Technology Trends

I guess it was just a matter of time before someone thought about using DNA to identify robbers. According to two short articles from the The Telegraph and The Register, a security company based in Wales, U.K., has designed a spray that can mark the skin and the clothes of intruders. The i-powder contained in the spray carries a “uniquely-traceable DNA code” registered to the owner and can be easily detected for several weeks. And it seems to be efficient, with recent trials by several police forces resulting in 100 per cent conviction rates. But are these sprays safe for their owners if they have to give a verbal warning to the intruders before using them? Read more…

First, let’s look at the Telegraph.

Police are testing a new weapon against burglars — a spray that leaves indelible marks on intruders, making it far simpler to catch and convict them.

Each batch of spray has a durable red dye and a powder containing strands of DNA, in effect a “signature” that can irrefutably link a burglar to the scene of the crime. The stain left by the spray cannot be removed from clothes or skin for several days.

These sprays are being built and sold by Redweb Security and here are some pictures of the devices.

Now, let’s look at the Register article.

Redweb supremo Clive Smith explained: “The key feature of our technology is that it irrefutably identifies a criminal with the scence of the crime. Each device containing i-powder is registered either to its owner or a precise location, and the unique DNA code contained within the substance remains detectable for several weeks. In this way, RedWeb presents law enforcement agencies with a weight of forensic evidence to assist in securing a conviction.”

Before buying or using one of these ‘alarm’ systems, you should read this list of Frequently Asked Questions. Some of the answers are really fun.

Can Guarda be used more than once? No, because the DNA in each alarm is unique, it can only be used once. If Guarda was used in a legitimate emergency, RedWeb Security will replace your Guarda for a small fee.

Can I register it to my business so all my employees can use it? Unfortunately no, because a sole individuals information is registered to the unique code and agrees to it’s proper operation and use.

If it is registered to me can my spouse or friends use it? See above.

What if it gets on my customers? RedWeb Security recommends that Sentry should not be deployed during opening times.

I would really like to know how many systems will be sold annually in the U.K.

Sources: Jessica Berry, The Telegraph, July 24, 2005; Lester Haines, The Register, July 25, 2005; and RedWeb Security web site

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• DNA
  
  
• Forensics
  
  
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Imagine someone imitating your signature or changing the dollar amount on a check. How will you detect it? Things have changed since the days when Sherlock Holmes used his legendary magnifying glass. Today, crime investigators specialized in forensic science are using chromatography to identify different inks. But a new approach is described in this article by chemists and forensic scientists from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Quantico, Virginia. This new process, called capillary electrophoresis (CE), which permits to separate the ink into its different pigments, is automated and fast. And results can be stored in a database for future searches. Read more…

Here is the introduction of this article from the FBI.

Evidence from handwritten notes has been a hallmark of crime detection for a long time — but forensic technology has just made the process that much more sophisticated.

That’s good news for investigators of insurance fraud, currency counterfeiting, tax evasion, and insider trading violations.

Then the unknown author points at two articles published in the July 2005 issue of Forensic Science Communications. These articles are generically named “Forensic Analysis of Ballpoint Pen Inks Using Capillary Electrophoresis.”

Here are the links to these two articles, one about black inks, and another one about blue inks.

Why different articles on different colors? Black and blue inks contain dye formulations that have different properties, which requires different methods to separate the dye components.

Here is a general description of this capillary electrophoresis (CE) process.

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has recently been used for ink analysis. A minute volume of ink (nanoliters) is injected in a narrow silica capillary filled with a buffer solution. Electrical current is then applied to the capillary to separate the ink into its components. Each component passes a photodiode array detector, which records an ultraviolet-visible spectrum. The process is automated, fast, and results can be stored electronically allowing the development of a searchable reference library. This process also detects non-dye additives in the ink that potentially can be used as identifiers.

The CE technique is largely detailed in the two articles mentioned above. But, if you’re not a chemist, I doubt you’ll understand the contents. However, the abstracts are written in plain English. Here is the one about black inks.

Capillary electrophoresis with ultraviolet-visible photodiode array detection (190–600 nm) was studied as an alternative separation and identification tool for forensic ink examination. Two different buffer systems were designed to analyze dye compounds in various black ballpoint pen ink formulations. Results were compared to thin-layer chromatography experiments to evaluate the sensitivity and performance of capillary electrophesis.

Because of the small volume necessary for analysis, the remaining solution could be further processed using current law enforcement procedures for confirmation.

This technique is not limited to ballpoint pen inks and can be applied to food dyes, textile dyes, and ink-jet dyes. Here is an example taken from the article about blue inks.

Experiments have shown that food dyes, textile dyes, and ink-jet dyes can be separated and identified using the anionic and/or cationic dye capillary electrophoresis methods. Acid Yellow 23 (also known as Yellow Food Dye No. 5 or Tartrazine) was identified in a boiled-down sample of Mountain Dew soda (PepsiCo, Chicago, Illinois) using the anionic capillary electrophoresis method (Egan et al. 2005).

Finally, if you want to learn more about how the FBI is putting forensic science at work, you can read its Handbook of Forensic Services (PDF format, 181 pages, 2.70 MB).

Sources: Federal Bureau of Investigation, July 5, 2005; and various FBI web sites

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• Chemistry
  


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In “Courtrooms could host virtual crime scenes,” New Scientist writes about a software called Instant Scene Modeler (iSM), which can build an interactive 3D model from a few hundred frames of a scene shot by a dual-head camera developed by MD Robotics. Users, who can be lawyers, judges, jurors or detectives, can zoom on any object in the 3D model. Other usages of this gun-shaped camera and its associated software include remote explorations of mines, or even other planets such as Mars. The software works by identifying common features in the sequence of images taken by the special camera. And it has already been used to pilot Aibo, Sony’s robotic dog. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs of the New Scientist article.

Lawyers, judges and jurors could soon explore crime scenes in three dimensions in the courtroom, in the same way that video gamers explore virtual worlds.

Software called instant Scene Modeler (iSM) re-creates an interactive 3D model from a few hundred frames of a scene captured by a special video camera. Users can zoom in on any object in the 3D model, measure distances between objects and look at scenes from different angles.

Currently investigators try to recreate the scene of the crime in court by sifting through photos or sketches, but this approach is limited and time-consuming, explains Piotr Jasiobedzki, iSM’s project manager at MDRobotics in Toronto, Canada. The software could also assist detectives during their investigations.

Here is how this works.

The system uses a gun-shaped stereo-camera that consists of two ordinary video cameras aligned at a set distance from each other. This enables the depth of the captured scene to be calculated at every point, just as a pair of eyes gauges distances. (Image credit: MD Robotics, iSM_InfoSheet (PDF format, 1 page, 1.25 MB)

And here are links to two animations from MD Robotics showing a crime scene sequence (4.2 MB) and a crime scene 3D model (4.3 MB).

The amazing thing about this software is that it automatically creates calibrated 3D models — and believe me, this is tricky.

iSM is different because it creates a virtual model of the scene that can then be explored from any angle. It does this by using a set of algorithms called SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) developed by David Lowe, computer vision expert at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada

SIFT very quickly identifies common features in sequential images, Lowe told New Scientist, allowing separate 3D images to be transformed into a virtual 3D world. The virtual world is rendered by a graphics gaming card inside an ordinary laptop or PC.

For more information about David Lowe’s work, you can read one of his latest papers, published by the International Journal of Computer Vision, “Distinctive Image Features from Scale-Invariant Keypoints” (Volume 60, Number 2, November 2004, Pages 91-110). Here is a link to the abstract and here is the beginning of it.

This paper presents a method for extracting distinctive invariant features from images, which can be used to perform reliable matching between different images of an object or scene. The features are invariant to image scale and rotation, and are shown to provide robust matching across a a substantial range of affine distortion, addition of noise, change in 3D viewpoint, and change in illumination. The features are highly distinctive, in the sense that a single feature can be correctly matched with high probability against a large database of features from many images.

Finally, if you’re a specialist in this field, here is a link to the full paper (PDF format, 28 pages, 501 KB).

Sources: Celeste Biever, NewScientist.com, March 10, 2005; and various websites

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• Forensics
  


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Researchers at Xerox PARC have developed a new way to imbed machine-readable information in printed documents. According to this article from Sci-Tech Today, “Digital Evolution Continues with Xerox Glyphs,” their dataglyphs are composed only of forward (/) or backward () slashes — similar to the zeros and ones used in binary code. These dataglyphs could replace bar codes or be used in faxes, easing the way of routing information in a large company. Xerox is already using these dataglyphs for several projects, including one in Latin America to reduce check fraud. The company also has started an experiment named ‘GlyphSeal’ for two-sided documents, one for human eyes, and the other for machines. Read more…

Here are some quotes from one of the Xerox PARC researchers, Jeff Breidenbach.

“Under a magnifying glass, you can see that a dataglyph is composed of hundreds or thousands of tiny diagonal lines, leaning either forwards or backwards,” said Xerox PARC research scientist Jeff Breidenbach. “Diagonal lines tend to unobtrusively blend — and by varying the color and thickness of these marks, we achieve a lot of aesthetic control.”

“Dataglyphs are essentially a barcode on steroids,” Breidenbach says. “In some ways they are simply more flexible — much more aesthetically flexible, more resistant to certain types of environmental damage, easier to read on curved surfaces, and more flexible in the quantity of data stored — from a handful of bytes to tens of kilobytes.”

You can create and decode your own dataglyphs by running this demonstration.

You’ll find much more information on this technology by reading this technical overview of dataglyphs.

But let’s return to Sci-Tech Today for a description of the ‘GlyphSeal’ experiment ,Breidenbach’s favorite application.

A Xerox experiment, GlyphSeal “is a technique for printing a hybrid analog/digital paper document,” Breidenbach explained. “The front sides of the paper are human readable, while the reverse sides contain a complete machine-readable digital representation. This allows a document to easily travel from computer system to printout and back again.”

The latest research work about GlyphSeal has been published by the Proceedings of SPIE (Volume: 5306, June 2004) under the title “Collocated Dataglyphs for large-message storage and retrieval.” Here is a link to the abstract — a full version in PDF format costs $15. Here is the beginning of the abstract.

In contrast to the security and integrity of electronic files, printed documents are vulnerable to damage and forgery due to their physical nature. Researchers at Palo Alto Research Center utilize DataGlyph technology to render digital characteristics to printed documents, which provides them with the facility of tamper-proof authentication and damage resistance. This DataGlyph document is known as GlyphSeal. Limited DataGlyph carrying capacity per printed page restricted the application of this technology to a domain of graphically simple and small-sized single-paged documents. In this paper the authors design a protocol motivated by techniques from the networking domain and back-up strategies, which extends the GlyphSeal technology to larger-sized, graphically complex, multi-page documents.

Xerox PARC has a long history of good ideas that never been commercially successful — at least for Xerox. Will these dataglyphs become a hit or a flop? Time will tell.

Sources: Mike Martin, Sci-Tech Today, January 21, 2005; and various websites

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In the UK, where the recent Queen’s speech about national identity cards generated lots of — mostly negative — coverage, another potentially invasive technology is being tested with very few criticism. For example, several police departments are now testing a 3D biometric facial recognition software from Aurora, a company based near Northampton. The use of facial recognition “is rapidly becoming the third forensic science alongside fingerprints and DNA,” according to a police officer who talked to BBC News for “How your face could open doors.” The company claims its software is so sophisticated it can make the distinction between identical twins. And if the civil liberties groups continue to be neutral, this technology could also be deployed in airports or by private companies. Even banks are thinking to put cameras in their ATM machines to identify you. The good thing is that you will not have to remember your PIN. On the other hand, as with every new technology, is it safe for your privacy and is it possible to hack the system? Read more…

Here is the introduction from BBC News Magazine.

The ethical debate about identity cards has been reignited following the Queen’s Speech, but its facial recognition technology is being used in other areas. Police are hailing it as a forensic breakthrough and a new “foolproof” 3D version could eventually become a routine procedure at cash machines or workplaces.

Once the preserve of science fiction, biometric facial recognition has now become a reality. Despite its association with the controversy of identity cards, it is predicted to become part of everyday life.

But is the technology ready?

As companies become more security conscious, the process of having our faces scanned is set to become more commonplace. And new technology which can produce this in a more accurate 3D form could accelerate this trend

A firm which has developed the 3D software, Aurora, claims it is sophisticated enough to distinguish between identical twins.

The brave BBC reporter tested the software for us.

I underwent the procedure myself and it only took a few seconds. A camera used a near-infrared light to put a virtual mesh on my face 16 times. It merged these into one unique template and calculated all the measurements of my features.

Now, the real questions are to know if the technology gives accurate results and if it’s possible to hack the system.

The government’s biometric trials for passports and identity cards have reportedly experienced a 10% error rate in face recognition. The Home Office denies this and says that in any case its trials were only testing the procedures and the public response, not the technology.

Aurora claims its software eliminates these alleged errors. Founder Hugh Carr-Archer says: “We can’t say it’s 100% but we’ve done tests and have a zero failure rate.

According to the police, the 3D technology is still too expensive to be widely deployed, but it continues to use successfully 2D images.

It works by scanning an image of a suspect’s face - such as a CCTV picture taken from a crime scene or a drawing based on eye-witness accounts. This produces a 2D map of the face which marks attributes such as the distance between the eyes.

Then the computer uses an algorithm to compare the data of this face to thousands of others on a database of offenders - people who have ever been arrested or charged. Within seconds it lists the matches in order of relevance, just like a web search engine.

Of course, this technology is not approved by the justice and can’t be used in courts. But it’s used by the police to detect potential suspects, which says the technology is really effective.

The West Yorkshire Police says 70% of images searched have produced useful intelligence worth researching further, with two or three arrests a week as a result.

So what’s your opinion? Is this technology threatening our privacy or not? Do you like the idea to be filmed and having your image compared to millions of others just to get $50 at a cash machine? Post your comments below.

Sources: Tom Geoghegan, BBC News Magazine, November 25, 2004; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Forensics
  


• Police
  


• Privacy
  


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