I saw this piece on the local Denver ABC affiliate, 7News, about Colorado Crime Lab Experiencing “CSI” Effect. The gist of the report was that the popular crime fiction series is influencing public expectations of what crime labs can really do. I’m really not surprised since I enjoy watching those CSI shows in large part to check out the amazing technology that I wish actually existed – or am glad doesn’t really exist. Like that amazing facial recognition software that cross references grainy CATV images, enhanced by futuristic methods to HD quality against a huge database maintained by some high tech but unspecified international law enforcement agency to identify the perp. Yowza! I’ll take two of those bad boys! Or that killer speech recognition software that not only can filter out or enhance background noise and not only positively identify the speaker(s) but tag the geolocation using the background noise. All of this with the most intuitive user interfaces ever. I could totally use this stuff!
But alas, to paraphrase Scott Adams’ The Dilbert Future, the future will not be like CSI.
While I’m not a law enforcement professional, I’m fairly certain that crime scene investigators do not routinely question murder suspects, participate in high speed vehicle chases, or engage in spectacular shootouts with terrorists. Yep, sad to say, but my gut feeling is that CSI: Reality would not be that popular. Or exciting. Also by now I’ll bet you’re wondering how this is going to relate to security. Fear not.
As is illustrated by this article by Sharon Nelson in the {ride the lightening} blog, the reality is much more, … how shall I put this … real.
- A police department that turned a computer on and off (hey guys, this is original evidence you’re stomping on!) six times within two days of seizure, accessing numerous files.
- A police department that handed over evidence containing child pornography to the city’s IT director for analysis (um . . . gotta read that Adam Walsh Act chaps!)
- Last but not least, we were once again sent child pornography in the mail by a Public Defender’s Office – and sadly, this is the second time in a month – and generated by the same individual. You would think, after we reported the previous incident just weeks ago, that corrective measures would have been taken. Apparently not.
Or how about this gem, again from {ride the lightning}.
Yesterday we received child pornography via FedEx from our attorney client, who had been given it by a sheriff’s office. It was on a CD marked “Sterile.” In our world, that means no CP [Child Pornography]. Or it’s supposed to mean no contraband. But there it was, which meant (sigh) we had to call our assigned detective and advise him that we were in possession of child pornography, in accordance with our protocol with the Department.
When he heard that a sheriff’s department had distributed the child porn, he laughed. He could afford to laugh. Not us. Because the CD had been identified as sterile, it had been placed in a folder on our server. We had to selectively wipe that folder. We also performed a long erase of the backup tape from the server, thereby overwriting every inch of mylar. We hashed the CD contents and completely scanned our analysis computer to verify that no data was transferred. We destroyed the CD and notified both our attorney and the hapless sheriff’s office.
I don’t know about you, but I’m actually relieved that these guys don’t have access to that fabulous albeit fictional CSI technology. Now don’t misunderstand me, I’m definitely not implying that the good and competent folks on the front lines of law enforcement are bumblers. My point is that crime scene investigation and evidence gathering, preservation and processing is not trivial. It’s often mundane, frequently tedious, rarely dramatic and subject to policies and procedures that are baffling even to specialists. And often can make practitioners look a lot more like Dilbert than Gil Grissom.
Yep, CSI: Reality is not like CSI: Miami. But I still love that wicked cool technology.
Security For All 