Free DME & DFIR Resources

The AFMA Board of Directors has recently completed a draft of the Bylaws for the organization. This is available on the AFMA network at http://theafma.ning.com/forum/topics/bylaws-for-the-afma for comment. This draft document will be available for comment for 30 days - any suggestions for updates or additions must be submitted within this timeframe. We ask that if you do submit changes or additions please write them in a form that can be easily amended to the document. For example, a change or addition should be submitted as: “Section 15.2 Any changes or additions will be written in the form of the document.”

"The world is changing so quickly, that it's really hard for a standard to keep up. So when we introduce new protocol delivery or new codecs or new content protection inside the Flash player, we can effectively bring that new technology to at least 50 percent of the market within three months," said Kevin Towes, product manager for Flash at Adobe, speaking at a red-carpet interview at Streaming Media East. "There's not many technologies that can make that claim."

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The Association for Forensic Multimedia Analysis (AFMA) officially announced the results of their first ever board of directors election. The five members elected to the board of directors were Dorothy Stout, Sam Burgiss, Chuck Pruitt, Laura Teodosio, and Craig Thrane.

Those interested in becoming an AFMA member should send an email with the subject AFMA MEMBER REQUEST to info@theafma.org. After your request is made via email you will receive an invitation to the AFMA member's website.

Applications on display showcase real-time collaborative viewing and synchronized crowd-sourced video.

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Forensic Video Solutions, Inc., of Spokane, Washington is accepting applications from interested candidates for the position of Forensic Video Analyst. The successful candidate must relocate to Spokane.

The complete announcement, including details on how to apply, is available as a PDF file - click here (PDF - 39KB).

I've posted a new tutorial on Adding & Managing Events, and you'll find it on the Tutorials page under the Help menu after you login.  Did you know that you can setup recurring events in our community calendar, so that you don't have to do a seperate entry for your regular user group or other meetings?  Check out this brief new tutorial for more information.

This past weekend I added a direct link to the FVA FTP server via the members menu.  The FVA FTP server is hosted by Jimmy Schroering, developer of the free demultiplexing software program Camsort and member of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.  This extremely valuable FVA community resource was originally provided by Brad Doell, administrator of the FVA List-serv.  Speaking of which, I moved the link to the FVA list-serv from the Quick Menu to the main Member Menu this weekend as well.  Many thanks to both Jimmy and Brad for providing these services over the years, as well as permitting me to include them in the Media-Geek.com members area.

Additionally, I made some changes to a few script calls that should resolve most of the IE6 issues with accessing the Media-Geek.com Video Library.  There are a few other minor IE6 related issues to address, most related to the use of transparent PNG files, which I hope to get to next weekend.  As always, should you come across any issues or have any recommendations for the members area, please don't hesitate to post them to the Media-Geek.com Forums or shoot me a PM.  Thanks for participating!

For the last few weeks, I have been absolutely inundated and just haven't been able to spend as much time as I'd like to further developing Media-Geek.com features and services.  The great thing about this community concept, however, is that its success does not rely on any one individual...and many others have stepped up to the plate.  At some point today I suspect we will exceed 200 active professional forensic media related members!

Recently one of our members pointed out that the Member Forum RSS Feed wasn't working, so just in case you experienced this issue I wanted to let you know it was resolved moments ago.  RSS aggregators provide a great way to stay abreast of our site content, with seperate feeds available for various content areas throughout the site. 

Thanks everybody for keeping things moving forward lately, and don't forget to tell your peers and colleagues to Sign-up, Sign-in, and Contribute!

A couple of years ago I did a series of posts on aspect ratio correction of DCCTV recordings; more specifically DCCTV recordings captured by analog CCTV cameras, and correcting Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) for forensic interpretation. I pointed out in my posts and the subsequent Video & Display Standards Chart, that the one exception that I'm aware of where a DCCTV recording captured by an analog CCTV camera shouldn't be displayed 4:3, was the relatively new 960H format.

LEVA recently announced that the New York State Police will be hosting their Photographic/Video Comparison course in Albany, NY April 4th through the 8th.

Photographic/Video Comparisons focuses on the science of comparing known objects, vehicles, clothing and humans with CCTV images of questioned objects, vehicles, clothing and humans. The process of cataloguing class characteristics and unique characteristics found in questioned evidence is examined in detail. Using Adobe Photoshop and other generally accepted scientific tools for imaging comparison work,analysts/examiners develop a scientific workflow involving the hands-on analysis of video evidence, criminal-case report writing and courtroom presentation.

Complete details and application forms are available via the LEVA website.

Following their January, 2017 meeting the Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWGDE) recently released 9 new documents for public review, including a new document called "SWGDE Framework of a Quality Management System for Digital and Multimedia Evidence Forensic Science Service Providers (DME-FSSPs)". Additionally, SWGDE published 11 Approved documents following their January meeting.

If you're involved in Forensic Multimedia Analysis, I would encourage you to visit the SWGDE website and review these documents as time permits. I'd like to thank all of those involved in SWGDE for their valuable time and contributions to our disciplines/communities.

Have a great weekend everyone. Be safe out there! - LC

There's been a lot of yammering lately about facial recognition in criminal justice. So much noise that developers like IBM have walked away from facial recognition and agencies across the world are getting in hot water over its adoption & use.

Face Recognition Policy Development Template

The DOJ's Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) published a policy template for LE agencies back in 2017 that you may find helpful.  Of particular note is the recommendation that the technology only be used for investigative leads, and that facial recognition results on their own do NOT establish probable cause and should NOT be considered positive identification. 

Common sense, many might say, myself included.

Access the PDF - Click here.

Make it a great day, my friends!

The Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Video Association (LEVA) is offering a $200 discount to government employees who sign-up to take two of their most highly sought after courses - Forensic Imaging Techniques and Photographic/Video Comparison.  The courses will be held back-to-back June 9 - 15 at the LEVA DME Lab, which is located at the University of Indianapolis.

Visit the LEVA Web site for complete details!