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Sorry stoners, we can see your stash on your prints
Getting away with doing illegal sh*t just got a smidge harder. A new fingerprint technology allows law enforcement to detect traces of weed, cocaine, explosives, even disease and other illnesses.
Using a technique called desorption electrospray ionization (DESI), which involves spraying a finger printed area (like your car door handle) with a solvent and anylizing the droplets that come off of the fingerprint to create a “chemical image” of the finger print.
The result is a higher resolution image of the print than past techniques allowed, give those doing the anylizing the ability to see particles down to one billionth of a gram of “material.” Getting away with doing illegal sh*t just got a smidge harder. A new fingerprint technology allows law enforcement to detect traces of... more -
Fingerprints Provide Clues To More Than Just Identity
ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2008) — Fingerprints can reveal critical evidence, as well as an identity, with the use of a new technology developed at Purdue University that detects trace amounts of explosives, drugs or other materials left behind in the prints.
The new technology also can distinguish between overlapping fingerprints left by different individuals - a difficult task for current optical forensic methods.
A team led by R. Graham Cooks, Purdue's Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry, has created a tool that reads and provides an image of a fingerprint's chemical signature. The technology can be used to determine what a person recently handled.
"The classic example of a fingerprint is an ink imprint showing the unique swirls and loops used for identification, but fingerprints also leave behind a unique distribution of molecular compounds," Cooks said. "Some of the residues left behind are from naturally occurring compounds in the skin and some are from other surfaces or materials a person has touched."
The team's research will be detailed in a paper published in August 8 issue of Science.
Demian R. Ifa, a Purdue postdoctoral researcher and the paper's lead author, said the technology also can easily uncover fingerprints buried beneath others.
"Because the distribution of compounds found in each fingerprint can be unique, we also can use this technology to pull one fingerprint out from beneath layers of other fingerprints," Ifa said. "By looking for compounds we know to be present in a certain fingerprint, we can separate it from the others and obtain a crystal clear image of that fingerprint. The image could then be used with fingerprint recognition software to identify an individual."
Researchers examined fingerprints in situ or lifted them from different surfaces such as glass, metal and plastic using common clear plastic tape. They then analyzed them with a mass spectrometry technique developed in Cooks' lab.
Mass spectrometry works by first turning molecules into ions, or electrically charged versions of themselves, so their masses can be analyzed. Conventional mass spectrometry requires chemical separations, manipulations of samples and containment in a vacuum chamber for ionization and analysis. Cooks' technology performs the ionization step in the air or directly on surfaces outside of the mass spectrometer's vacuum chamber, making the process much faster and more portable, Ifa said.
The Purdue procedure performs the ionization step by spraying a stream of water in the presence of an electric field to create positively charged water droplets. Water molecules in the droplets contain an extra proton and are called ions. When the charged water droplets hit the surface of the sample being tested, they transfer their extra proton to molecules in the sample, turning them into ions. The ionized molecules are then vacuumed into the mass spectrometer to be measured and analyzed. ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2008) — Fingerprints can reveal critical evidence, as well as an identity, with the use of a new technology deve... more -
New fingerprint test finds drugs, explosives
With a new analytical technique, a fingerprint can now reveal much more than the identity of a person. It can now also identify what the person has been touching — drugs, explosives or poisons, for example.
Writing in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, R. Graham Cooks, a professor of chemistry at Purdue University, and his colleagues describe how a laboratory technique known as mass spectrometry could find a wider application in crime investigations.
In Dr. Cooks’ method, a tiny spray of electrically charged liquid – either water or water and alcohol – is sprayed on a tiny bit of the fingerprint. The droplets dissolve compounds in the fingerprints and splash them off the surface into the analyzer. The liquid is heated and evaporates, and the electrical charge is transferred to the fingerprint molecules, which are then identified by a device called a mass spectrometer. The process is repeated over the entire fingerprint.
“It’s just that simple,” Dr. Cooks said. The researchers call the technique desorption electrospray ionization, or Desi, for short.
In the experiments described in the Science paper, solutions containing tiny amounts of various chemicals including cocaine and the explosive RDX were applied to the fingertips of volunteers. The volunteers touched surfaces like glass, paper and plastic. The researchers then analyzed the fingerprints. The test does degrade the fingerprint somewhat, Dr. Cooks said, but this analysis could be used after a print had been taken by standard methods.
Because the spatial resolution is on the order of the width of a human hair, the Desi technique did not just detect the presence of, for instance, cocaine, but literally showed a pattern of cocaine in the shape of the fingerprint, leaving no doubt who had left the cocaine behind.
“That’s an advantage that this technique would have,” said Bruce Goldberger, professor and director of toxicology at the University of Florida who runs a forensics laboratory that performs tests for medical examiners and law enforcement. “It does tie the drug to the individual.” Dr. Goldberger was not involved in the research.
The chemical signature could also help crime investigators tease out one fingerprint out of the smudges of many overlapping prints if the person had been exposed to a specific chemical. “I can use the specific compounds present in just one and make the image of just this one,” said Demian R. Ifa, a postdoctoral researcher and the lead author of the Science paper. With a new analytical technique, a fingerprint can now reveal much more than the identity of a person. It can now also identify what t... more -
Campaign against finger printing in schools
Should we allow finger printing of minors in our schools?
Easier registration, keeping track of library books on loan, saving time in the dinner queue, cashless classrooms preventing bullying - all reasons local education authorities have cited to validate a system for holding biometric data on the country's school children. But how secure is this data, and who ultimately holds control over how it is used?
Concerned parent Pippa King takes up the campaign in defense of our childrens' rights.
Campaign Blog: http://pippaking.blogspot.com/ Should we allow finger printing of minors in our schools? ... more -
Italy to fingerprint all to avoid discrimination
"Italy may demand all its citizens be fingerprinted, a move aimed at defusing widespread criticism of government plans to force Roma people and their children to provide fingerprints as a way of tackling criminality."
http://current.com/items/89104379_eu_parliament_warns_i...
A parliamentary committee agreed on Wednesday that from 2010 all identity cards, which Italians already have to carry, should include the fingerprints of the bearer. The measure still has to pass through parliament."
How would you react if your country were to take fingerprints? Do you think it is a necessary measure to improve security or a way to have more control over citizens? "Italy may demand all its citizens be fingerprinted, a move aimed at defusing widespread criticism of government plans to force R... more -
EU Parliament warns Italy over Gypsy fingerprinting
"The European Parliament on Thursday called the fingerprinting of Gypsies in Italy a clear act of racial discrimination and urged the authorities to stop it.
In a resolution, the EU assembly said the measure is not supported by EU human rights treaties and that EU citizens of Roma, or Gypsy, origin must not be treated differently from others in Italy, who are not required to submit their fingerprints.
The Italian government has begun the Gypsy fingerprinting as part of a wider crackdown on street crime. Italian newspapers have published photographs of gloved officials taking fingerprints from the ink-stained hands of Gypsies living in around Naples, and authorities are expected to move in on camps in other cities in the coming days.
Early examples of the papers filed in Naples showed local authorities also were identifying those fingerprinted according to their religion, ethnicity and education level..." "The European Parliament on Thursday called the fingerprinting of Gypsies in Italy a clear act of racial discrimination and urged... more -
Paying by fingerprint at the supermarket
Customers of a German supermarket chain will soon be able to pay for their shopping by placing their finger on a scanner at the check-out.
An Edeka store in the southwest German town of Ruelzheim has piloted the technology since November, cutting out on time otherwise wasted scrabbling for coins or cards.
Paying with your fingerprint
The company plans to equip its stores across the region with the new technology.
Store manager Roland Fitterer said: "All customers need do is register once with their identity card and bank details, then they can shop straight away".
The technology is based on comparing the shopper's fingerprint with those stored in its database along with account details. Edeka bosses said they were confident the system could not be abused. The chance of two people having the same fingerprint is about one in 220 million. Customers of a German supermarket chain will soon be able to pay for their shopping by placing their finger on a scanner at the check-... more -
Hackers publish fingerprints of biometrics-touting Minister
Hackers in Germany have published thousands of copies of the fingerprints of German minister Wolfgang Schauble, a loud advocate of fingerprint biometrics. Hackers from the Chaos Computer Club lifted a fingerprint from the Interior Minister, printed it on plastic, and distributed it by the thousands with their magazine for anyone who wants to impersonate the Minister at a biometric checkpoint. Short of amputation, a biometric identifier can't be revoked or changed. Schauble is a big proponent of the use of fingerprints in passports but is not the CCC's only target. The group has called for help in obtaining the prints of other German officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel. The CCC's publication of the fingerprint coincides this week with the presentation of a security researcher who demonstrated a biometric keylogger that can capture digital fingerprints and other digital biometric data as it's transmitted from a scanning device to the server where the information is processed. The hacker can then analyze and re-use the data to subvert biometric systems and gain entry to secured buildings. Hackers in Germany have published thousands of copies of the fingerprints of German minister Wolfgang Schauble, a loud advocate of fin... more
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Watch Out Bad Guys...
The FBI is working with British officials to create an international database of finger, palm, and iris prints to nab criminals and terrorists. The FBI is working with British officials to create an international database of finger, palm, and iris prints to nab criminals and te... more
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ipod accessories are conquering the human body
Seriously, are these things necessary?
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Phone fingers!
These creep me out. Covers to keep finger prints off your iPhone.
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Fingerprints
