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NIST develops experimental validation tool for cell phone forensics
Viewers of TV dramas don’t focus on the technology behind how a forensics crime team tracks a terrorist or drug ring using cell phone data, but scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology do. NIST researchers have developed a new technique aimed at improving the validation of a crime lab’s cell phone forensics tools. Early experiments show promise for easier, faster and more rigorous assessments than with existing methods.
Cell phones reveal much about our daily communications—the who, when and what of our calls and texts. A small chip card within most phones, called an identity module, stores this and other data for a subscriber. A subscriber identity module (SIM) accommodates phonebook entries, recently dialed numbers, text messages and cellular carrier information. Forensic examiners use off-the-shelf software tools to extract the data, allowing them to “connect the dots” in a criminal case such as identifying affiliations or detecting mobile phone activity around the time of an event.
But for this information to be used as evidence in court or other formal proceedings, the software tools that forensic teams employ are normally validated to determine suitability for use. Currently, preparing test materials for assessing cell phone tools is labor intensive and may require learning new command languages to perform the process. Read the rest of this entry »
Study shows US lags behind in transit safety programs for female riders
Posted by wideant in Social Sciences on March 6, 2010
A new study by UCLA professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris documents the gap between women’s transit safety needs and programs in the U.S. that respond to them.
Desolate bus stops and train cars, dimly lit parking structures, and overcrowded mass transit vehicles all represent stressful settings for many women. In a new study, UCLA’s Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris examines the gap between women’s well-documented transit safety needs and programs in the U.S. that respond to them. Read the rest of this entry »
Blue whales singing with deeper voices
Posted by wideant in Plants & Animals on March 5, 2010
Blue whales, the largest animals on earth, are singing with deeper voices every year, but scientists are unsure of the reason.
Whale Acoustics is a company that specializes in recording the songs of blue whales off the coast of California. According to their President, Mark McDonald, they have many recordings of blue whales, but each year they have had to recalibrate their song detectors to lower frequencies. Possible reasons include noise pollution at sea, new mating strategies, and changing population dynamics, but none of these theories is convincing.
McDonald, along with John Hildebrand and Sarah Melnick of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, have collected and analyzed thousands of recordings of blue whales from the 1960s onwards, from populations around the globe, and have found the tonal frequency of the songs has reduced by fractions of a Hertz every year. Read the rest of this entry »