Police Using Dogs To Sniff Out Computer Memory

First time accepted submitter FriendlySolipsist points out a story about Rhode Island Police using a dog to find hidden hard drives. The recent arrival of golden Labrador Thoreau makes Rhode Island the second state in the nation to have a police dog trained to sniff out hard drives, thumb drives and other technological gadgets that could contain child pornography. Thoreau received 22 weeks of training in how to detect devices in exchange for food at the Connecticut State Police Training Academy. Given to the state police by the Connecticut State Police, the dog assisted in its first search warrant in June pinpointing a thumb drive containing child pornography hidden four layers deep in a tin box inside a metal cabinet. That discovery led the police to secure an arrest warrant, Yelle says. “If it has a memory card, he’ll sniff it out,” Detective Adam Houston, Thoreau’s handler, says.

Sooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Can he packet sniff?

Re:Amazoing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true. As soon as my computer downloaded this, I could smell the bullshit.

Re:Any Memory?? what judge will go on just that?

[wisnoskij]

Hell I can smell a bluray. Optical storage has a far bigger and more unique odor than a usb stick.

A little behind the times

[WWJohnBrowningDo]

Typical government bureaucracy, relying on outdated technology.

Nearly 10 years ago, top minds in the private industry [wikipedia.org] already developed super dogs that not only detected DVDs but could also determine the legal status of said DVDs by smell alone.

Re:Any Memory?? what judge will go on just that?

[ShanghaiBill]

If so how can you safely ship stuff like HDD's with USPS, UPS, FEDEX with out damage?

Include a few dried habanero peppers in the package.

Re:Any Memory?? what judge will go on just that?

[meerling]

Since the dog can't smell memory, it must have been trained to smell something about the electronic components. That's bound to trigger a LOT of false positives in the modern world.

This might be a fun thing to do. Get a lot of old flash drives, sd cards, and the like, the old super cheap ones of course, and stick them everywhere. Under the carpet, taped to the bottom of the drawers, in the hem of the curtain, etc. After 30 or 40 of them, somebody is going to get sick of playing that game, and it might be the dog, If you're really mean, store a picture of a treasure map on each one, and maybe some lists of random hexadecimal numbers.

It'll drive them nuts. To really get the point across when they ask, just tell them the truth, that it's a joke, there's absolutely nothing of value stored on them, and yes, you want them back and undamaged. :P

Re:Any Memory?? what judge will go on just that?

[tehlinux]

Maybe you can help me find my copy of Step Brothers.

Re:Any Memory?? what judge will go on just that?

[aquabat]

Bullshit. Swordfighting hasn't been common in thefts for centuries. I don't even think you can legally walk around with a real sword any more.