US Police dog trained to sniff out hidden HDDs and memory cards

by Mark Tyson on 8 July 2014, 11:45

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A Labrador named Thoreau, trained by the Connecticut State Police, is said to be able to "sniff out hard drives, thumb drives and other technological gadgets that could contain child pornography." The Providence Journal reports that after 22 weeks of training, Thoreau can now identify the scent of the metal and other components used in such storage devices. Even though it cannot tell what the data inside is (of course), the dog is being used to combat child porn traffickers by finding concealed devices in the residences of suspects.

Connecticut State Police spokesperson, Lt. Vance told Gizmodo about the force's latest specialism in K-9 training. "We in Connecticut have developed many specialised dogs in our repertoire," he said. "The latest is sniffing out of electronic components, but we have arson dogs, bomb dogs, narcotics dogs, cadaver dogs, all individually developed."

The exact component the dogs have been trained to sniff was not specified. However it was said to be able to distinguish between an eelctronic device such as a television and a hard drive, though not between an iPad or computer and a hard drive. The dog's inability to tell between one small electronic device and another means that handlers do not carry any electronics on them when performing the searches.

Thoreau assisted the Rhode Island State Police in an arrest of a paedophile last month after locating a thumb drive containing child pornography "hidden four layers deep in a tin box inside a metal cabinet".

"If it has a memory card, he’ll sniff it out," Thoreau’s handler Detective Adam Houston boasted. Thoreau has located a hard drive inside a bag in the upper shelf of a desk, and a flash drive and a thumb drive in a drawer during demonstrations of its skills. "This is how he eats every day," Houston added, after rewarding Thoreau food for successfully identifying the location of the devices.



HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

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So hide your porn(non child) on a sd card and insert into your smart tv. Dog ignores it…..
Plasmastorm
So hide your porn(non child) on a sd card and insert into your smart tv. Dog ignores it…..

“”If it has a memory card, he’ll sniff it out,“ Thoreau’s handler Detective Adam Houston boasted.”

If that dog can smell memory chips and HDs then it will find it. However, I don't think Porn Dog is going to be coming round to search for your standard porn. Besides, if Porn Dog did drop by for a visit, why would you want to hide your porn from him/her? At worst, it'll tell its handler, and I reckon you could cope with that. Porn Dog has the highest standards of professionalism, and won't gossip.
I feel an Elvis song coming on……You aint nothing but a porn dog…. :)
You can see the next news story, pedo taken to hospital due to swallowing 200 sd cards.
Bullshiat. There is no way an animal could sniff out a micro-SD card, and even if they could, they couldn't differentiate it from a piece of plastic with a copper wire taped to it. Those things are so tiny I could sew one into my skin.

It's pretty easy to hide stuff from sniffer dogs though, just submerge it in water. As long as the object doesn't stink up the water itself, you can't smell through water.