Homeland Security System

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Homeland Security System

• Danny Butler
• EKU, Dept. of Technology

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OUTLINE

• Introduction of the Homeland Security System.
• Behind the making of the Homeland Security
  System.
• Simple instruction over the use of the system.
• Potential future add-ins to the system.

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MOTIVATION

• The driving force behind the homeland security
  system
• The threat of theft or privacy violation is
  always present, I decided to create something
  that alerts the end-user automatically of an
  intruder to provide peace of mind.
• I was also just curious what, if anything,
  happened in my room when I was not there

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INTRODUCTION

• Security has been an issue ever since people
  began to collect things. The human emotion of
  jealousy can instigate activities of theft or
  sabotage.
• Many great individual detectives, and agencies
  have arisen throughout the years to aid in the
  protection of our personal belongings Nancy
  Drew, the Hardy boys, Sherlock Holmes and Dr.
  Watson, Inspector Gadget
• and now we have Dannys Homeland Security!

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The Goals of Dannys Homeland Security

• Everyone deserves a little confidence when it
  comes to protecting their things and themselves.
• I feel that the average computer user should be
  capable of setting up their own home security
  system quickly and effectively.
• To increase the ease of this usually complicated
  process, a number of features need to be
  incorporated in a pre-packaged system.
• Also a zero maintenance/upkeep cost is appealing.

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The Making ofDannys Homeland Security

• Identify the specific functions which a good
  security system will implement.
• Research the topic.
• Hardware setup.
• Software setup.
• Testing troubleshooting.
• Verifying results.

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Specific Functions

• List of features required for an effective
  surveillance system
• The security system needs to create a video of
  the intrusion.
• The security system needs to alert the end-user
  of the intrusion in real time.
• The security system needs to save the video to a
  location accessible anywhere by the end-user.

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Research

• Investigate other programs that are similar in
  design and implementation.
• Determine what components will be needed and how
  they will interact.
• Webcam.
• Motion detector (develop a hardware switch or
  simulate through software.)
• Auto record video once motion is detected.
• E-mail the video File and send a text message.

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Hardware Setup

• This step was very simple, I had shopped around
  for webcam and settled on the Logitech Orbit.
  One of the features that came with the webcam
  software was motion detection tied in with auto
  video recording.

• Of course there are lists of other freeware
  programs I found through research that take
  pictures once movement have triggered the motion
  detection algorithms.

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Software Setup

• I did research into what programming language to
  use, I discovered that I could achieve all of my
  requirements by using Visual Basic. (Plus I
  already had it installed.)
• After a few trips to the internet I learned how
  to write using the system.net libraries,
  including .mail and .networkinformation. With
  these libraries I was able to write code to
  achieve the following
• Scan a selected folder and determine when a file
  has been written inside the folder. Once
  detected, the file pathname is saved to a
  variable.
• This pathname is then passed to an e-mail writing
  function that attaches the file and sends an
  e-mail and text message

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Testing and Troubleshooting

• I approached the testing process one function at
  a time in my code
• I implemented a function, then tested it
  independently.
• Once all of my functions worked separately I tied
  them all together and tested how they worked as a
  program.
• The one significant problem encountered was when
  g-mail changed the mail server welcome port
  number. However, I was able to quickly fix it
  after two or three google searches

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Verifying Results

• Simply put It worked. I was able to receive
  text messages and check out video of my roommate
  taking some beer from my refrigerator while I was
  at work. (I told him he could just not why)

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Using the HomelandSecurity System
Dannys Homeland Security!!
Very easy to use Set the webcam software to take
videos of motion, point your webcam, enter your
information, then activate your system. Now you
have started protecting your things!
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Using the HomelandSecurity System
Dannys Homeland Security!!
As you can see I have entered in my contact
information, activated the system and now I am
recording my movement to a video file.
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Using the HomelandSecurity System
Dannys Homeland Security!!
Here is my e-mail message with the video
attachment.
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Using the HomelandSecurity System
Dannys Homeland Security!!
These are the snapshots of my text message
corresponding with the last intrusion detection.
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RESULTS

• I have created a very efficient security system
  that costs nothing and is portable from one
  computer to the next.
• My belongings in my apartment are being watched!

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CONCLUSIONS

• I designed and created my own security system
  that uses multiple steps to create one desired
  outcome.
• I have, by accomplishing this challenge, gained
  more experience in researching Visual Basics
  .net libraries and the different functions they
  were designed to complete. I have, as a result
  of this, learned a lot more about Visual Basic
  programming.

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Potential Future Add-ins

• The computer makes it possible to customize the
  security system to have more features than it
  currently possesses.
• Possible ideas include
• An audible alarm to deter the intruder.
• A picture snapshot sent to the user via
  attachment to the text message.
• Increased scalability to include multiple
  cameras.
• Any other ideas from the audience?

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Fin

• Questions?
• Comments?
• Or, request your own copy of Dannys Homeland
  Security System!
• Contact me at Danny_Butler18_at_eku.edu