Police Dog That Can Sniff Out Memory Cards

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Child pornographers and scumbag criminals everywhere beware! Thoreau the thumb drive sniffing dog is on the job. :cool:

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.
 
I really could have just done with the story of how a dog sniffs out thumb drives, really didn't need the segue into it by knowing what the exchange rate for a "fair trade" of child porn is, or details of what images were on the thumb drive.
 
This is total bullshit, most likely a completely staged event to further expand the "open view" rules to be able to get more search warrants. Police dogs rate of false flags are so high that they aren't even allowed in the court of law. Its just an excuse to search someone. The problem is there is no recourse for people who are incorrectly flagged by a police dog. The police are in most places no responsible for the damaged by the dog or the search that follows.
 
This is total bullshit, most likely a completely staged event to further expand the "open view" rules to be able to get more search warrants. Police dogs rate of false flags are so high that they aren't even allowed in the court of law. Its just an excuse to search someone. The problem is there is no recourse for people who are incorrectly flagged by a police dog. The police are in most places no responsible for the damaged by the dog or the search that follows.
There's also the fact that some search dog isn't even a search dog. It's just intimidation theater in order to get people to comply with searches. "The dog indicated a presence of (insert bullshit reasoning). Will you allow us to search your trunk or do you want us to get a warrant."
 
I call bullshit, and its much more likely they simply let the dog tear through his belongings until the office saw a memory card.

Officers have already been proven to be able to give subtle commands to dogs to get them to bark and show a positive whenever they are suspicious of someone, this way they have an excuse to search.

Its the same thing when cops say they smell smoke from your vehicle in order to have an excuse to search it, or to pull you over saying that your license plate light has an intermittent short... oh wait, working now, I'll just give you a warning to have it looked at. :rolleyes:

And they used the classic technique of going after a pedo first to get acceptance of this, then they'll use it on everyone else.
 
I call bullshit, and its much more likely they simply let the dog tear through his belongings until the office saw a memory card.

Officers have already been proven to be able to give subtle commands to dogs to get them to bark and show a positive whenever they are suspicious of someone, this way they have an excuse to search.

Its the same thing when cops say they smell smoke from your vehicle in order to have an excuse to search it, or to pull you over saying that your license plate light has an intermittent short... oh wait, working now, I'll just give you a warning to have it looked at. :rolleyes:

And they used the classic technique of going after a pedo first to get acceptance of this, then they'll use it on everyone else.

+1

Police dogs do have valid uses, and are particularly good at finding illegal drugs or trapped victims.

However a dog isn't tied to ethics and will do what his handler tells him to do. There was a video here just over a year ago of a teenager who was pulled over and harassed by a police officer in a parking lot and teenager recorded the entire thing. The officer tapped on the window which caused the dog to jump up on the glass and bark. "Please step out of the car..."
 
Wait, this dog smelled a hard drive in a zip lock bag? I call BS, dogs can't even smell cannabis in a zip lock bag until it has been in there for a while to permeate the plastic if you're careful.

I feel bad for Rhode Island though. I mean, I get it, child pornography and exploitation is a horrendous thing, but I do not think this is all it will eventually be used for. "Find the hard drives boy! This guy has MP3s and episodes of Game of Thrones stashed somewhere!" :p
 
There's also the fact that some search dog isn't even a search dog. It's just intimidation theater in order to get people to comply with searches. "The dog indicated a presence of (insert bullshit reasoning). Will you allow us to search your trunk or do you want us to get a warrant."

Whaaaa? Now you're just talking crazy, I mean it's not like police officers are coaxing their dogs to jump and bark just to say "the dog had a hit" to use as justification for a warrantless search!
 
There's also the fact that some search dog isn't even a search dog. It's just intimidation theater in order to get people to comply with searches. "The dog indicated a presence of (insert bullshit reasoning). Will you allow us to search your trunk or do you want us to get a warrant."

+ 1,000,0000

What we have here is a dog trained to sit or whatever the indicating behavior is when the trainer signals non verbally.

There is no way the dog can distinguish the stuff in a thumb drive from the EXACT SAME stuff ina cell phone on the cop, or a police radio, or a million other things day to day. If it were actually trained to be agitated by such the poor dog would probably be so neurotic it's like a hole through every limb.
 
And I still think being able to use the dog is BS anyway. If cops were walking around with electronic detectors to do the same thing, it would likely be ruled unconstitutional. But somehow, a man training a biological creature to do the same thing is somehow different.
 
As much as I made it through of that article... I'm not a huge fan of burning at the stake, but if these people somehow found themselves on fire and tied to a pole I wouldn't break out my tiny violin.

As for smelling a flash drive, electronics have a pretty distinct odor (you can smell PCB, a dog can), so I don't know if this is BS or not, but odds are if they have a pedo-sniffing dog going over someone's car they already know you're a perv and just looking for an excuse for a court order.
 
"Find the hard drives boy! This guy has MP3s and episodes of Game of Thrones stashed somewhere!" :p
No, it's more of
"Find the hard drive boy! The MPAA/RIAA demands we wipe all data even if it's just personal stuff"
 
As much as I made it through of that article... I'm not a huge fan of burning at the stake, but if these people somehow found themselves on fire and tied to a pole I wouldn't break out my tiny violin.

As for smelling a flash drive, electronics have a pretty distinct odor (you can smell PCB, a dog can), so I don't know if this is BS or not, but odds are if they have a pedo-sniffing dog going over someone's car they already know you're a perv and just looking for an excuse for a court order.
Incorrect. They do not have a legitimate reason under the current situation to get a court order just because they KNOW you're a pervert. What officers try to do is to mislead you to get to you comply with their request to search your persons and property. The police can and will lie to you, period.
 
The way I heard it, most photographers learn slight-of-hand in order to keep the cops from "protecting civies from damage to their calm" … :rolleyes:
 
They're also training dogs to sniff for other electronics like cell phones, tablets, etc for use in the prisons.
 
Wait, this dog smelled a hard drive in a zip lock bag? I call BS, dogs can't even smell cannabis in a zip lock bag until it has been in there for a while to permeate the plastic if you're careful.

I feel bad for Rhode Island though. I mean, I get it, child pornography and exploitation is a horrendous thing, but I do not think this is all it will eventually be used for. "Find the hard drives boy! This guy has MP3s and episodes of Game of Thrones stashed somewhere!" :p

Good pot is pretty pungent. I'd be shocked if a dog couldn't smell it through a bag.
That said, I'm not sure how you smell a hard drive. Electronics? Sure, but an HD is designed to keep air out. But it's easy to test. You have real HD's and the exact same thing without drives inside, but all the electronics.

If they can consistently tell which is real and which isn't, then I'll believe it.
 
What I don't understand is if these sites are so hard to get on and these guys are so good at avoiding detection, why the hell aren't the files encrypted? I know stupid criminals, but seriously, why hide a hard drive when all you have to do is encrypt it?
 
Good pot is pretty pungent. I'd be shocked if a dog couldn't smell it through a bag.
It's possible he got mixed up and was thinking of something like mylar food storage bags. Regular zip lock bags are definitely air permeable and I can't imagine them fooling a drug dog even minutes after sealing. If they weren't permeable, dried foods like trail mix wouldn't go stale in them in mere weeks.
 
+1

Police dogs do have valid uses, and are particularly good at finding illegal drugs or trapped victims.

However a dog isn't tied to ethics and will do what his handler tells him to do. There was a video here just over a year ago of a teenager who was pulled over and harassed by a police officer in a parking lot and teenager recorded the entire thing. The officer tapped on the window which caused the dog to jump up on the glass and bark. "Please step out of the car..."

Even the use of dogs in drug searches has been called into question for their inaccuracy and willingness to comply with their handler's suggestions of positive reinforcement.
 
Good pot is pretty pungent. I'd be shocked if a dog couldn't smell it through a bag.
That said, I'm not sure how you smell a hard drive. Electronics? Sure, but an HD is designed to keep air out. But it's easy to test. You have real HD's and the exact same thing without drives inside, but all the electronics.

If they can consistently tell which is real and which isn't, then I'll believe it.

That's why you vacuum pack it, then ziplock it, then put it in a pvc tube sealed on both ends with the purple stuff before you bury it under the patio tile your charcoal grill that has never been cleaned out sits on.
Yrah, that'll throw the dogs off.
 
I just don't see the benefit of this outweighing the cost and the effort.
Thousands of innocent people carry thumb drives and other memory devices for perfectly benign reason.
 
I just don't see the benefit of this outweighing the cost and the effort.
Thousands of innocent people carry thumb drives and other memory devices for perfectly benign reason.

Technically, the dogs should end up sniffing every single digital device you own. If it was just SD Cards, I'd be skeptical, but think, maybe. But I don't think there's any similarities between an HD and a Flash Card that aren't shared with most modern electronics. This entire article belongs in The Onion.
 
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