[RockRobotRock]

>Mojo can quickly sniff out devices like hard drives, flash drives or SD cards — often leading officers straight to the evidence they need to make an arrest.

Do nand flash chips and magnetic platters have a distinct smell? lol :)

I'm not saying its impossible but really really outlandish

[iamben]

Yes! I saw a presentation a couple of years back from police dog trainers. Different dogs would specialise in different things - drugs, guns, and amazingly - hard disks! They train them specifically to do so. What blew my mind was the reward was always just a tennis ball. But the dog was soooo happy to get the ball for a short amount of play when it did well.

[smt88]

Drug-sniffing dogs are a myth[1]. They're used as a pretext for illegal searches, not to detect drugs.

I suspect this is similar. "Detecting off-gassing" is vague enough to sound like it makes sense, but there's a variety of materials in electronic devices and many of the ones that off-gas (like plastic) are found in millions of other products.

1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-03/fact-check-are-drug-d...

[IggleSniggle]

Your citation pretty clearly demonstrates that drug-sniffing dogs DO work. And anybody who has ever had a dog sniff something out would find this to be an obvious fact.

The omitted figure is how large the sample size is. If the dog sniffs 100,000, and identifies 10 as having drug odor, but only 2 of the 10 are currently in the possession of drugs, that doesn't really indicate that the dog "has a failure rate of 75%" because it doesn't take into account any of the "negative identifications." We don't know how many of those other identifications were false negatives, but certainly I wouldn't expect 25% of the population to be carrying illicit drugs at any given time, and especially not in scenarios where there may be a checkpoint with a dog involved.

The dogs may be misused, but that doesn't make their ability a myth, and neither does this article claim that a dog can't sniff out the trace scents of a drug. It carefully skirts around this assertion, because dogs absolutely can sniff out drugs. They're just not infallible, and may also be used as pretext.

[15155]

Drug dogs detect the high vapor pressure of the drugs themselves.

What exactly exists in an SD card that doesn't exist in basically every other silicon-based consumer electronic product?

[cwillu]

It's not that the off-gassing silicon is storage, it's that it's hidden.

[Mordisquitos]

But in the case of drugs there would be a clear motivation fuelling the alleged myth: to perform illegal searches based on the fake prior of "illegal drugs" having been sniffed by the dogs. That does not work for electronics.

Carrying or distributing certain drugs is illegal, and thus a sniffer dog ostensibly detecting them can be grounds for reasonable suspicion and a search. Being suspected of carrying electronics, on the other hand, is not grounds for a search. That is, of course, unless these dogs are claimed to be trained to sniff out only electronics storing child pornography... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[VHRanger]

Having trained a dozen dogs in scent detection: Drug dogs are not a myth.

Dogs really dog learn to detect scents.

They're used unethically by handlers in police work however, yes.

[orjandus]

Well, there's a chance that people had used drugs or smoked before, and the smell might still be present. The article acknowledges this, so it's not entirely a myth. While dogs can make mistakes, it's not definitively incorrect.

[t-3]

That's not how the dogs are used. They are told to signal, it's not a mistake. It's a tool of intimidation and a performative gesture towards probable cause. Officers without dogs will just claim "smells like weed" or "your eyes are bloodshot" or a million other things.

When actually searching for drugs, they prefer to destroy the vehicle outright, kick in any box speakers, tear off door panels and fabric, cut open seats, pull out spare tires, etc. They never ever use a dog to find the location of drugs in the car, only for the excuse that drugs might be in the car.

[multjoy]

Someone’s never done a proper search and is just parroting what they’ve read on the internet.

[t-3]

Of course I've never done a search, I'm not a cop... I've been searched many times though, and what I described, I've seen and experienced. Maybe you've done too many trainings and don't know what happens in real life?

[chrisandchris]

Your article does not fully support the claim.

> Whether or not the dogs were "incorrect" was a definitional question for Dr Malins.

The dog was accurate, however the dogs definition of accurate (there is some minimal smell) vs. the enforment officers (i need some smell so i have a ground for search) vs. the people (i walked through a cloud of smell) might be very different, which makes the measure "accurate" - well - very inaccurate.

[_a_a_a_]

> Drug-sniffing dogs are a myth

your link does not support that.

[tokai]

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=da&as_sdt=7%2C39&q=Dru...

[sneak]

It’s called “probable cause on four legs” for a reason.

Parallel construction is endemic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

There is no universe in which the surveillance state tips its hand about just how widespread and deep the surveillance of the population goes.

The idea that we aren’t subject to arbitrary search at any time is fiction.

[simne]

> Do nand flash chips and magnetic platters have a distinct smell?

Not chips. I'm electronics engineer with large experience. You will not believe, how many extremely non-nature chemicals used in electronics. Number is really huge.

And these chemicals really have strong smell, when touch with soldering iron I feel it even when powerful ventilation working, and I've tried to feel smell even when finished device and washed it with alcohol - something left anyway for months.

For about storage, I'm not sure, but have hypothesis - electronics likes volume and some fabs extremely specialized - for example, 80% of storage in whole world made in just THREE fabs (also exist fabs specialized on CPUs, on radio, on sound amplifiers and other analog circuits), and they might have their own unique list of used chemicals, and dog could detect this list and could feel difference from other lists.

[robin_reala]

Nintendo uses bittrex in the plastic for their Switch cartridges to stop kids from swallowing them. Potentially this is more widespread in the SD card industry? (I don’t have any around me to test-lick unfortunately.)

[hhh]

i’ve swallowed several microsd cards and they’ve never tasted of anything but plastic

[bombcar]

But why?

[LeifCarrotson]

I'm also concerned. The only reason I can guess at would be to prevent data from being seized when going through a security crossing, such as when going from one country to another or into/out of a secured corporate facility.

Maybe we can be charitable and assume that the parent commenter did undercover work as a journalist/mule in an authoritarian regime, eg. bringing photos that North Korea didn't want to be public out of the country? They're not likely to let you leave with an encrypted uSD even if you claim you forgot the password. But the vast majority of reasons to employ such deception are more nefarious - either illegal corporate espionage or military espionage across an airgapped/monitored network, or distribution of CSAM.

Or maybe he just likes the taste of microSD cards?

[hhh]

I manage a fleet of over 1500 raspberry pis and sometimes put microsd cards in the same pocket I put my supplements and just scoop the pocket full and put it in my mouth and drink some water and swallow

After that happened once I did it again deliberately in front of some friends because it was funny

[LeifCarrotson]

What do you do with 1500 raspberry pis?

[mauvehaus]

To keep the dogs from smelling them, of course.

[madars]

For anyone else wondering: it's Bitrex (not Bittrex like the crypto exchange) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium

[amelius]

> Do nand flash chips and magnetic platters have a distinct smell? lol :)

Maybe a flash drive has a different smell after it has been used by a CP offender?

[eesmith]

Seems possible.

The linked-to article in turn links to https://indianapublicmedia.org/news/indiana-man-training-k9-... dated January 27, 2017 describing how ""I had to pay a chemist to actually find the actual odor," Jordan says. "So it's an odor that's within the actual SD cards, the thumb drives, cell phones.""

This is further detailed at https://www.techrepublic.com/article/electronics-sniffing-do... where "[Dr. Jack] Hubball examined hard drives, thumb drives, SD drives–every type of electronic storage device available. The common denominator? A circuit board."

> He began testing various circuit board components, and about six months later, identified a compound called triphenylphosphine oxide (TPPO)–which covers the circuit boards in all storage devices from large hard drives down to microSD cards to keep them from overheating.

> Another compound, hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone (HPK), was extracted from removable media, such as CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, and even floppy disks.

(There are similar accounts about this Connecticut State Police work, like https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/news/can-dogs-detect-cyber... .)

I then tried to figure out how well established this is outside of this one Connecticut example. A Google Scholar search finds a paper from Italy at https://pubblicazioni.unicam.it/bitstream/11581/452666/1/69-... says:

> Dogs trained to sniff electronic equipment are the least known specialization of canine training, which has been implemented after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. International Police Forces begun to train search dogs for the retrieval of electronic equipment such as USB sticks, micro SIM cards, mobile phones, DVDs, CD-ROMs, external hard drives, and memory cards. Specialized dog units in this sector are called Electronic Storage Detection Dogs (ESDD) [24]. The ESDD dog is trained to sniff out the chemical component, triphenylphosphine oxide (TPPO), common to most electronic gadgets and storage devices, as a thermal insulator [25].

[24] is https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1556-4029.13... from 2017:

> Analyses found several volatile compounds common to SIM and SD cards, as well as USB drives, including 2-propenenitrile, styrene, isophorone, hydroxycyclohexyl phenyl ketone, and 2-furanmethanol, tetrahydro. Results indicated that mass storage devices do have a characteristic odor profile making detection with minimal false alerts feasible for trained canines.

Note: this is a feasibility study only - it does not test if dogs could do it. Nor does it mention the TTPO mentioned in the Italy paper, which is also not mentioned in [25] -- which had nothing to do the the topic!; see

[25] is https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jorge-Rojas-11/publicat...

The Italy paper's [26] is also messed up.

Another lead is https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/97810032... "This chapter introduces the project within the National Police of The Netherlands and focuses on the training method used for “Digital Storage Device Dogs.” Canines have previously shown to be an effective tool in locating obscured digital storage devices in the United States and United Kingdom." I don't have access to the content.

A news blurb about the UK use is at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8401991 but does not include what substance is detected. It does say the dogs used in the project came out of the Connecticut State Police work.

I would like to know of dogs which have been trained for this task which did not come out of that one program, and/or learn more about the specific tests done under more rigorous circumstances than the ones described in the links I gave.

Still, it does seem feasible that it works as described.

[LeifCarrotson]

Anyone who's worked in electronics manufacturing knows that printed circuit boards and soldered assemblies have a distinctive smell. The epoxy laminate boards get washed, but still have an odor, and we wash the flux residue off after soldering, but there are still odors that linger when acres of PCBs go across your manufacturing floor.

I am a little surprised that a dog's nose is sensitive and rapid enough to find the circuit board in a microSD card. The number of atoms of this residue that off-gas and waft through the air to the dog's nose must be tiny!

[eesmith]

So, get a bunch of e-scrap and scatter it around your place?

Or, bulk order microSD cards from Alibaba for under $1/piece? They don't need to actually work well.

[15155]

Sounds like one just needs to coat absolutely everything in their places, neighborhoods, businesses, etc. in TPPO and the like to change the noise floor.

[eesmith]

Looks like Sigma-Aldrich sells 100g of 98% pure triphenylphosphine oxide for about $100, see T84603 at http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/t84603 .

[RockRobotRock]

Wow, thank you for diving into it. Very interesting.

[janalsncm]

The article mentions the dog can smell the off-gassing from electronics. There’s probably a lot of false positives.