Live data from Hacker News

Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

vtdigger.org

51–60 of 61 posts

Re: Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

#51
post #2

The officers are busy. Last year nearly 800 cyber tips filtered through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Officers are carrying out search warrants on a weekly basis and some electronic files have been spread so widely that officers know their hash value by heart. It’s difficult to say whether sexual exploitation and the spread of sex abuse materials has actually increased dramatically in recent y…

I mean, the dog angle is legitimately interesting. I've never heard of police dogs being used to sniff out things other then drugs or people.

Not only that, police dogs are notoriously not great at actually sniffing out drugs instead of just alerting on meat products or on people their handler is biased against.

Re: Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

#52
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the evidence support that idea? My understanding was that the information we have right now seems to suggest the opposite.

I've not seen any evidence either way, but I'm not sure you'd get an RCT of this past an ethics committee anywhere. For now, I'm inclined to err on the side of caution and not enable perverts.

Just because it's not possible to study something directly doesn't mean that we can't study it. We could compare statistics in countries with different laws. Or we could look at studies of how pornography consumption influences non-deviant sexual behavior.

Re: Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

#53
post #2

The officers are busy. Last year nearly 800 cyber tips filtered through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Officers are carrying out search warrants on a weekly basis and some electronic files have been spread so widely that officers know their hash value by heart. It’s difficult to say whether sexual exploitation and the spread of sex abuse materials has actually increased dramatically in recent y…

I mean, the dog angle is legitimately interesting. I've never heard of police dogs being used to sniff out things other then drugs or people.

You would be amazed what a dog can pick up. Drugs, obviously. Cash is a big one, electronics, invasive plant species, archaeological human remains.

If it has an odour of any sort and the dog can be imprinted on it then they will find it. The skill is the training.

Re: Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

#54
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's a chance that people had used drugs or smoked before, and the smell might still be present. The article acknowledges this, so it's not entirely a myth. While dogs can make mistakes, it's not definitively incorrect.

That's not how the dogs are used. They are told to signal, it's not a mistake. It's a tool of intimidation and a performative gesture towards probable cause. Officers without dogs will just claim "smells like weed" or "your eyes are bloodshot" or a million other things. When actually searching for drugs, they prefer to destroy the vehicle outright, kick in any box speakers, tear off door panels and fabric, cut open s…

Someone’s never done a proper search and is just parroting what they’ve read on the internet.

Re: Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

#55
post #11

>Mojo can quickly sniff out devices like hard drives, flash drives or SD cards — often leading officers straight to the evidence they need to make an arrest. Do nand flash chips and magnetic platters have a distinct smell? lol :) I'm not saying its impossible but really really outlandish

Seems possible. The linked-to article in turn links to https://indianapublicmedia.org/news/indiana-man-training-k9-... dated January 27, 2017 describing how ""I had to pay a chemist to actually find the actual odor," Jordan says. "So it's an odor that's within the actual SD cards, the thumb drives, cell phones."" This is further detailed at https://www.techrepublic.com/article/electronics-sniffing-do... where "[Dr. J…

Wow, thank you for diving into it. Very interesting.

Re: Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

#56

>Mojo can quickly sniff out devices like hard drives, flash drives or SD cards — often leading officers straight to the evidence they need to make an arrest. Do nand flash chips and magnetic platters have a distinct smell? lol :) I'm not saying its impossible but really really outlandish

> Do nand flash chips and magnetic platters have a distinct smell?

Not chips. I'm electronics engineer with large experience. You will not believe, how many extremely non-nature chemicals used in electronics. Number is really huge.

And these chemicals really have strong smell, when touch with soldering iron I feel it even when powerful ventilation working, and I've tried to feel smell even when finished device and washed it with alcohol - something left anyway for months.

For about storage, I'm not sure, but have hypothesis - electronics likes volume and some fabs extremely specialized - for example, 80% of storage in whole world made in just THREE fabs (also exist fabs specialized on CPUs, on radio, on sound amplifiers and other analog circuits), and they might have their own unique list of used chemicals, and dog could detect this list and could feel difference from other lists.

Re: Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

#57
post #54
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how the dogs are used. They are told to signal, it's not a mistake. It's a tool of intimidation and a performative gesture towards probable cause. Officers without dogs will just claim "smells like weed" or "your eyes are bloodshot" or a million other things. When actually searching for drugs, they prefer to destroy the vehicle outright, kick in any box speakers, tear off door panels and fabric, cut open s…

Someone’s never done a proper search and is just parroting what they’ve read on the internet.

Of course I've never done a search, I'm not a cop... I've been searched many times though, and what I described, I've seen and experienced. Maybe you've done too many trainings and don't know what happens in real life?

Re: Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

#58
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why?

I'm also concerned. The only reason I can guess at would be to prevent data from being seized when going through a security crossing, such as when going from one country to another or into/out of a secured corporate facility. Maybe we can be charitable and assume that the parent commenter did undercover work as a journalist/mule in an authoritarian regime, eg. bringing photos that North Korea didn't want to be public…

I manage a fleet of over 1500 raspberry pis and sometimes put microsd cards in the same pocket I put my supplements and just scoop the pocket full and put it in my mouth and drink some water and swallow

After that happened once I did it again deliberately in front of some friends because it was funny

Re: Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

#59
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...until they get so excited they want to try it in real life.

Does the evidence support that idea? My understanding was that the information we have right now seems to suggest the opposite.

do video games make people shoot up schools? did marilyn manson lead to columbine?

Re: Vermont Attorney General's dog sniffs out electronic storage devices

#60
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also concerned. The only reason I can guess at would be to prevent data from being seized when going through a security crossing, such as when going from one country to another or into/out of a secured corporate facility. Maybe we can be charitable and assume that the parent commenter did undercover work as a journalist/mule in an authoritarian regime, eg. bringing photos that North Korea didn't want to be public…

I manage a fleet of over 1500 raspberry pis and sometimes put microsd cards in the same pocket I put my supplements and just scoop the pocket full and put it in my mouth and drink some water and swallow After that happened once I did it again deliberately in front of some friends because it was funny

What do you do with 1500 raspberry pis?
Post reply on HN