-
Sector Report for Tuesday, 19 April 2011: Law Enforcement Technology
This report contains the following stories.
Plus 1 additional story.
-
-
Smugglers use portable ramp to jump border fence
Drug smugglers along the U.S.-Mexico border are relying on increasingly more innovative ways to bypass additional security measures deployed along the southern border; law enforcement officials recently discovered a mobile folding ramp that allowed vehicles to drive over the border fence; the portable ramp was found in the Barry M. Goldwater Range east of Yuma, Arizona as Border Patrol agents chased a vehicle that had just used the ramp to leap over the fence with 1,000 pounds of marijuana
-
-
An electronic trail for every crime
Police across the country are increasingly turning to electronic devices like cell phones and computer files to identify, prosecute, or exonerate criminals; the ubiquity of this technology has often provided investigators with an electronic trail that gives prosecutors concrete analytical evidence for nearly every crime; officials in Dubuque County, Iowa have established a digital forensic lab to analyze data on computers, cell phones, and video recorders to discover any encrypted files or other valuable information; in February law enforcement officials in Dubuque used text messages and surveillance camera footage to convict Teodoro Borrego of first degree murder
-
-
West Virginia signs up for free mass alert system for missing persons
The Mercer County Sheriff’s Department and the Princeton Police Department are now using the A Child Is Missing Alert Program which uses computer mapping programs to place up to a thousand calls a minute to residents and businesses near where a person is reported missing; the call contains a message that details the missing person’s description, last known location, and other critical information; the A Child Is Missing Alert program is a free service provided to law enforcement agencies
-
-
Technology helping police stop child pornography
The advent of the Internet, file sharing technology, and social networking has allowed the market for child pornography to thrive, but now those very same technologies are helping police to crack down on individuals distributing child pornography; local police departments across the United States are using sophisticated software to track, identify, and convict individuals trading child porn; in Shawano County, Wisconsin investigators recently received new tools that have led to the arrest of five people on child porn charges in the last six months; investigators have been trained to spot individuals on file sharing sites; detectives have also been trained in computer forensics to recover data from confiscated hard drives
-
-
N.J. receives $5.7 million for seventeen police departments
Earlier this month the Department of Justice awarded New Jersey $5.7 million in grants to help seventeen local police departments; the grants are specifically aimed at purchasing surveillance equipment like closed-circuit cameras, gunshot detection systems, and mobile data centers; each city will receive either $250,000 or $500,000 based on the city’s size and violent crime; surveillance technology has already proven effective in helping New Jersey police departments track down and convict criminals; New Jersey’s attorney general is encouraging police departments to consider regionalizing and consolidating functions as the grants can be used to purchase equipment to create regional dispatch systems
-
-
FBI's Next Generation Identification launched
The FBI has launched its futuristic database — the Next Generation Identification (NGI) system); NGI will gradually replace the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS); this phase of the NGI project involves the core biometric processing and matching capability using ten fingerprints
-
-
Strong fabric can be used to protect buildings from explosion
Carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) is a fabric that can carry 143,000 pounds of force per square inch; University of Missouri researcher collaborates with the U.S. Army to test a method of retrofitting buildings to protect them in the case of a terrorist attack; to protect a building from an extreme event, CFRP can be used to increase the bending capacity of walls or columns
-
-
Twitter and natural disasters: lessons from Japan
Researchers from Kobe City University of Foreign Studies surveyed and questioned Twitter users and tracked updates from people in the disaster-struck area on the social media site two weeks after the Tohoku earthquake and devastating tsunami of 11 March; Twitter was the only functioning communication tool immediately after the earthquake; the researchers found that there benefits for using Twitter, such as bringing information to people involved in a disaster and to those hoping to hear news; there was a downside, though: Twitter helped spread unverified rumors and misinformation, causing people to panic in areas where there was no reason to panic, thus making the work of rescuers and service authorities more difficult; one solution: have the government itself use Twitter to offer reliable information to all involved
-
-
Chips may sabotage hi-tech weapons
Countries producing sophisticated weapon systems do not want these systems to fall into the wrong hands; one idea is to plant a chip in these weapons which would allow the country that supplied them to destroy or disable them remotely; already there are worries that with chip manufacturing moving outside the United States, foreign powers may bribe or coerce chip manufacturers into planting “backdoor” circuits in chips these manufacturers sell American defense contractors
-
-
Mexico violence boon to security garment industry
The deteriorating security situation in Mexico is a boon to the security industry; the Ninth Expo-Seguridad in Mexico City saw many companies offering bullet-proof garments — vests, scarves, shirts, and underwear — that protect against attacks with sharp objects; also on display was the more traditional personal protection gear such as helmets, gloves, goggles, and bullet-proof vests able to stop rounds from AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles; one star of the show was Colombian businessman Miguel Caballero who is known for the bullet-proof jackets and vests he has produced for politicians, businessmen, and former presidents from across Latin America
-
-
NY emergency services communication not up to snuff
Nearly ten years after the 9/11 attacks, many police officers and first responders in New York still carry radios that cannot communicate with fellow emergency services personnel working for other agencies and jurisdictions; often, they use their personal cell phones during an operation; state lawmakers want this situation changed
-
-
New cloth captures noxious gasses, odors
Cornell university students develop a new cloth that can capture noxious gasses and odors — and that can be fashioned into masks or hooded shirts to be used by soldiers and first responders; the garments use metal organic framework molecules (MOFs) and cellulose fibers
-
-
Disaster-zone phone communication software available for free
Australian researchers developed software which enables mobile phones to communicate during a disaster; it will be freely available to the public by the end of the year thanks to the support of the Dutch NLnet Foundation; the software can be used on compatible mobile phone handsets to create an alternative “network” where conventional mobile phone coverage has been destroyed or does not exist
-
-
U.S. Army surveillance blimp destroyed in accident
The U.S. military wants to place powerful sensors on blimps, and have these blimps loiter the sky above the battlefield; the sensors, produced by Raytheon, will enable battlefield commanders to increase their wide-area protection against land-attack cruise missiles; last September, two blimps moored next to each other in the Elizabeth City, North Carolina manufacturing facility, collided after one of them almost got loose; the cost to the Army: $168 million
-
More headlines
The long view
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
Using Drone Swarms to Fight Forest Fires
Forest fires are becoming increasingly catastrophic across the world, accelerated by climate change. Researchers are using multiple swarms of drones to tackle natural disasters like forest fires.
Testing Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations
“People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”
The Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
From popular films like a War Games or The Terminator to a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI, there has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. There is one easy way to avoid a lot of this and prevent a self-inflicted doomsday: don’t give computers the capability to launch devastating weapons.