Free DME & DFIR Resources

* Updated with Corrected Images & Explanations. 

After the break you'll find several images of a bogus Person of Interest (PoI) that were recorded by a DCCTV system. Two different analog CCTV cameras with built-in IR illuminators were connected to the black-box, h.264 DVR. These JPG images were exported from the DVR’s proprietary player. All of these images exported at 704 pixels by 480 pixels. When the recorded video is played back via the proprietary player it is displayed at 630 x 455; however, analysis of the proprietary file and exported AVI files reveals both of those contain a 704 x 480 video stream.

Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to:

• Describe the PoI’s clothing items from these images as you would for producing a BOLO. Note any issues that may affect your description.
• Identify the single most important correction that should be made to these images prior to printing. (BONUS - Why does this correction need to be made, and what tipped you off to it?)

If you’ve taken one of my recovery classes or attended one of my presentations on the topic at a LEVA conference or other event, you may have seen these examples.

From teaching classes over the years I frequently hear that many agencies are using Photoshop 6 and 7, Paint, Photoshop Elements, Microsoft Picture It and other applications due to the lack of funds to purchase upgrades. There is nothing wrong using some of the older versions but there are several functions that the older versions do not support, like high bit depth processing, limited color space/model options and the lack of more sophisticated image processing algorithms (de-convolution, pattern removal using FFT).  I also understand that many agencies who would love to have PS CS3 Extended with all of the great plugins that have been developed will never get the funds to make these purchases.

One solution to the funding issue is Image J (http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/index.html) Image J is a free, open source application provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  I not only have used this application for case work but to learn more about digital image processing algorithms. Image J is a very robust image processing and analysis tool set that has been referred to on the FVA list serve and recently in the book written by George Reis. This write-up is not a tutorial about Image J, it is meant to provide information about the application that may assist some readers.

One thing I really stress when training video evidence Technicians & Analysts is to stay in your lane. Don't go beyond your training & experience levels on any topic/tool/etc., no matter who is asking you to.

A related one is that an expert's job at trial is to leverage their expertise to make sure the Trier of Fact has accurate evidence & information, not to be an advocate for one party or the other.

I've had several students over the years tell me that my passionate articulation of one or the other has saved their case or even their career. Two rather recently.

Honored & proud, of course, but I always like to point out to them that they are the ones that did all the hard work and stood their ground.

Keep being great & doing great things my friends! 😎

Just finished reading the CNET article "Cops to Congress: We need logs of Americans' text messages". As someone who has analyzed mobile devices and call records for law enforcement for many years, I'm not surprised at all that law enforcement wants service providers to store more data. As a citizen of the United States, I'm a bit surprised the public seems to be sleeping on this one.

Make no mistake people, the issue under consideration here is whether or not you have the right to communicate via text message privately.

Privacy policies & practices are key, but it goes both ways my friends.  

YOU must develop & follow them, as well as the businesses, apps, sites, software, products, and services you use.

Have I gone mad about privacy? No, it's always been a concern of mine, from many perspectives.  It is also the topic of discussion for my audio podcast's January episodes. So there's that.

Surveillance Capitalism. Cambridge Analytica. Data Rights. Human Rights. Privacy Policies & Practices. CCPA.

If you're interested in any of these topics, maybe you can help me learn a few things?  Check out my Patreon posts and our January podcast episodes for my two cents.

Truly wishing you & yours all the best in 2020. Happy New Year my friends!

LEVA recently published their 2012 training schedule.  To view the updated training calendar visit www.leva.org and click on "Training" from the main menu.

LEVA is recognized throughout the world as the leading organization for state-of-the-art public safety video production and forensic video analysis training. LEVA has been at the forefront of providing training and professional development opportunities for Federal, State, and local public safety video professionals and organizations for many years.  To find out more, visit visit www.leva.org

With faster decoding on multi-core, GPU, and mobile hardware and the ability to open more formats, notably professional, HD and 10bits codecs, 2.0 is a major upgrade for VLC.

Visit the VideoLAN website for details.

Thank you so much, seriously.  ? 

Listeners are up by double digits for our podcast this week already, patrons by a single digit.  And get this, some of our family still hasn't even heard the show yet.  We don't advertise.  We don't want to.

How Can You Help?
You already have!  Seriously, if you're reading this, you have.  If that's not enough, consider joining us in the following experiment:

• Do NOT share our show or Patreon Community via Social Media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever else the kids do these days)

It's how we roll.  We want to take the long road, thank you.

Word of Mouth
It's what we're banking on.  It works.  It attracts those that are most likely to absorb, laugh, teach, and learn together.  Suddenly, it's spreading like an infection, if you will.

Open minds.  Minds willing to work together to solve problems, not blow on about how they did it all themselves.

No, You Didn't!
You didn't do it all by youself, more than likely.  There are few things in this world that we get to accomplish all by ourselves.  

I'm not taking away from your greatness by saying that, but you are not the only reason you're great, jackass.

Just sayin'.

Smile More, It's Contagious 
You want to know what's infectious?  Laughter & Love, my friends.

That will always catch on.

Hoping you & yours are safe, and surrounded by love during this pandemic.

Let's just do what we do, and try to make it another great day for those around us. Cheers! ?

It's 2:30 am EST and I'm testing browser compatibility.  What's wrong with this picture?   Anyway, I've tested most of the new member area functionality with IE7 and Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.7 and above; so if you're using the latest from either you're golden!

I've also tested IE6 extensively and noted a few issues related to layout, predominantly due to IE6 and IE5.5 not digging the use of PNG files  At some point I may go back and resolve these issues either through "creative code" or simply converting the images to GIFs, but that likely won't be for several weeks.  Hey, why not just update your darn browser already...they're both free you know!!!  🤪

The Vancouver Police Department will be hosting a live press conference where Police Chief Chu will be announcing the number of recommended charges to-date related to the Integrated Riot Investigation Team (IRIT)'s investigation.  The press conference will be held Monday, October 31st at 10:30 PST.  You can watch the live stream at www.vpd.ca

Consider this: If the DOJ forces Apple to create a new method to access this data in JUST this case, more than one Apple employee will need to be intimately familiar with it. It will need to be well documented, and protected by the very same US Federal Government privacy and security rules and regulations the DOJ is asking Apple to breach (think HIPAA, etc). Cool, Apple can do that, they have been more than helpful putting policies and procedures in place to accommodate government access legally from day one.

(The original post contained a link to my complete article on LinkedIn, but those posts no longer exist.)

By Elinor Mills

As planned, Microsoft released a fix on Monday for a critical Windows vulnerability that was being exploited by a fast-spreading virus and other malware.

Full Story:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20012386-245.html

Have you heard?  Adobe has long supported hardware accelerated playback in Premiere Pro, but now you can also leverage it for encoding H.264 & H.265 and literally save hours when encoding (in some cases)!

Check it out yourself, if you're using Premiere Pro.  Make it a great day my friends!