Police Using Dogs To Sniff Out Computer Memory 415
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.
Re:Any Memory?? what judge will go on just that? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does bubble wrap count as concealing now?
If so how can you safely ship stuff like HDD's with USPS, UPS, FEDEX with out damage?
Re:Amazoing (Score:5, Interesting)
I also smell the bullshit. I remember watching a USAF security specialist with a "drug" dog. He walked down the bay with the dog trotting beside him, stopped at a door and bounce a rubber ball off the door. The dog began to bark and scratch at the door. The CQ opened the door and they searched the lockers finding a bag of pot. Imagine that. That's when I realised that someone narced and the dog was for looks so no one would suspect.
Re:Any Memory?? what judge will go on just that? (Score:5, Interesting)
Guess how convenient this is if the powers that be want to get rid of inconvenient you...
And for what? Even if some pervert watches child porn doesn't make him a rapist or molester any more than you wanking off to "normal porn"[1] makes you a rapist or molester. If you say he's supporting child porn, then you should follow the money and jail those responsible for creating it. If he's torrenting it, then using the **AA's logic, he's killing the child porn industry
[1] in some countries "normal porn" is illegal. Go figure.
There will be no changes. (Score:2, Interesting)
As the drugs war winds down... another war on freedom starts.
Re:Any Memory?? what judge will go on just that? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Officer: "May I see your driver's license and registration?"
Driver: "Yes, here it is."
Officer: "I noticed that your middle interior brake light is out and a little bit back you swerved."
Driver: "Yes, I know the light is out, I just haven't had the time and money to get it fixed. And I swerved because a saw a small rabbit hop toward the road on the other side of a tree."
Police Dog: "Bark! Bark! Bark bark! Bark!"
Officer: "Alright, so have you done any drugs?"
Driver: "No."
Officer: "Do you have any drugs in the car?"
Driver: "No, I told you I don't do any drugs."
Officer: "Well my dog smells something suspecious, so I have the probable cause required by law to search your car."
*officer opens glove compartment; dog gets excited"
Officer: [saying quietly under his breath:] "Shit, it's just a fuse box."
Officer: "Looks [smells?] like you've got a burnt fuse there, buddy. You might want to get that fixed."
Driver: "I know. It's been blown for about two weeks. My interior lighting doesn't work."
Officer: [silently thinking to himself:] "I guess I'm going to have to find some other way to nab this guy or work on finding someone else to nail. I need to meet my quota for this month."
For some reason, I *totally* imagine that or a similar situation occuring, and probably more than a few times in the future...
Re:Any Memory?? what judge will go on just that? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah that's my real worry about all this child porn stuff - "everyone" turns their brains off and starts getting their pitchforks ready to lynch you.
Guess how convenient this is if the powers that be want to get rid of inconvenient you...
The NSA has a huge stash of child porn just for this purpose...