Slashdot Mirror
Meet URL, the USB Porn-Sniffing Dog (cnn.com)
HughPickens.com writes: 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 U.S. 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."
So here's a possible solution, and a market for recycled electronics.
Start a business that grinds old (but relatively modern) electronics into a fine powder that can be dusted around anyplace you want to keep your stuff hidden from the pigs. The dog will be useless.
It wouldn't matter. Police dogs "alert" (sit down, or scratch, or something - anything the dog does can be an "alert") whenever and whenever the handler wants them too.
In one test, the researchers told the cops they wanted to test the dogs. They set up eights cans and told the handlers "there are drugs in can #1 and can #4, let's see how the dogs do". The dogs consistently alerted on can #1 and can #4. The drugs were in #6 and #8 - the officer's expectations matter more than where the contraband actually is.
See also:
http://illinoistimes.com/artic...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
As America (and let's be honest, other countries are turning total fascist as well) continues it's slide into making 1984 look like a freeman's paradise....
Sad really
No, they detect *ALL* flash media, even if it is totally and completely unrelated to porn.
Has anyone ever heard of that?
bickerdyke
That's what the article is suggesting. The dog can't sniff for porn, but it can sniff for flash memory, and is being used to identify flash memory that may be concealed in non-obvious locations.
Thirty four characters live here.
But Drug dogs work perfectly for law enforcement: they provide whatever answer the police want and the gullible public believe the dogs are infallible.
I fear you might not know just how accurate some critter's sense of smell is.
You might just not know how dogs behave.
If search dogs work then the dog should be fine to hunt these without the handler there at all. Just let the dog search on his or her own.
Search and rescue dogs work this way just fine every day. You let them go and they hunt down people easily that you or I cannot see or hear or smell.
But any person who raises and breeds and trains dogs professionally knows the first and only thing a well trained dog wants is to please the handler. That's the definition of well and trained for a dog. Drug sniffing dogs are very well trained.
In the hands of their handler a dog is just a dowsing rod for the man with the leash. Combine that with objects that conveniently fit in an officer's pocket and the long history of corrupt government officials. You shouldn't have plausible evidence. You should have plausible deniability. Yes, dogs are great at finding skunks or burnt joints you might be able to smell yourself. Not so much for things in air-tight closed containers on in piles of stuff that smells exactly like it.
But like you demonstrate, most people don't know how dogs behave. (Or how to spot magical thinking.)
Keep the handler away from the dog. Let it search on its own. Otherwise he or she is just a furry four-legged lie detector.
"You cannot have a General Will unless you have shared experiences. You cannot be fair to people you don't know."
URL is trained to sniff out USB sticks that have Vaseline remnants on them.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch