INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FORCULTURAL PROPERTY PROTECTION
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Reposted from Spring Hiller Insider
A new study finds 100+ natural treasures, including Yellowstone, are being severely damaged by sprawling human infrastructure and land use.
“The world would never accept the Acropolis being knocked down, or a couple of pyramids being flattened for housing estates or roads, yet right now, across our planet, we are simply letting many of our natural World Heritage sites become severely altered.” – Dr. James Watson of the University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
In 1972, an international treaty called the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage was adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Its purpose? To earmark and protect the world’s cultural and natural heritage around the world.
Natural World Heritage sites are the places that are globally recognized as hosting the planet’s most valuable, beautiful, special natural assets. As identified by Unesco, there are 229 natural sites across the globe that boast “outstanding universal values” – places with natural treasures so important that they transcend national boundaries. Could it be so hard to treasure these places? To protect them from the creepy creep of human activity?
Apparently, yes.
warns that more than 100 of these special sites are being increasingly damaged, as measured by the global Human Footprint criteria; a metric that includes roads, agriculture, urbanization and industrial infrastructure, and forest loss.
Sixty-three percent of the sites showed an increase in human pressures since 1993. Ninety-one percent have suffered forest loss since 2000.
The most impacted sites are in Asia and include the Manas Wildlife Sanctuary in India, and Chitwan National Park in Nepal; along with Simien National Park in Ethiopia.
Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve in Honduras, lost 8.5 percent of its forest (365 km2) since 2000.
Yellowstone National Park lost 6 percent of its forests since 2000.
Waterton Glacier International Peace Park, which spreads across the Canadian and US border, lost a stunning 23 percent (540 km2) of its forests.
“World Heritage natural sites should be maintained and protected fully. For a site to lose ten or twenty percent of its forested area in two decades is alarming and must be addressed,” says Allan. “Urgent intervention is clearly needed to save these places and their outstanding natural universal values.”
“It is time for the global community to stand up and hold governments to account,” he adds, “so that they take the conservation of natural World Heritage sites seriously.”
By giving a shout-out to the sites that are in immediate danger, the study will hopefully prove useful as a starting point for future consideration and policy. And importantly, will help the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which meets each year to review World Heritage properties, to explore how to protect these singular, unique treasures.
The study was led by an international team of researchers from the University of Queensland, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), University of Northern British Columbia and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It was published in the journal .
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Reposted from Deutsche Welle
Stolen art is not alien to Düsseldorf professor Ulli Seegers, who used to run the German branch of the Art Loss Register. How does she assess the chances of recovering the stolen jewels from Dresden's Green Vault?
DW: Treasures of immeasurable proportions were stolen during the burglary of Dresden's famous Green Vault museum. As an art expert, what did you initially think or feel when you heard about the robbery?
Ulli Seegers: I could hardly believe it at first, because not long ago, the Green Vault was beautifully restored at great expense. That was a pearl, a treasure trove of world cultural heritage. I saw it myself only a few months ago. It is really an immense loss, a treasure that is probably irretrievably lost.
Do you think the Green Vault was underprotected?
That's hard for me as an art historian to judge. Nevertheless, I am sure that this treasure chamber has met the international safety standards due to the aforementioned restoration. At the same time, the fact is that this standard was not sufficient, otherwise this burglary would not have occurred.
It should not be forgotten that museums are not high-security wings. Museums and treasure chambers such as the Green Vault are there to show people humanity's cultural treasures. People have an interest in getting as close as possible to these treasures. This means that one has to weigh up quite carefully what the public interest is and how one can protect these treasures of irretrievable, and above all, cultural value as much as possible. Compromises have to be found. Wherever you let people in and allow the public to participate, there is always a residual risk.
The pressure on the initially successful perpetrators is immense, because they now run the risk of being quickly identified through their valuable stolen items. Half a million euros are, I think, incentive enough for one or two of those involved. We still do not know how far these circles are networked and how structured their operation is. It is to be hoped that perhaps there will be at least someone among them who will be ready to serve as a key witness for this reward.
The stolen treasure is now extremely well known. Why are art and cultural goods such coveted stolen goods in the first place?
In this special case, it has to be noted that we are dealing here with historical jewelry — diamonds with a special cut from the 18th century. Even the material value of such jewels is enormously high. This is completely different with paintings, for example. There is a piece of canvas, a bit of paint, but the value is only defined by the cultural and artistic attribution.
In recent years we have observed an increasing tendency for internationally networked gangs to concentrate on objects that have a high material value. Think of the break-in at the Bode Museum in 2017, when this large gold coin was stolen. It had an almost 100% purity value, over 100 kilograms of pure gold were removed at that time. The same now applies to this jewelry, where there is a real fear that the gangsters will destroy this unique cultural treasure and dismantle it into individual parts.
So, you think the stolen jewels won't sell in their present form and the thieves probably want to have them changed?
Yes, I'm sure. These objects are recorded in detail in various central registers and documented photographically. This means that no jeweler who is not a criminal wouldn't recognize these objects immediately. Simply because of their historical polish, they differ from common branded goods. In this respect, the objects, as they are, are certainly not freely marketable without the perpetrators being caught immediately.
It is rumored again and again that there are art lovers who simply want to own an art treasure. Do you think this is a realistic perspective?
These are stories we know from Hollywood movies. That there's a mystery client in the background, who, due to his infinite love of art and culture, places the order and then enjoys the loot in his personal chambers.
You yourself were Managing Director of the German division of Art Loss Register from 2001 to 2008. What is the purpose of such a register?
Like other databases, the Art Loss Register has a very important function: It collects worldwide reports on missing art. The disappearance of art can occur through theft, robbery, but also confiscation — think of Nazi looted art. In other words, wherever art is missing, it is included in these central registers.
How often are art thefts solved?
You have to distinguish clearly between the different categories. By far the best way to identify paintings is simply by the fact that they are often well documented by photographs or good descriptions. They are, by definition, mostly unique. There's only one original, and you can recognize it very quickly. But even with paintings, the enlightenment rate is in the low two-digit range. When I was managing director of the German register in Cologne, we were at 11-12%. That's a rather frighteningly low rate. With jewels the ratio is unfortunately even smaller.
How much hope can you still give the people of Dresden that their jewels will reappear?
Of course I would also like to give hope to the colleagues on the ground who are doing an excellent job. But due to my experience in the international art market in the field of art crime, the probability that these jewel sets, as they are, will reappear at some point is rather low.
Ulli Seegers is a professor of art education and art management at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, a unique course of study in Germany. She has published, among other things, on "ethics in the art market" and on art of the 20th century. From 2001 to 2008 she was managing director of the German branch of the International Art Loss Register Limited.
Reposted from the REMI Network
While museum relics are meant to be cherished and preserved long-term, the building systems that protect them are not.
At the Textile Museum of Canada, which holds a collection of 13,000 fabrics, garments, carpets and beadwork that are up to 2,000 years old, aging and inadequate infrastructure had put the delicate artifacts at risk of damage or theft. With its mechanical systems due for an upgrade, the museum engaged its operations and solutions consultant to evaluate the building equipment and develop a plan to improve efficiency, increase security and ensure its collection would be protected for many more years.
Improper mechanical systems can pose a range of problems for facility managers. It may become difficult to control the temperature in different parts of a building, making visitors and employees uncomfortable. Delicate materials may be damaged by light or humidity. Poor security measures could result in thefts or safety issues.
The Textile Museum faced all of these threats. With its operations and solutions consultant, the museum developed a three-phase retrofit plan, which focused first on updating building heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, and then on improving security and lighting.
During the first phase, all major HVAC equipment was replaced with new high-efficiency options to help improve comfort and overall performance. Disparate systems also made way for a new building automation system. The system integrates and automates core building functions like HVAC operations, and provides real-time centralized monitoring and control for operators. It also allows operators to set temperature and humidity control for specific sections of the museum, then alerts personnel if levels exceed their limits. Changes can be made remotely, even after business hours – a particularly useful feature for nighttime or holiday events.
With the new system, the museum schedules its equipment operations to maximize efficiency. For example, it can adjust heating and cooling levels based on the time of day to reduce energy use. Detailed graphs chart individual equipment performance and trends for auditors. This allows the museum to address potential issues, such as high humidity levels, before they become problematic for an exhibit.
During the second phase, the security system was overhauled. The team installed closed-circuit television and more than 20 dome cameras throughout the museum. In addition to added security, these motion-sensing cameras also contribute to the facility’s conservation efforts by reducing energy use if no movement occurs. Video is captured and stored in a scalable, IP-based system that allows personnel to easily access video files. The system is integrated into the building automation system for easy monitoring.
Beyond surveillance, the museum also wanted to implement card access and asset locator systems. Artifacts were equipped with security tags that will trigger an alarm if they are moved outside set parameters. Standard card readers throughout the facility help control access and allow the museum to schedule door lock and unlock times. All new equipment ties into the museum’s integrated automation system for easy monitoring.
The final phase of the retrofit focused on lighting. The facility’s 20-year-old light fixtures, tracks and dimmer switches were inefficient and unevenly illuminated museum exhibits. The building also needed to comply with Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) requirements for preserving Canadian heritage collections.
Top of the list of priorities was a move from traditional incandescent lighting to energy-efficient LED bulbs. The team also needed to ensure new lighting complied with CCI requirements for colour, brightness and temperature. A new integrated dimming system allows lighting to be adjusted throughout the museum using the automation system. The lighting improvements helped the museum qualify for $26,000 in energy efficiency incentives through the former Ontario Power Authority’s Save on Energy program.
Right away, the museum began to realize the benefits of lower energy use and less time spent managing and maintaining antiquated building systems. The much-needed retrofit not only fixed existing problems but it also positioned the museum for the future. As technologies develop, it will be able to adapt to take advantage of new methods of safety, security and energy efficiency.
Beyond protecting its own treasures, the changes also provided increased confidence that the museum could safeguard artifacts from the many travelling exhibits it hosts each year. It now has greater ability to expand its exhibits and program offerings. With these updates, the museum can continue to preserve its historic textiles while keeping an eye toward the future as it realizes the long-term benefits of the project.
Reposted from The Art Newspaper
Museums can be hostile places for disabled visitors, with buildings that are hard to navigate by wheelchair and exhibits presented with few concessions to those with sensory or cognitive impairments. But a handful of European institutions have conducted access studies that promise to transform this dispiriting experience, drawing on expert advice from participants with diverse lived experiences of disability.
Through Arches, a three-year European Union-funded research project, more than 200 disabled people have helped design digital technologies to guide visitors with different access needs around the collections of six participating museums. These are the Wallace Collection and Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and Lázaro Galdiano museums in Madrid and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias in Oviedo, northwest Spain. Four technology companies, the Open University and the University of Bath rounded out the project team.
A conference at the Thyssen-Bornemisza last month presented the results: multimedia tactile reliefs of works such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Peasant and the Nest Robber (1568), forthcoming iOS and Android apps that chart routes through the museum galleries, and a game that invites users to create their own collages from collection highlights. All come with customisable access settings, including sign-language videos, audio descriptions and easy-read texts, prototyped and tested by participants with a mix of visual and hearing impairments, and learning difficulties.
Other initiatives reflected the interests of the individual research groups, such as tactile maps now available at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, free life-drawing classes for blind and partially sighted people at the Wallace Collection and orientation videos of the Madrid museums that will be published on their websites.
The project’s “emancipatory” approach—avoiding assumptions about disability categories and handing control to participants—is itself noteworthy. Maria, a blind participant from Oviedo, said at the conference that Arches was “not just a survey”, but an opportunity to make a difference, introducing digital resources previously unavailable at a traditional regional museum. Souad, who is hard of hearing, said that most members of her London group had been unfamiliar with museums, and their experience was enhanced just as much by disability-aware staff as by new technology.
The Arches co-ordinators have published a handbook and organised a series of workshops to share best practices with museum professionals interested in pursuing similar initiatives. After events in Slovenia, Croatia, Italy and France, a final workshop is scheduled in Bonn on 10 December.
The shortcomings of museum accessibility hit the headlines this summer, when Ciara O’Connor, a wheelchair user, complained on Twitter after being told by a gallery attendant in Tate Modern’s Olafur Eliasson exhibition to “go around the side” of a mirrored tunnel installation accessed only by steps. The Tate later apologised that the work was “structurally too narrow to be made safe for wheelchair use”.
Museums perpetuate “routine discrimination” by consistently offering disabled visitors “lesser experiences”, says Richard Sandell, co-director of the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries at the University of Leicester. Despite anti-discrimination laws that require public buildings to be physically accessible, he sees a “gap between minimum compliance and the ambition that is only realised when you involve [disabled] people” in architectural and curatorial planning.
Such “deep engagement” is time-consuming, but it “saves museums a lot of money in making mistakes that need rectifying”, says Tony Heaton, a sculptor and wheelchair user who chairs the disability-led charity Shape Arts.
Sandell and Heaton advised on a new gallery at London’s Wellcome Collection, Being Human, which they describe as a standard-bearer in inclusive exhibition design. In an “ongoing process of consultation”, feedback was sought from deaf, disabled and neurodiverse people during the gallery’s development and after it opened, a spokeswoman says. The Wellcome’s inclusive design guidelines will be published online this month as “a way of exchanging knowledge with our colleagues in the sector”, she adds.
“New experiences, exhibitions and programmes need to be done with and not for disabled people,” Sandell says. “It’s not rocket science, but it does require organisational commitment.”
The International Foundation for Cultural Property Protection (IFCPP) is very pleased to announce that Stevan P. Layne, CPP, CIPM, CIPI, is now scheduling 2020 keynote conference addresses on the topic of institutional and business protection, with an emphasis on security, safety, and emergency preparedness. Mr. Layne continues his lengthy career as a featured speaker and seminar leader across the U.S. and abroad. For over four decades, Steve has served as a leader in setting the standards for protecting staff, visitors, facilities, collections, and assets. Mr. Layne was recently recognized by Security Magazine as one of the “Most Influential People in Security”. He is the Founding Director of the International Foundation for Cultural Property Protection, President and CEO of Layne Consultants International, and the author of “Safeguarding Cultural Properties”, the “Cultural Property Protection Manual”, the “Official Library Security Manual”, and (co-author of) “Suggested Guidelines in Museum Security”. His articles and interviews have regularly appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, L.A. Times, and numerous other leading publications. Mr. Layne is responsible for the development and initiation of operating policies and procedures for over 2500 museums, historic sites, national parks, libraries, zoological facilities, botanic gardens, performing arts venues, and educational institutions. Video and online protection programs authored and presented by Mr. Layne are utilized by numerous institutions internationally. His keynote and special presentations are recognized by audiences and attendees as the most dynamic, timely, and informative opportunities they have experienced.
On a limited basis, Mr. Layne shall be available for keynote presentations at regional, national, and international conference gatherings. His presentations on Nuts & Bolts Protection Considerations, Workplace Violence Prevention (including “The First Five Minutes with an Active Shooter Incident”), Confrontation Management/De-Escalation, and Emergency Management, and are high on the list of presentations in demand. If you’d like to offer your conference audience a unique, and top-rated keynote experience, please contact us now. For scheduling and additional information, we’re available 24/7/365 at rob@ifcpp.org or 303-322-9667.
IFCPP maintains an extensive Speaker’s Bureau and training repertoire, so if you’re looking for cultural property protection training on any topic, we have it covered. Additional topics include:
Protecting Collections on Exhibit, in Transit & in Storage
Ejecting Unruly Patrons
Guest Relations/Staff Security Awareness
Entry Screening Considerations
Special Event Security
Emergency Exercise Coordination
Pre-Employment Screening, Hiring & Firing
Loss Prevention & Theft Prevention
Physical & Electronic Security Considerations
Fire Prevention
Security Officer Basic Training
Guard Force Management
Legal Considerations in Security
Please contact Rob Layne at rob@ifcpp.org or 303.377.2176 (direct) for additional information about keynote presentations, concurrent session topics, industry certification courses, and stand-alone workshops.
Reposted from the Wall Street Journal
German police are investigating what experts are calling one of the most devastating jewelry heists in history after nearly a hundred pieces of 18th-century jewelry were stolen from one of Europe’s most renowned treasure collections early Monday.
Police described a sophisticated predawn burglary at the 500-year-old Royal Castle of Dresden, where an unknown number of thieves broke in through a window, descended to the Grünes Gewölbe gallery, took an ax to a jewelry case and within minutes had captured at least three sets of priceless Baroque-era jewelry before fleeing the scene in an Audi A6.
Authorities have appointed a special task force, named Commission Epaulette, to investigate the crime. As of late Monday, 20 criminologists were working on the case and no arrests had been made.
“It’s certainly one of the greatest art robberies in history,” said Vivienne Becker, a London-based jewelry historian and author, who said it is impossible to calculate the monetary value of the stolen jewels because of their unique historical value to the art of goldsmithing.
“It’s as if someone broke into the Louvre and had taken the Mona Lisa,” she said.
Museum officials said it wasn’t possible to put an exact value on the stolen pieces, which include several diamond brooches, a string of pearls and an epée with a diamond-encrusted hilt.
“We are talking here of objects of immeasurable cultural value,” said Dirk Syndram, a German art historian and director of the Grünes Gewölbe, known in English as the Green Vault.
Police descriptions and security footage offered a detailed account of Monday’s heist. Shortly before 5 a.m. local time, the thieves broke into the Dresden Castle through a window on Sophienstrasse and made their way through the building to the Jewelry Room in the Green Vault.
Following widely practiced protocol, the castle’s unarmed security staff alerted local police upon spotting the burglary in progress on surveillance cameras, which showed at least two suspects wearing dark, hooded clothing, carrying flashlights and repeatedly swinging an ax into a glass showcase until it split open.
The first police car arrived at the museum at 5:04, but by then the criminals had cleared out.
Authorities believe the thieves left the scene in an Audi A6. A vehicle matching that description was found on fire in a nearby garage and seized by police. Criminologists working on the case suspect a link to another fire at an electrical box that cut power to streetlights in the area.
Soaring art prices and systematic security flaws at museums are attracting a new generation of art thieves, many of whom have started taking art by force in broad daylight rather than by stealth like the Dresden thieves, according to the International Council of Museums, a nonprofit organization representing at least 1,900 museums and galleries around the world.
Last week, a burglar tried to walk out of London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery with a pair of Rembrandt van Rijn paintings before being spotted by police. The burglar sprayed a substance on an officer and escaped without arrest, leaving the artworks behind.
Days later, a pair of metal-detector enthusiasts in England were jailed for stealing an ancient group of Viking-era jewelry and coins from a Herefordshire field in 2015 and seeking to sell them rather than report their discovery, as required under British law.
When the international police agency Interpol launched its online database of stolen art world-wide in August, it listed around 34,000 objects. The London-based Art Loss Register also flags and tracks thousands of missing artworks, making it difficult, experts said, for any of the Dresden pieces to be fenced. U.S. residents are the biggest buyers in the estimated $6 billion global black market for art, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Other notorious art heists include the one committed by a pair who impersonated police officers and robbed Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990; the 13 artworks they took, including a painting by Johannes Vermeer, are collectively valued by the FBI at more than $500 million. The works have never been recovered. Neither has Caravaggio’s “Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco,” which was stolen from the Oratory of San Lorenzo in Palermo, Italy, in 1969.
Monday’s heist is the second spectacular burglary in Germany in recent years. Earlier this year, the trial began for four men charged with the 2017 theft of a giant gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum.
The coin, weighing some 220 pounds and valued at €3.75 million ($4.1 million), was a commemorative “Big Maple Leaf” coin from the Royal Canadian Mint. It, too, hasn’t been recovered.
Around 90% of museum thefts are linked to someone with ties to the institution, according to the Denver-based International Foundation for Cultural Property, which suggested that German authorities would likely scrutinize the palace staff for clues.
The theft is a devastating blow to the Green Vault, one of Europe’s largest treasure chambers. The gallery of eight lavishly decorated rooms houses the eclectic collection of artworks, jewelry and curiosities amassed by Augustus the Strong, a Saxon ruler who also became king of Poland in the 18th century.
The Baroque-era rooms where the jewels were displayed were damaged during World War II and their content plundered by the Soviet Red Army. But the collection was returned in 1958 and the royal residence that originally housed it was renovated in the early 2000s. The Green Vault eventually reopened in 2006 as a near-perfect replica of the original chamber.
Ms. Becker, the historian, said the Green Vault collection stood alone in the world for the vast breadth of its jewels from the 18th century, an era when European artisans were beginning to use diamonds in high-art jewelry.
Unlike other renowned jewelry collections amassed over many years at museums like the Victoria and Albert in London, the Green Vault collection, Ms. Becker said, was unique for having been assembled contemporaneously by royalty in Saxony.
“There’s nothing like it in the world, in one place,” she said. “It was the symbol of man’s highest achievement at that age. It is very much more than jewelry.”
Reposted from Dark Reading
Consumer privacy has long been the focal point of controversies regarding how companies handle personal data. While this is clearly an important matter, it has kept the spotlight off of another important issue: the way businesses handle the personal data of their own people.
Consumer privacy is typically associated with the way companies use personal data to make a profit. But employee data is used by companies to monitor for things such as security threats, risky online behavior, and productivity drains. Because monitoring for these types of issues is essential for any business, it's easy to see how some companies might justify higher levels of employee surveillance.
The US Electronics Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), enacted in 1986, prohibits companies from carrying out certain privacy infringements, such as monitoring their employees' personal phone calls without consent. Even if the federal government were to conduct an overhaul to employee privacy legislation, it would be extremely complex and probably become antiquated shortly after its enactment — given the rate at which technology advances.
Employee privacy is a difficult subject. And for today's increasingly mobile workplace, it's becoming even more difficult.
When Smartphones Are Put to Work It wasn't too long ago that monitoring people through their phones was synonymous with wiretapping. And it also wasn't too long ago that a company-issued desktop computer or laptop was the primary or only computer one would use in the workplace.
Today, mobile Internet traffic eclipses desktop/laptop traffic, accounting for 52% of combined traffic worldwide, according to a September 2019 report from Statista.
When cellular phones first transformed into handheld computers, the way companies distributed them to employees generally followed the way any other work equipment was distributed. And while the intent may have been for company-issued smartphones to be looked at by employees the same way company-issued desktops or laptops are typically considered — as company property for company purposes — there's a much greater mix of personal and business use on smartphones compared with desktops/laptops. According to our research, 50% of all corporate data usage on mobile devices is not business critical.
Given this degree of personal and business activity on the same device, businesses are constantly adapting the ways they approach mobility, and employee privacy is becoming a major factor in this ongoing process.
The method of ownership for mobile devices used by employees has expanded beyond the traditional corporate owned, business only (COBO) model to include bring your own device (BYOD) and company owned, personally enabled (COPE) models. Today, many businesses use mixed combinations of these ownership models across individual employees and departments.
BYOD has been widely adopted in recent years and, on the surface, it makes a lot of sense. As of 2018, 81% of Americans owned a smartphone, according to Pew Research Center. Why spend money on a new phones for employees when they probably already have their own? Why not just offer a fixed stipend to compensate them for work-related activity conducted on their devices? It's like the difference between providing a company car and reimbursing an employee for gas expenses.
There are obvious privacy ramifications of monitoring what a person does on his or her personal device, even if there are reasonable grounds from a security perspective when it comes to business data and applications. An organization has a strong basis for seeing what their employees do with files stored in their corporate Dropbox account, for example, but should it also be able to see their employees' private messages, social media activity, and photos?
Regardless of whether an employee is using a corporate-issued device or their own device for work, there is bound to be some crossover between personal and business data. And when businesses collect and monitor employee data, how can they approach this crossover in a responsible way that does not infringe on personal privacy or compromise any security measures?
Employee Privacy Framework To find the right balance, organizations can utilize a framework made up of four pillars to inform the way they handle their employees' personal information as they establish privacy policies, develop their internal infrastructures, and implement new products.
These pillars are: User Identity, User Activity, Policy, and Transparency.
Under each pillar are best practices for how organizations should collect, store, and use their employees' personal information. These best practices can account for many gray areas that currently make it difficult for certain security processes to be conducted without infringing on employees' personal privacy.
Source: Wandera
For example, in monitoring network activity, a company needs to understand who is accessing corporate resources and from what devices, as well as determine "normal" parameters so that anything unusual can be detected and flagged for inspection. However, in COPE and BYOD environments, what behaviors are OK for businesses to monitor?
By applying the principle of data minimization, organizations can limit the amount of information collected to only what is needed for the intended purpose. This could mean that user information would only be collected on the work profile of a device, or only when corporate applications are in use. It could also mean that location data is not continuously tracked or that the access of personal applications (such as social media, messaging, photos, etc.) is not monitored.
Taking this approach of only collecting the most necessary data, when it's necessary, should help organizations approach their employees' personal information in a more responsible manner, helping them establish better trust with their people as they keep the business secure.
Reposted from ArtNet News
Dresden’s Green Vault remains a closed-off crime scene while the rest of the Royal Palace museum reopened to the public on Wednesday, November 27. Police continue to search for evidence as they hunt for the thieves who robbed the Green Vault of 11 pieces of Baroque jewelry early on Monday.
With each passing day, fears are growing that the pieces may be broken up. The heist seems to be the work of professionals, and officials are concerned that the pieces will be dismantled, with diamonds and other precious stones re-cut and then sold.
According to the director of Dresden’s State Art Collections, Marion Ackermann, the stolen items are “priceless.” So priceless that they were not insured. According Saxony’s finance minister, the lack of insurance is standard practice because the premiums tend to exceed the cost of repairing any potential damages. The royal jewels taken include a sword with a diamond-encrusted handle, diamond shoe buckles, buttons, and hair clips, as well as a diamond necklace.
Police have established that is it likely the work of not just the two thieves caught on security camera, but of four robbers. The gang sprayed fire extinguishers to cover their tracks after breaking into the iron gate of the Royal Palace museum where they smashed a small window to gain access to the historic Green Vault, and then axing the glass vitrines that held some of the museum’s most precious and historic items.
A burned-out getaway car was found after the incident. The police are assuming the vehicle (some reports say it was an Audi A6) and another fire at an electrical box nearby to the museum are connected to the robbery. The electrical box fire caused nearby street lights and the museum to be plunged into darkness; it also meant the alarm system was not activated. Security guards spotted the thieves on security cameras and immediately notified the police, who were on the scene within five minutes. So far, a special commission set up for the investigation has received 205 tips from the public.
The Green Vault is one of the largest collections of Baroque treasures in Europe. It was founded by Augustus the Strong, an 18th-century prince-elector of the German state of Saxony, who was also the King of Poland.
The theft has sent ripples of insecurity through the European and international museum community. The president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Hermann Parzinger, told German media on Tuesday that there is “an increased threat to museums here.” Parzinger, who oversees 20 museums in the German capital, has called on the nation’s police authorities and security experts to set up a task force to address museum security in the face of “the criminal energy” behind the heist.
Germany’s minister of culture Monika Grütters echoed Parzinger’s call in an interview with Düsseldorf’s Rheinische Post on Wednesday, November 27 to establish a task force to deal with the vulnerability of Germany’s collections. Many other incredibly valuable artifacts, art, and objects are housed in Germany, she notes: “In our museums there are art treasures that make up the cultural identity of our country and whose value is in the billions,” she said.
Thieves were unable to steal Dresden’s Green Diamond, which is on loan, along with other objects, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “We are devastated by the theft of the treasures from the Grünes Gewölbe [Green Vault], which are held so deeply in the hearts of the people of Dresden, and also so important to the cultural history of the world,” said Met director Max Hollein in a message of support to Dresden.
Reposted from Sputnik News
Over 100 groups on Facebook are involved in the trade of looted antiquities from the Middle East, but shutting them down would mean losing track of previously undocumented artefacts, Amr al-Azm, a co-director of the Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project, said.
“Now it’s over 100 groups on Facebook that are involved in it and are active. The number is growing, it’s not shrinking,” al-Azm, a founding member of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online, said, adding that social media has helped traffickers extend their reach in short periods of time.
The historian pointed out that these objects did not come from museums, making these posts on Facebook the only documentation available for the artefacts in question. It is for this reason that al-Azm emphasized the importance of cooperation on Facebook’s part so that this data could be preserved and the appropriate action taken against traffickers.
“This is coming straight from the ground, so the only picture, the only evidence proving that this object ever existed in our human history is the image that somebody posted on Facebook. If you are going to delete that, then it will be lost, the record will be gone. So for us, it is imperative that Facebook preserve this data and take all the necessary steps to download it and save it for future needs, and then begin to cooperate with law enforcement agencies and with groups like ourselves who are involved. We have a lot of experience to help them begin to disrupt the use of the platform for this kind of activities,” he continued.
The researcher noted that starting this fall, he had been seeing Facebook grow increasingly aware of the problem. In particular, the social media platform has hired a team of regional experts on Syria who are now looking into the situation, he added.
According to the Amr al-Azm, a possible launch of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency may inadvertently boost trade in looted antiquities from conflict zones.
“Can you imagine how much easier it is going to be now for these people to buy and sell? We are really worried about that. It is going to make the situation much worse. Trafficking that occurs on Facebook is not just looted antiquities,” al-Azm, a founding member of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online, said.
He remarked that Facebook had yet to address the initial problem of the illegal antiquities trade via the social network.
“Without Facebook addressing the initial problem of what is being sold on its platform, by launching the currency they are just adding yet another way to make the platform even more attractive for these people to do their business. From the Facebook monetization perspective, it is perfect of course. They make money off it. The revenue is too good,” he continued.
Some of the artefacts plundered in Syria go to Turkey through passing points controlled by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly known as the Nusra Front terrorist group (banned in Russia), according to al-Azm. However, he said that Lebanon was now “the main exit point” for looted artefacts, followed by Turkey and Jordan “to a lesser extent.”
Buyers can be found in the Gulf states, Southeast Asia, Europe and America, according to the researcher, who has studied the activity of almost 100 Arabic Facebook groups involved in the trade of looted cultural items from the Middle East.
“Here is a real-life example. There is a Jordanian dealer who has a fixer in Istanbul. The Jordanian dealer gets a sense of what he wants on Facebook, then he tells his fixer what he is looking for. Then he books a flight, a holiday in Istanbul, he shows up in Istanbul, the fixer meets him at the airport, gives him a one-time-use phone, takes him to the hotel and then the fixer will arrange for the people with the goods to come to the hotel to meet with the guy. He sees the samples of the goods and then he decides to take an excursion trip to southern part of Turkey near the Syrian border where there are some other goods that may look interesting for him, and then he settles the bill, he leaves Istanbul, and then the smugglers do the arrangements,” al-Azm said.
The situation in Lebanon is slightly different because dealers there usually have "associates in Syria and in opposition-held areas" that they can send check the item, and who then leave and open a route for said item to be smuggled into Beirut, he continued.
Smugglers use Lebanon because of the loose control over the movement of cultural items and the existing arrangements between Syrian looters and Hezbollah, the researcher suggested.
“Now, on Facebook, there is a guy who is selling a looted item from Afrin with a beautiful mosaic. I have been told that they are now sitting north of Beirut waiting to be shipped out. The thing was looted by a Nusra affiliate. Then they had arrangements with Hezbollah people, they smuggled it to Lebanon, and they get smuggled out,” al-Azm said.
He further remarked that corrupt officials close to the Syrian government may also be involved in these illegal schemes.
“You can’t see it in terms of the regime being involved officially in the traffic of looted antiquities, but endemic corruption and non-state actors, as well as para-military formations fighting alongside the regime supplement their income by participating in illegal trafficking, dealing, smuggling of contraband, including looted antiquities,” al-Azm said.
Trade in looted antiquities needs to be countered from both ends, and the acquisition of such items made into a criminal offence directly tied with funding terrorism, the researcher continued.
“The problem of trafficking in antiquities is like anything else — it’s a supply and demand. You have to address the supply side, but you also have to address the demand side,” al-Azm said.
One way of achieving this, according to the researcher, would be to make people understand that the items of suspicious origin they buy have a “fairly high chance” of having been “looted and trafficked by an entity, person or organization with terrorist connections,” thereby making the buyer a funder of terrorism.
“If we can somehow get that to become a legal thing, criminalize it, then it’s not just that you are buying a questionable item – you are now funding terrorism. That becomes a much bigger issue legally,” he continued.
Such an approach could be a “game-changer,” al-Azm said.
“Until that, I don’t think we will be doing anywhere near what should be done. … But I do not think there is a will on the part of the international community to go that far either. Unfortunately, in the absence of all that, it’s only going to get worse,” he said.
The ATHAR cooperated with people on the ground who could witness and document looting. The research team could then compare the information they had received with sale offers on Facebook. Most ads were for jewellery, coins and mosaics, some of which are worth up to $80,000 dollars.
A final report summarizing the project’s work was published in June 2019. At the time, it had found that 95 Arabic Facebook groups were using the platform for antiquities trafficking and that individuals associated with terrorist organizations in Syria were among their members.
Reposted from The Journal (Ireland)
A night security man at All Hallows College who stole artwork and sold it through Sotheby’s auction house has been given a suspended sentence.
Petr Balint (41), of Glen Ellan Drive, Swords, Co Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to theft of 33 art prints and an “incunabula” – defined as a book printed before 1501 – from All Hallows College, Grace Park Road , Dublin 9, on dates between January 2013 and June 2014.
Balint further pleaded guilty to theft of four prayer books and six other books during the same time.
Judge Martin Nolan said Balint had been working alone and “wandering aimlessly” through the building when he succumbed to temptation and took these items.
He said Balint had received about €20,000 for some of the stolen items and suspicion fell upon him when he replaced some of the stolen work.
Judge Nolan noted that theft from employers was “well trodden ground” and that the Court of Appeal has said a four year sentence with the final two years suspended was appropriate for the theft of €250,000.
He said this case did not approach that and that a custodial sentence was not appropriate by reason of the amount involved. He imposed a two and a half year sentence which he suspended in full.
Detective Garda James Woods told Kieran Kelly BL, prosecuting, that All Hallows, founded in 1842, had begun to wind down in May 2014 and prepare for sale. He said Balint was employed by a security company and worked nights, as well as occasional weekends.
Det Gda Woods said during an inventory process it became apparent some items were missing. GardaÍ were contacted and investigation begun.
The investigation discovered that the “incunabula”, which was two volumes bound into one, and the prints had been put up for auction via Sotheby’s by Balint. He told the auction house they belonged to his mother. Some of the prints had sold for a total of £22,148 sterling.
The “incunabula” was put up for auction valued at between four to six thousand Sterling. It did not sell and was returned to Balint. Balint then returned the “incunabula” to All Hallows in a plastic bag handing it to staff and claiming he had found it.
Sotheby’s were able to purchase the prints back from the buyers when alerted by gardai.
A search of Balint’s house was carried out and gardai recovered four “Breviarium Romanum” prayer books.
They also found six other books: “The history of Co Dublin Vol I to VI”; “Persecutions of Irish Catholics”; “The Capuchin Annual” 1969 and 1967; “St Ceclia’s Hymn Book” and “Ancient Egypt.”
Det Gda Woods said the items recovered in the house were not valuable.
The garda agreed with Luigi Rea BL, defending, that the art work had been prints – depicting scenes in Rome – and were not originals. He agreed that a poor inventory had been kept, that there had been a number of break ins and books were deteriorating through leaks.
Mr Rea said Balint had been told he could take small items and had taken them at their word.
He said Balint had come to Ireland in 2004 and had worked in All Hallows for six or seven years. He said he had been working there while it was closing down around him. He said Balint had taken what he thought was abandoned.
Mr Rea submitted that Balint had taken religious art which was currently “not very fashionable.”
He said Balint, a married father of one, had used the money for housekeeping. He said his client had been on a low wage and used the money to supplement this. He said Balint did not have an art collection worth millions at home. He has no previous convictions.
He said Balint should not have done what he did and submitted he was now in honest work.
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