September 4th, 2006
Fingerprint Compression to Aid in Forensics
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Researchers in England have development a compression technique which reduces the amount of time necessary to upload a fingerprint to a fingerprint bureau.
“Now we can transmit a lift within 30-60 seconds,” Professor Nigel Alinson told a news conference on Monday at the British Association Festival of Science. Source: Yahoo! News
We Say: How many of you watched that episode of C.S.I. New York … I think it was last season … where one analyst took a picture through a closed circuit camera of a fingerprint lifted from a crime scene, using a camera phone, no less. Like the image taken by that phone, particularly through a closed circuit camera, would be good enough for a match.
‘Course this technique sounds waaaay better (uncompressed transmission takes 4 - 20 minutes), but I’m wondering if lawyers will start wanting to look at the code to make sure there are no bugs in it.
Ed Porter says:
No matter how fancy you dress the messenger, the data is still garbage.
The upload speed for fingerprint files is not the issue. The problem with fingerprint analysis is that it is not an accurate science. Even the FBI admits that mistakes are made 60% of the time.
Like hair analysis, fingerprint analysis should not be allowed in the courtroom.
September 4th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Bill King says:
Jesus. What were they using originally? raw format via carrier pigeon? Glad they’re moving up in the world. Even if tiff was the base image format (likely, if i were given the job of designing at the time), there’s capabilities(tags) inside tiff for lz compression inside the format…
September 4th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Mart says:
Compression tends to reduce image quality. You cannot alter the image in any way, shape, or form if you want it to be admissible in court. www.aware.com/products/compression/wsq.html provides info on what they currently use.
September 4th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Snopesman says:
Lawyers look at code now? Yow.
September 5th, 2006 at 6:06 am
Bill says:
Snopesman-
Lawyers in Florida have been beating DUI cases in certain counties with certain judges using this tactic. When they can’t get the code to the breathalyzer, the judge disallows the breathalyzer evidence.
September 5th, 2006 at 8:35 am
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Fingerprint Compression To Aid In Forensics
Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes: Researchers in England have developed a compression technique which reduces the amount of time necessary to upload a fingerprint to a fingerprint bureau. “Now we can transmit a lift within 30-60 seconds,” Profess…
September 11th, 2006 at 11:15 am