

Police Use Dog To Find Memory And Hard Drives In Search - superuser2
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/07/08/329501226/police-use-dog-to-find-memory-hard-drives-in-search?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20140708

======
AlyssaRowan
Do they realise yet how ridiculous they sound?

What is the scientific basis for this? Because unless it's _very_ recently
manufactured and still outgassing, I'm far from convinced hard drives, circuit
boards or chips in general have any odour detectable to GLPC, let alone dogs!

Far more likely prospect - aren't "K-9 units" widely renowned for corrupt
practice, in particular training the dog to react on command to enable illegal
searches and the planting of evidence?

I'm not saying _they 're_ corrupt, of course, but I do find that more
empirically likely.

But perhaps my judgment is affected by the picture with the hard-bitten glares
and the hats. The hats don't help. <g>

~~~
trhway
have you worked with hardware? I think i myself can sniff out a motherboard :)
And dogs are very useful in detecting C4 for example, and i don't see why they
can't detect various chemical stuff going into electronic components.

~~~
AlyssaRowan
A new motherboard which is still outgassing, _definitely_. But the kind of
thing they want to find - a well-aged microSD card - which is all chip
packaging and doesn't even have a circuit board?

My friends who do hardware RE and occasional chip forensics generally have to
_dissolve_ that stuff (with happy fun acids that I don't particularly want to
handle, like fuming nitric acid - I don't know which particular one, but I
know it tends to be hypergolic - and hydrofloric acid, which my dad was
familiar enough with and I _never_ want to be friends with) before gas
chromatography to identify it, because they wouldn't get anything if it had a
magic smell and they just put it in there! Their reaction at this story when
it was over on Slashdot was to laugh and wonder if they could replace the
acids with dog slobber.

~~~
trhway
>But the kind of thing they want to find - a well-aged microSD card - which is
all chip packaging and doesn't even have a circuit board?

i bet that the specific plastics types used for the cards are easily
identifiable by dogs.

>Their reaction at this story when it was over on Slashdot was to laugh and
wonder if they could replace the acids with dog slobber.

they could try :

[http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/277012.php](http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/277012.php)

"A new study from Italian researchers, presented at the 109th Annual
Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association in Orlando, FL,
found that specially trained dogs were able to detect prostate cancer from
urine samples with 98% accuracy. "

------
backprojection
What gas could possible emanate from a flash drive that wouldn't emanate from
any other electronic device?

~~~
AlyssaRowan
Indeed, an SD card in particular is about as embedded a device as you'll find
- but maybe when executing a search warrant their focus is in fact in finding
_every_ electronic device and marching off with it (that certainly wouldn't be
unusual practice in LE, particularly local LE with no digital forensics
expertise).

------
Paul12345534
I could see this being used in repressive countries to find devices or memory
cards full of e-books and learning materials.

~~~
voltagex_
Oppressive.

------
Zigurd
Once the solvents used to clean a PCB are gone, what's left should be inert. A
search of literature on chemical signature detection comes up with nothing
regarding electronics. I smell voodoo.

