What are some of the areas where digital leaders can take a page from Grant’s book when it comes to persistence? As a CIO, you’re always being asked to do more with less in terms of budget and staffing. So you have to be persistently resourceful. A great example are cloud costs. Nobody ever says, ‘Oh, yeah, Mark showed up, put in the solution, we’re all good now. We’re very satisfied and happy with what we’re spending on the cloud.’ No, it’s an ongoing saga. And in all those cases you have to be persistent. In terms of staffing, you have to persistently manage performance, and people will respect you for that. You might think IT is in a walled-off fort, not visible to other people in the company. Nothing could be further from the truth. A large cross-section of your IT team is living in a glass house, and whatever dysfunctionality is occurring within your organization is far more obvious to people outside of IT than you can imagine. Even if your IT group is in a warehouse away from every other corporate facility, there are just too many interactions that go on with your business partners, and if you’re not persistently managing that performance, it will come back to bite you, and undermine the proactive things you want to do in the future in terms of budget and staffing.  source

By Rae Ann Varona ( December 12, 2024, 10:47 PM EST) — The Writers Guild of America on Wednesday called on several major entertainment studios to swiftly take legal action against technology companies they assert are stealing writers’ works to train artificial intelligence systems and making billions of dollars from the “wholesale theft.”… Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Sapient Intelligence, Singapore’s first foundation model AI startup, has announced the successful closure of its seed funding round, raising $22 million at a valuation of $200 million. Backed by prominent investors including Vertex Ventures, Sumitomo Corporation, and JAFCO, the company is hoping to carve a distinctive path in AI development, addressing what it sees as fundamental shortcomings in GPT-style models. “The goal of the startup, really, is to make a new generation of foundational model architectures to solve really complicated and long-horizon reasoning tasks that are really challenging for large language models (LLMs), especially for GPT architectures, to solve,” said cofounder Austin Zheng in a recent interview with VentureBeat conducted over video chat. New architectures beyond traditional Transformers Traditional GPT-style models rely on autoregressive methods, which generate predictions by building sequentially on prior outputs. While effective for general tasks, this approach struggles with multi-step reasoning and complex problem-solving. “With current models, they’re all trained with an autoregressive method, and with that, the benefit is it’s easier for the model to converge on [a] general task,” Zheng explained. “So it sounds really smart, so it can solve a lot of different tasks. It has a really good generalization capability, but it’s really, really difficult for them to solve…complicated and long-horizon, multi-step tasks. And that’s kind of where hallucination comes in.” Sapient’s answer is a novel model architecture inspired by neuroscience and mathematics, blending Transformer components with recurrent neural network structures and mimicking how the human brain works. “The model will always evaluate the solution, evaluate options and give [you] a reward model based on that,” Zheng said. “And also the model can continuously calculate something recurrently until it gets to a correct solution. With that, our agent will be able to deploy to an environment in an enterprise or [a] production environment, and continuously learn and improve…by trial and error and learn to be an expert on the existing code base.” This design underpins the flexibility and power of Sapient’s models, enabling them to tackle a broad range of tasks with precision and reliability. It also puts them up against the new generation of reasoning models from OpenAI with its o1 series, as well as other Chinese competitors. Excelling in benchmarks and beyond The company’s innovations are reflected in benchmark performance. “The first benchmark we use is actually Sudoku,” Zheng told VentureBeat. “Right now, our model is the best performing neural network in terms of solving Sudoku on the market — 95% accuracy without using intermediate tools and data.” According to Zheng, while other leading models needed to train on intermediate steps to solve the popular numeric ordering puzzle, Sapient provided the model only with unfinished Sudoko boards, the rules, and the final solutions, obligating it to infer on its own how to solve them through trial and error. Similarly, Sapient’s models have excelled in tasks like two-dimensional navigation and complex mathematical problem-solving, consistently outperforming competing approaches. Training these models is another area where Sapient distinguishes itself. “Unlike traditional models that require vast amounts of high-quality, step-by-step data, our approach needs only question-and-answer pairs. This significantly lowers the barrier for training complex models,” Zheng said. By leveraging synthetic data, Sapient reduces the dependency on curated datasets, creating scalable and efficient training pipelines. Practical applications: From code to robots Sapient’s initial focus is on real-world applications, starting with enterprise coding and robotics. Its autonomous coding agents aim to revolutionize how businesses manage their software development and maintenance needs. The company is planning an autonomous AI coding agent in their strategic investors enterprise environments to learn the company’s codebase and ultimately, begin maintaining and contributing to it. Sapient aims to offer a similar service to other enterprise clients, what Zheng describes as “smart and tailored AI employees and AI software engineers that can help them maintain, update and also grow the existing tech stacks.” Unlike Cognition’s Devin, powered by GPT-4o, Sapient believes its coding AI agents will be able to work autonomously — without any human guiding the process or troubleshooting issues, save for supervisors checking over the work before it is pushed live. The company is also advancing embodied AI, designing models that enable robots to interact, learn, and adapt in real time. “There are only a handful of startups working on understanding of [an] environment, and also planning of options and tasks, and understanding what kind of tasks are possible — also continuous[ly] improving itself on understanding the environment, understanding the problem, and understanding the use cases,” Zheng pointed out. “This will be our main focus for the next onen to two years.” A global vision Sapient is setting itself apart not just through technology but also though its global and inclusive approach. “There are very few AI startups at a foundational model level outside of China actually led by Asian founders,” Zheng noted. “We really want to position ourselves as an international and research-oriented organization. But also, we want to be one of the first, few Asian-led international research organizations that are solving really, really challenging problems, and we’re seeing that coming to fruition as well.” With offices in Singapore and plans for the Bay Area, the company is building an AI research lab to bring together diverse perspectives and talent. Its team reflects this ethos, comprising scientists and engineers from leading institutions like DeepMind, Anthropic, and Microsoft AI. This diversity, combined with strong partnerships with Japanese investors like Sumitomo Corporation, positions Sapient as a unique player in the global AI ecosystem. Targeting individuals and enterprises Sapient’s long-term vision is ambitious, targeting technology that can be applied with results equally useful to individuals and enterprises. “The goal at the very end will be to build a truly generalized agent that can actually solve a day-to-day task for our users — an ‘all agent solution’ for a personal assistant and for solving all your tasks…That’s where we are in terms of

As I reflect on my 2024 blog posts, one theme stands out: excellence in revenue enablement. The primary mission should be to serve your internal customers. Every micro effort — whether in learning, adoption, management, or culture — must be laser-focused on seller success. Nothing else matters. Here is a summary: “32 To 36 Courses” Is Not Revenue Enablement — Too often, sales learning is conducted as a reaction to negative lagging outcomes, such as “We lost a bunch of similar deals, so we need to retrain everyone.” Or more positively, a new product launch is pending, necessitating seller education … but no one thought months ago to request time in the revenue enablement learning calendar. This blog delves into the key filters for generating ever-boarding experiences: Enablement teams must ascertain if it’s necessary, who should learn, when it’s optimally delivered, and how to provide it most effectively. Why Can’t My Sellers Adapt More Quickly? — There isn’t a B2B seller whose remit today is exactly the same as two years ago, and most quota-bearing professionals recognize that their compensation, territory, offerings, buyers, and competitors are constantly in flux. This blog guides enablers through the essential needs to communicate through change management best practices and to establish and maintain role-specific sales competency maps to transparently broadcast how selling duties are adapting, as well as lays out scenarios where it might just be foolish to expect overwhelming evolution among certain individual contributors. What’s Lurking In Your Sales Culture? — While our research team has already been at work preparing for B2B Summit North America 2025 since October, the lessons of our 2024 event continue to resonate with revenue enablement leaders charged with high-altitude thinking around their sales culture. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Katy Tynan in combining her team’s culture energy research with the ups and downs of B2B sales-specific cultural growth. This blog explores the entire sales talent lifecycle, from hiring and onboarding through ever-boarding and career development. The TL;DR? Even in the crustiest, most traditional sales organizations, paying attention to the culture within your revenue team impacts the lagging indicators that matter to the C-suite. How Quickly Should A Sales Rep Be Onboarded? — This common question is one of the few we’re comfortable not answering with the typical analyst response of “It depends.” Because the answer is: Onboard B2B sellers well, not quickly. Look, I’ve been a sales leader, too, in urgent need of territory coverage, who rushed reps into the field; it never works out well for reps, the company, or especially the customer. This blog highlights the fact that adult learning science contradicts how too many B2B organizations ramp sellers: by quickly teaching them too much at their start, praying that it sticks, and rapidly releasing them into the field. Instead, high-performing revenue enablement teams learn how to feather in selling and feather out learning over a more extended period of time. The year-one and long-term results are almost always better than hurried sales onboarding. The Chief Sales Officer And Cultural Leader: Not A Contradiction In Terms — Returning to Katy and her “future of work” colleague Angelina Gennis and their wonderful research on organizational leadership and culture, this blog applies their lessons to sales-specific subcultures. The main takeaway remains true: “Today’s CSOs have unprecedented access to leadership best practices, along with the tools to amplify how they effectively motivate, inspire, and coach their team.” First-Line Sales Managers: Promote Or Hire? — In June, we published irrefutable but controversial research findings: All else being equal, chief sales officers are better off hiring first-line sales managers than promoting from within. No, Forrester isn’t broadly advising CSOs to eliminate sales career development, but we do find that most firms are poor at effectively growing sales leaders. This blog showcases a spectrum of FLSM staffing approaches from four external organizations that serve as superb, thoughtful examples of the many options available to revenue leaders in need of new management talent. Revenue Enablement Is Not In The Tool Business — … Because buying technology solves no problems and enablement teams have little value if they’re not agents of change and orchestrators of efficiency and effectiveness within their revenue engine. Your job as a revenue enabler is first and foremost applying insight-driven expertise to friction points within the sales organization; once your processes and people are optimized, then of course the opportunity to scale and automate enablement excellence should follow. Under no circumstance should your sellers, however, think of your team as the purveyor of shiny-object technologies. It’s been a busy, exciting, challenging year. What will 2025 bring? source

By Grace Elletson ( December 13, 2024, 1:13 PM EST) — A group of current and former Cisco workers lodged charges with workplace discrimination and labor regulators accusing the company of allowing Palestinian employees to be harassed for criticizing its decision to provide technology to the Israeli military in its war with Hamas…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

By Adam Lidgett ( December 13, 2024, 7:20 PM EST) — The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has found that most of the challenged claims across two patents related to the use of artificial intelligence in self-driving vehicles are invalid, handing a win to challenger Tesla…. Law360 is on it, so you are, too. A Law360 subscription puts you at the center of fast-moving legal issues, trends and developments so you can act with speed and confidence. Over 200 articles are published daily across more than 60 topics, industries, practice areas and jurisdictions. A Law360 subscription includes features such as Daily newsletters Expert analysis Mobile app Advanced search Judge information Real-time alerts 450K+ searchable archived articles And more! Experience Law360 today with a free 7-day trial. source

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Chip equipment maker Lam Research introduced Dextro, the chip industry’s first collaborative robot (cobot) designed to optimize critical maintenance tasks in chip factories. The robots have been deployed in multiple advanced wafer fabs around the world. Dextro enables accurate, high-precision maintenance to minimize tool downtime and production variability. It drives significant first-time-right (FTR) results that can enhance yield in wafer fabrication plants. If successful, the robots could make semiconductor manufacturing — which is the foundation for revenue in the billions in the electronics industry — a lot more efficient. Today’s wafer fabrication equipment utilizes advanced physics, robotics and chemistry to create semiconductors at nanoscale. A typical fab has hundreds of process tools that each require regular, complex maintenance. Dextro is designed to improve the cost-effectiveness of this equipment by performing critical maintenance tasks with repeatability and sub-micron precision. “Dextro is an exciting leap forward in semiconductor manufacturing equipment maintenance. Built to work side-by-side with fab engineers, it executes complex maintenance tasks with precision and repeatability that are beyond human capability alone, enabling higher tool uptime and manufacturing yield,” said Chris Carter, group vice president of the customer support business group at Lam Research, in a statement. “It is a powerful addition to Lam’s extensive portfolio of tools and services designed to help chipmakers optimize their fabs for cost and productivity.” As fabs continue to grow in size, geographic diversity, and equipment complexity, chipmakers need to optimize the effectiveness of their fab engineers by increasing automation and adding efficiencies. This is becoming even more important as the number of semiconductor positions worldwide continues to outpace the availability of skilled engineers. Precision is crucial in tool maintenance, where the accurate reassembly of subsystems translates to the bottom line. Achieving FTR saves time and cost. Repeatable maintenance also reduces waste associated with consumable parts, labor and production downtime, leading to less variability and higher yield in production. “When manufacturing equipment requires maintenance, the work must be done quickly and efficiently to avoid extended tool downtime and wasted cost,” said Young Ju Kim, vice president and head of the Memory Etch Technology Team at Samsung Electronics, in a statement. “Error-free maintenance by Dextro helps drive improvements in production variability and yield. This is an exciting milestone in Samsung’s journey to the autonomous fab.” Dextro is a mobile unit with a robotic arm operated by a fab technician or engineer. It uses various end-effectors as hands to manage critical equipment maintenance tasks that are time-consuming and prone to errors when done manually. For example, it precisely installs and compresses consumable components with more than twicethe accuracy of manual application. Precise assembly helps control etch performance at the wafer edge, improving yield. Dextro tightens high-precision vacuum-sealing bolts to exact specifications, relieving fab engineers of a repetitive task that has up to a 5% error rate when done manually. Accurately meeting specifications eliminates chamber temperature deviations that may take a tool out of production and impact die yield. And Dextro removes side-wall polymer build-up within the chamber, without the burden of disassembly of the lower chamber. Importantly, it does this at lower risk to humans who require heavy protective breathing equipment to perform the task manually. Lam’s Flex G and H series dielectric etch tools are currently supported by Dextro, expanding toadditional tools in 2025 and beyond. “With the enormous increase in demand that AI is bringing to the semiconductor market, it’s critical for chipmakers to keep all their manufacturing equipment working as efficiently as possible to minimize downtime,” noted Bob O’Donnell, president of TECHnalysis Research, in a statement. “Dextro can automate tedious, time-consuming and, often, intricate cleaning and maintenance tasks on chip fabrication equipment so that manufacturing output can be maximized. It offers a huge benefit for companies that choose to deploy it.” Dextro joins a portfolio of smart solutions from Lam that enhance efficiency and reduce the cost of operations for semiconductor fabs. This includes the Lam Equipment Intelligence process tools with autonomous calibration and self-adapting maintenance capabilities, as well as Equipment Intelligence Services that use data, machine learning, artificial intelligence and Lam domain knowledge to achieve better productivity outcomes. source

Confused about network security keys? You’re not alone. This guide includes step-by-step instructions on how to find your network key for the four most popular digital devices. Here’s a quick summary: iOS: Open the Settings app, tap on Wi-Fi, select your connected network, and find the Password field. Android: Open the Settings app, tap on Network & Internet, go to Internet, tap on your connected network, choose Share, and view the passwords that show up. Mac: Use the Keychain Access app, find your current network, double-click on it, check the Show password box, and authenticate. Windows PC: Go to Settings, then to Network & Internet, then to Wi-Fi. Access the properties of your wireless network connection by clicking on the second row starting from the top, and find the network security key by scrolling down on the network’s window. Keep reading if you’d like more detailed instructions on where to go, along with tips for keeping your network secure. 1 RingCentral RingEx Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Medium (250-999 Employees), Large (1,000-4,999 Employees), Enterprise (5,000+ Employees) Medium, Large, Enterprise Features Hosted PBX, Managed PBX, Remote User Ability, and more 2 Talkroute Employees per Company Size Micro (0-49), Small (50-249), Medium (250-999), Large (1,000-4,999), Enterprise (5,000+) Any Company Size Any Company Size Features Call Management/Monitoring, Call Routing, Mobile Capabilities, and more Find a router or modem network security key A network security key is most commonly known as a Wi-Fi password. If you’re trying to find the network security key on your router or modem, you’ll probably need to dive into your device’s settings. The steps will vary slightly depending on your router model and firmware, but here’s a basic guide. Just a heads-up: your security key might go by the name of WEP key, Wireless Security Key Password, or something similar. Keep an eye out for those variations. Step 1: Identify your router’s IP address Open a web browser on a device connected to your network. In the address bar, enter one of the following standard router IP addresses: 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.1, or 192.168.1.254. Press Enter to access the router’s login page. Step 2: Log in to your router Enter the username and password for your router. If you need to change it, you can find the default login credentials on the router or the user manual. If you use a good Internet Service Provider, it’s easy to find guides and videos online for more tips. Note that some routers may not require a username, and the password could be left blank or set as admin. If you can’t find your password, do the same but connect to your modem via an Ethernet cable instead of Wi-Fi. Step 3: Navigate to the wireless settings Once logged in, look for a section related to wireless settings or Wi-Fi configuration. The exact location can vary depending on the router’s interface, but it is typically found under Wireless, Wireless Settings, or Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Setup. Step 4: Find the network security key Look for a subsection within the wireless settings that mentions security or encryption. Standard options include Security, Wireless Security, or Encryption. Within this section, you should find the network security key associated with your Wi-Fi network. It might be labeled as Key, Network Key, Passphrase, Password, or similar terms. Step 5: Note any variations As mentioned earlier, the terminology used for the network security key can vary. Look for alternative labels or terms that indicate the same information. Make note of any variations you come across during the search, as they may help you locate the network security key more easily. Now, let’s review each device type in detail. iOS network security key For iOS, follow these steps to find your network security key: Access settings: Open the Settings app on your iOS device, located on your home screen. Navigate to Wi-Fi: Within the Settings menu, tap on Wi-Fi. Select the Wi-Fi network: Select the desired network by tapping its name. Access network details: Look for the small circled i icon next to the chosen network, and tap on it. Reveal the network key: You’ll notice the passphrase is hidden in gray bullet characters, like • • • • •. Tap on it, authenticate, and the network security will show up. Android network security key Settings: Open the Settings app on your Android device. You can typically find this app on your home screen or in the app drawer. Network & Internet: Access the first item on the list, called Network & Internet, and then tap on Internet. Network selection: Long-press the Wi-Fi network name you’re interested in This action will usually reveal additional options related to that network. You can also simply tap it and access an additional screen. Sharing options: Choose Share. The specific wording may vary depending on your device, but search for an option to share or display network details. You might need to authenticate. Key sharing methods: Your key will show up as a QR code and a small written line. You can share either. Some Android devices also allow sharing it with nearby technology. Note: Sharing via a QR code allows other devices to connect instantly without typing. Keep in mind these variations: Some Android users report that their menu option is called Internet and Network — the reverse of Network & Internet. Also, older Androids might reveal the key directly after long-pressing the network name. Finally, seek options like Show Password or Network Key. Mac network security key Obtaining your Network Security Key on macOS is not as straightforward as iOS, Android, or Windows. macOS Ventura, the 2022 release, incorporated a feature to make Wi-Fi passwords easier to check, but other versions like Monterey don’t have it. Fortunately, we’ve found a workaround for either situation. To find your network security key on macOS Ventura, do this: System settings: Click the Apple icon in the top-left corner and click on System Settings, which is called System

Transport for New South Wales was first established in 2011, and since then, the culture of putting customers and communities at the center of everything, and partnering with operational agencies, private operators, and industry to deliver passenger focus services and projects, has been a constant. As a leading advocate, chief innovation and technology officer Kurt Brissett is in charge of the technology and innovation team, and effectively responsible to deliver services for people and goods — whether on roads, trains, busses, ferries, metro, light rail, vehicles on demand, and even walking and cycling — for a population of about 8.5 million. “We also deliver on the largest investment that New South Wales has made in transport infrastructure in history through our project delivery partners and industry experts,” he says. “My team and I have a vision to optimize the use of all types of technology to offer the best transport experience for our customers, communities, the transport system, and, of course, our workforce, and we ultimately want to use technology to create the safest, fastest, easiest, most reliable and most cost effective transport system in Australia.” The success of that vision, carried throughout its nearly 30,000 employees, depends on a consistent effort to be laser-focused on applying the best of emerging tech and talent. “We don’t just operate transportation services; we deliver large-scale projects and for that, not only do we need technology roles and more developers, we require more testers and product managers,” says Brissett. “There’s also a raft of other roles that lend themselves to other skills, such as project managers, business analysts, change managers, and cyber security experts. And of course, we have a whole range of frontline staff roles across our various modes.” source

Just when IT managers thought they had accounted for and addressed all possible threats to the health and well-being of their network sites, an unforeseen challenge has emerged. That is the rise in cooper thieves who turn copper lines into gold. The cash-for-copper phenomenon is not new, but it has evolved into a nationwide problem, resulting in knocked-out lights, interrupted traffic, downed countless websites, and transportation nightmares. In some cases, crimes are committed by drug addicts looking to get some quick cash. In other cases, crimes are committed by organized groups or opportunistic thieves, such as employees of businesses that work with metal. Ohio ranks first among the top five states with the most insurance claims for metal thefts, followed by Texas, Georgia, California, and North Carolina. Utilities will pass increased insurance costs to businesses and consumers. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that metal theft costs U.S. businesses around $1 billion a year. From January 1, 2010, through December 31, 2012, NICB analysts identified 33,775 insurance claims for the theft of copper, bronze, brass, or aluminum—32,568 of them (96 percent) for copper alone. This shows a 36 percent increase in claims when compared with the 25,083 claims reported between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2011. Cash for copper thieves have expanded their mainstay powerline targets to include harvesting the metal from ground and roof-mounted HVAC units and systems, raising concerns among telecom service providers that disrupting cooling could cause challenges to switching systems, data centers, and POPs without adequate backup systems. Most communications service providers offer service-level agreements (SLA) under which businesses are promised a certain amount of uptime and a mean-time to repair problems, which, if unmet, can result in financial compensation or cancellation of the contract. How Copper Thieves Disrupt Critical Infrastructure The FBI reports that electrical substations, cell towers, telephone landlines, railroads, construction sites, and vacant homes are all targets. This can disrupt electricity, telecommunications, transportation, water supply, heating, security, and emergency systems. Network service resiliency at risk. Examples of the scope of the disruptions abound, including: Washington State: Copper thefts near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport disabled the approach lighting for one of the airport’s runways. Thieves are also stealing copper-based EV charging cords. Lumen, a global communications service provider, has already shelled out $500,000 due to copper thefts in 2024 in Washington alone. California: In late August, 82 suspects were arrested after tens of thousands of pounds of copper were recovered as part of a crackdown by Los Angeles police and staff on thieves. Mississippi: Five tornado warning sirens didn’t alert residents of impending storms because their copper wires had been stolen, according to a blog by Ooma. Texas: Metal thieves stole over $10,000 of copper from the Garland, Texas, area before being pursued and arrested by police. Virginia: After a spike of copper thefts from copper-carrying trucks traveling along Virginia highways, state authorities in Virginia, working with National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) special agents, arrested a man at the center of the thefts. A spike in copper cable thefts in recent months has left AT&T customers in South Dallas, Texas, without phone and internet service on more than a few occasions. (Credit: FPI / Alamy Stock Photo) Telcos React to Cooper Thieves AT&T is collaborating with local officials and the police in the Dallas area. The company offered residents a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in connection with copper cable thefts. Smaller carriers in less densely populated areas, such as Kinetic, have also offered a $10,000 reward. Although notifying law enforcement and your service provider(s) when hit by a loss of power to parts of your business seems like a normal reaction, IT managers may want to consider problem prevention. Beset by copper for cash attacks, an industry coalition put together a list of tips to thwart these metal thieves. It is summed up below. To prevent copper thieves from carrying out their mischief, consider taking the following steps: Develop a security plan for your business that identifies vulnerabilities. Ask your local law enforcement professionals to assist you with this process. Deny access by adding fences and gates to contain this private property. Ask your local law enforcement for help in enforcing the law on private property. Add security lighting to areas where thieves and other criminals may hide. Deny access to your roof-mounted HVAC units by removing fixed ladders (do not remove fire escapes) and other step-ups, including tree branches. Consider the use of steel cages to enclose your AC units. The heavier the gauge of steel, the longer it will take to cut. For example, 10–12-gauge steel can take one to two hours to cut. Avoid standard chain link fencing as it can be cut quickly. Use security cameras, but they must be properly protected, installed, and monitored. Use alarms mounted to your HVAC units. If the unit is tampered with, including cutting of refrigerant and power lines, an alarm will sound. A Final Word on Copper Thieves and Net Resiliency Although law enforcement entities are cracking down on copper thefts, it remains a growing problem across the nation. Hopefully, with enhanced awareness and preventative measures, organizations can sidestep business interruption. source