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CNN reports that URL, the porn-sniffing dog, is the newest crime-fighting tool at the Weber County Sheriff's office with a nose that could help put away some of the country's most predatory and dangerous criminals. URL (pronounced Earl) sniffs out electronic storage media. Still just a pup, the 18-month-old K-9 is one of fewer than two dozen such dogs in the United States that hunt the unique chemical compounds emitted from flash drives, memory cards, cell phones, iPads and other similar devices. While dogs like URL can't tell detectives if a device has electronic evidence on it, they are able to find devices that humans might otherwise miss.
Detective Cameron Hartman points to the high-profile case of former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle, who was convicted on child pornography and other charges last year. A K-9 named Bear, who was trained by the same man who trained URL, led investigators to hidden thumb drives inside Fogle's home. The US Attorney's office for Southern Indiana confirmed those devices contained evidence against Fogle. URL has found evidence relating to pornography during the execution of search warrants for the task force in several investigations of child sex crimes and child trafficking. "He actually found a USB that was in this jar that was closed, and the jar was in a box, and the box had stuff in it. The jar itself had stuff in it."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday September 06 2016, @12:06PM
Good display of NIH and organizational inertia.
Cops use dogs to search, so logically they'll search for USB drives with dogs. Its organizationally impossible to contemplate otherwise.
The pros transmit a weak microwave signal on one or two frequencies and have very sensitive receivers sniff for IMD or multiples of that freq that any non-linear junction automatically creates unless well shielded (better than your average moron is likely to do, arguably harder than wrapping up in dog proof plastic). Famously many decades ago the Russians Fed with the CIA by mixing tens of thousands of diodes into the cement for an embassy building.
Its a temporary thing anyway. The number of microcontrollers in the average house is doing the knee curve thing. Some call it the IoT or whatever. Anyway soon enough the dogs going to signal on everything in the house.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday September 06 2016, @12:45PM
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 06 2016, @01:26PM
It'll be a deniability issue. When dude has a flash drive in his desk drawer with his fingerprints on it, that proves something. But when half of Russia and China and NK pown every IoT lightbulb and everyone knows is, having something on a lightbulb in your house proves very little.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday September 06 2016, @05:04PM
I wanna see the face of the cop who has to take every bulb and appliance out of the house because everything has a microcontroller or a flash chip, even the kids toys and the stinky pair of running shoes.
"What's that Rex? The A/C and water heater, too? Come on boys, get the hacksaw! We gotta take everything that stores data!"
(incidentally, if you understand that's absurd, have skills and something to hide, just store it in your furnace's controller)