Tech Sniffing Police Dogs


An interesting profile on Police K-9 units used to find electronics. Basically, a dog is trained to find common electronics that may be hidden.

CNET Magazine:

To find out, Jack Hubball, a chemist with Connecticut's Forensic Science Laboratory, ordered thumb drives, SD cards and hard drives from multiple manufacturers. And he learned all memory devices use a chemical compound called triphenylphosphine oxide, or TPPO. That was the break they needed.

Once they had isolated the common chemical, the state's K-9 trainers could begin to train the first ESD dog in 2012.

Only 1 out of 50 tested dogs qualified become an electronic storage detection dog.