the competitor suggested installing a turn signal) was about 400 m. But we only had “coaxials” at our disposal. Of course, there were some problems, but they were all eventually solved. And since we were happy with each other, we worked together on this site and on others for many more years.
And finally, about the general security concept, to which, in my opinion, our video surveillance system came in very handy.
I have always been interested in the security system of any facility, not from the point of view of its technical equipment, but so to speak from the final position — how will all this work in a single complex when a real danger arises, how can all this stop the danger (and not just observe it or record it). And in this case, at the very forefront of the fight against this danger, in addition, my very good friend was. Therefore, this interest was heightened. And from the security weapons I saw — one single rubber truncheon hanging on the wall. And I asked Fyodor Mikhailovich:
Well, God forbid, something happens (not far from here and not long before all these events, some outright bandits also descended on the base at night, the guards were locked in a container and non-ferrous metals were loaded onto a truck with a crane all night long – those were those times), suddenly some villains start to attack you, is my friend, a candidate of technical sciences, supposed to grab this one rubber truncheon and rush alone at the enemy? An expression of obvious bewilderment appeared on Fyodor Mikhailovich’s face – like, how could I even think of such nonsense?
What are you talking about?! – he was genuinely surprised. – That’s exactly why they installed the video system, so that he wouldn’t wander between the hangars unnecessarily, risking getting hit on the head. Let him sit here, accompanied by this Bucks (Buks was a huge Rottweiler, who, unlike the dogs in the enclosures, was usually on guard duty), watching the monitors. He saw that the kids threw a ball over the fence and climbed after it, let them climb. You don’t even have to go outside – the kids don’t need our property at all. Well, and if, God forbid, something really serious happens, then all your friend has to do is open the enclosures, press the panic button and run away from the base towards the nearest special facility (he called this facility by its proper name, but I won’t) – there are people with machine guns there, they will help.
That’s the concept. It couldn’t be more reliable and easier. Because it’s thought out to the smallest detail.
During our entire relationship with this company, according to the security guards themselves, there was only one attempt to break into the warehouse from the outside by breaking open the wall. It never got beyond intentions — everything was noticed and prevented in time. Well, for us, such information is a balm for the soul!
And at what point did our TSB market suddenly turn from such simple and well-thought-out solutions that worked and continue to work reliably to this day, to far-fetched, technically sophisticated systems that have nothing to do with security, to a safe city in its current incarnation, I have no idea. So I want to somehow direct everything into the channel of at least common sense.