AmpedFive works with native Milestone files

Amped software recently announced an update to Five that adds native Milestone support. What does that mean? "Now Five allows working on native Milestone export format (.PQZ) as if it was a standard video file. No further exporting and conversion is needed, thus ensuring the maximum available quality." Where's Milestone? City CCTV, police surveillance ... everywhere. They've got huge market share. Now, we've got a way to work native. How cool is that?!

Best Practices for the Analysis of Digital Video Recorders - my public comment

First off, let me say that I'm not representing any "agency," as defined by the SWGs, in my comments. The following comments and observations come from me - a practitioner. As the document was published in public, I'll give my comments in public. Consider this me talking out loud as I read it - asking questions and noting observations as I go along ... If I sound confused about this document, it's because I am. Sorry.

My first observation is this - the rapid shift from "retrieval" in the beginning of the document to "analysis" later on. This is an important distinction. Evidence my be retrieved by one employee and analyzed by another. The person doing the analysis may have no access to the crime scene and therefore must rely on the accuracy and completeness of the retrieved information/data. Again, this is part of my confusion - retrieval vs. analysis.

Secondly, this document seemingly proposes a "bag it and tag it" approach, seizing the DVR and processing it as evidence. The workflow mainly reads as a quasi-computer forensic (CF) procedure. I'm not arguing that the workflow is necessarily bad - but confusing. Once you've performed the CF functions of opening the case, cloning the drive, putting the clone in, and turning the DVR back on - you're right back to where you were with the TSWG book, checking settings and etc. Should this new procedure replace the one in the TSWG book - or supplement it only when getting the data on scene is problematic?

Many agencies will have issue with this move to equip retrieval agents with CF drive cloning gear and etc. Others may have an issue with cracking the DVR case and performing this procedure in the field, and will opt simply to bag/tag when they didn't previously. Either way, there will be a big shift in the way many agencies process DVRs at crime scenes (or not, and they'll have to explain why under cross?)

Thirdly, the technical considerations were learned by practitioners over time, often the hard way (loss of data). Often, DVRs are so poorly designed/documented that you won't know that these are issues until it's to late - you've already pulled the HDD and it want's to format it for first use when you put it back in. Moving from a retrieve in place method, to a bag and tag CF method, may prove problematic when an agency lacks proper funds/staff/training to perform the CF part effectively.

Finally, given that you move back to the TSWG book's retrieval procedure as soon as you put the clone in place, are you actually "analyzing" the DVR? What does it mean to you when you hear the term "analysis of Digital Video Recorders?" I think, researching chips, compression schemes, indexes, etc - not doing a CF drive clone to facilitate a retrieval. Again, confusion on my part?

I guess that my comments can be summed up as confusion as to why? Why merge CF functions with DME retrieval in the same document? Why call it DVR analysis when you're not really analyzing what makes the DVR do what it does? (How many agencies have engineers that could do an analysis of chips, boards, OS, etc?) Why did SWGIT feel it necessary to write this draft? What issue were they trying to address that isn't adequately covered by the TSWG book? Why is this a SWGIT document and not a SWGDE document? This document seemingly fits better with SWGDE's mission.

Again, the discussion draft is public, so I chose to make my initial thoughts public. I know that many privateers aren't included in the various list-serves and discussion groups - so I'm trying to get the public to be as inclusive as possible.

Enjoy.

Tag it and bag it

The Scientific Working Group on Imaging Technology (SWGIT) has released a new document for public comment until September 14th, 2012.

Section 23 Best Practices for the Analysis of Digital Video Recorders can be found at www.swgit.org or at http://theiai.org/guidelines/swgit/index.php

Instructions for providing feedback can also be found at the above web sites.

SWGIT greatly appreciates your feedback, so please take a few minutes to review the new guidelines and provide them with your comments.

Smartphone App used to Secretly Record Police Stops

This just in from CBS New York: "New Jersey’s branch of the American Civil Liberties Union has taken its mission of policing the police to smartphones.

The ACLU has released an app called “Police Tape” that lets users secretly record police stops.

The ACLU’s Alexander Shalom said the app is easy to use.

“There’s really only three buttons that the user needs to deal with,” Shalom said. “There’s a know your rights button that educates the citizen about their rights when encountering police on the street, in a car, in their home or when they’re going to be placed under arrest, and there’s a button to record audio and a button to record video.”

Read the whole story by clicking here.

Be careful out there.

Photoshop Facebook poll

A recent poll on Facebook illustrates my point about Adobe's direction with Photoshop.

Here's the post from Photoshop's Facebook page:

"On Friday you shared with us more than 750 features you would add to Photoshop! We greatly appreciate your feedback and want you to know that the most requested feature is already a newly added feature in Photoshop CS6. You can find it under Preferences>File Handling.

----

Also added to Photoshop CS6:
Type styles is a newly added feature in CS6: http://bit.ly/LsqPV4
Relight: You can relight images using the brand new Lighting Effects in CS6: http://bit.ly/JPvJv3
Bokeh blur: The new Blur Gallery in CS6, in addition to the Lens Blur filter, can also achieve bokeh effects: http://bit.ly/OdetU2

----

The following features have been available in Photoshop for multiple versions:
Longer history: Choose Preferences>Performance to add up to 1000 undos/history states
Spell check: Spell checking is already there. Edit>Check Spelling.
Canvas rotation: http://adobe.ly/LKUy9R
Remove dust: You can open multiple raw images in Camera Raw, remove dust from the same location via the spot healing brush and synchronizing the setting across all images to batch spot remove.
Edit keyboard shortcuts: You can add a shortcut to any command you like. Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts.
Comment tool: http://adobe.ly/NevWZp
Easy button: Try Photoshop Elements, which has options for "Full" "Quick" and "Guided" ease levels."

You see, the types of features most demanded by its fans aren't really applicable to forensic work. Still and all, I'm taking a wait and see approach to this.

Small towns adjusting to life without police depts.

This just in from PoliceOne.com: "It's a crime what City Hall did last month, some residents of this town say.

But eliminating the entire police department — chief and all — is just a sign of these penny-pinching times, according to law enforcement experts.

That's little comfort to Cleo Brewer and other townsfolk, many of them retired and living on fixed incomes.

"No one wants to say their town doesn't have a police force. It's an invitation for trouble," said Brewer, owner of the Western Cafe, a popular eatery that has been tempting patrons with its catfish plate specials for 25 years.

Other residents of this relatively quiet town of 1,100 say the city simply had no choice.

For several years now across the country, rural towns like Kemp have been disbanding their police departments because they can't afford them anymore. While the overall number of law enforcement agencies in the nation went up from 2004 to 2008 — the latest years for which national statistics were available — smaller departments with fewer than 10 officers dipped about 2.3 percent, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics ..."

To continue reading the story, click here.

FFT in Photoshop!

Made you look. There's still no FFT for periodic noise removal in Photoshop as such ...

I was working on a case recently and thinking back to a conversation that happened around an imaging class at NATIA years ago. It focussed on what wasn't in Photoshop - and how to best document your steps.

Here's a screen-shot of a section of a report that was generated out of an AmpedFive project that I was working on. I had some periodic noise that had to be dealt with and so I worked the files in AmpedFive. The report details that my third step was a Fourier transform, gives the details of what was done in simple terms, defines the parameters of my work, and gives the published source for the step. 

Each filter in AmpedFive gets this kind of treatment in the report. How cool is that?!

AmpedFive is quickly becoming my tool of choice. The more I put it to the test, the more it amazes me.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments ...


Last year, I introduced you - gentle reader - the President's Subcommittee on Forensic Science. One of the themes of the work from this body, and the NAS report, is that if there's a certification in your field of work ... you should have it.


LEVA has their certifications. Some argue that the value of LEVA's certification is outweighed by the high cost to attain the title, Certified Forensic Video Analyst (CFVA). The IAI now as a competing offering - Certified Forensic Video Examiner. The IAI's path to certification is inexpensive in comparison to LEVA.


I received an e-mail asking about the difference between the two - and the semantical difference between "analyst" and "examiner."


Bing's dictionary defines analyst as an "expert who examines something: somebody with specialist knowledge or skill who studies or examines something by separating it into its constituent parts and gives an assessment, description, or explanation of it." The root of examiner is examine, "to inspect or scrutinize carefully." Given the Subcommittee or NAS, should a person engaged in FVA have either of these, or both? Is one more valuable vs. the other? Should an analyst be thought to outrank or be superior to an examiner? What's in a name?


Before you answer that ... what about Adobe's ACE program? Again, the premise is that if there's a certification, you should have it. Do you use Photoshop or PremierePro? There are separate ACE exams for these products. What about Acrobat? If you make PDF presentations, should you need to be an Acrobat ACE? How about Avid? Avid has a Media Composer certification. If you bought a MC system from Ocean Systems, do you need to be Avid certified?


Herein lies the problem. The goals of the certification programs of Adobe and Avid are not centered on law enforcement. In order to be certified on their products, you will have to master tools and techniques that you may never use in the course of your work. Folks further argue that LEVA's training path is too Avid centric and that the IAI test focusses too much on broadcast TV. You name the test or certification, and there'll be folks with arguments against it. With this in mind, what's the real value to certification?


Yesterday, I said that while I still love Photoshop, I'm falling out of love with it. The manufacturers of Photoshop and the other commercial products that I use are targeting a different audience. If my workflow only uses specific pieces of Photoshop, should there be allowances for this practice in the certified user/expert test? What if the manufacturer of your tool of choice offers no certification?


Just some things to consider. More to follow ...

Don't be alarmed

The book came out with the release of Photoshop CS3. CS3 was a monumental release for the forensic community. Folks rushed out to buy CS3. Trainers, like me, re-did everything to accommodate the release. Then ...

I like to be honest with people and answer direct questions directly. With the successive releases - CS4, CS5, CS5.5, and now CS6, I've received a ton of questions about upgrading. With tight budgets, folks are trying to figure out if the newest versions are worth the price vs. what they've got with CS3.

Adobe's cleaned up the code. They've gone 64 bit. They've changed the UI. They continue to improve ACR. If you've got the latest and greatest hardware, your CS apps will scream.

This leaves me in a quandary. I've upgraded each time - but the majority of my LE readers have not (based on reader feedback). I've written extensively on the features in CS3 ... and those things that have changed/improved with each successive release.

So ... don't be alarmed ... but I'm having a bit of a mid-life crisis with Photoshop. I love it - but those passionate in-love feelings fade with each new version. I've been hearing rumors about a LE specific release for a while now, but nothing is yet available. So, as Adobe courts photographers and digital content creators (their primary market) ... there's little for LE to cheer about with each new release date.

Yes CS6 is out. Yes, I own a copy. Yes, I like it - I like it a lot. But, do I feel the same way about it as I did with CS3? Unfortunately ... no.

To be continued ...

The Legal Implications of BYOD

With so many of us using our personal phones and iPads for work (Bring Your Own Device), I thought that this article from the InfoLawGroup would be worth a read.

"... The first rule of policy development and compliance is to create policies that can be followed and will be followed when implemented. Policies should not be aspirational and should reflect the “reality on the ground” as closely as possible. If certain BYOD activities are already taking place, it may be necessary to develop policies that reflect those activities or terminate or limit certain activities on a going forward basis ..."

"... Overall, the policy and control set around BYOD should be made flexible enough to deal with unusual situations. This is especially important in the BYOD context because personal device technology and risks are constantly evolving at a very rapid pace ..."

"... Device configuration requirements may include enabling wiping/bricking capabilities of a device, disabling automatic back-up or cloud storage of data stored on a device, prohibiting the use of a personal device as a mobile hotspot, requiring or prohibiting certain application installation, enabling auto-patching for operating systems and applications, and prohibiting jail breaking or modding of devices. The policy will often also require employees to install mobile device management or other software on personal devices. These system, software and configuration requirements often vary depending on the particular type of personal device and/or operating system, and may need to be updated when new devices are being used or new security vulnerabilities discovered ..."

Crowdfunding your next venture?

It's hard to start a business. It's even harder to start a technology company - given the huge up-front costs. With the rise in success stories from people who've used Kickstarter for creative projects, some are considering micro-finance or crowd funding as a source of venture capital.

As attractive as it might sound, the JOBS Act adds a ton of complexity. Here's a great article on the subject that breaks down the real issues that you need to consider before going down that road.

Social media strategy?

Here's an interesting article on the emerging trend of developing a social media strategy for high-profile court cases.

Are you on Twitter? Facebook? Do you use these for personal or professional purposes? It's an interesting read to see where folks are taking social media these days.

Speed up video preview in PS CS6

Adobe's Julieanne Kost addresses Photoshop's slow video preview, "to preview video faster in Photoshop, zoom out until the height of the canvas is less than 540 pixels. At this smaller preview size, Photoshop CS6 automatically plays and scrubs at lower resolution (and therefore faster)."

Enjoy.

Frame skipping in PS CS6

If you're concerned about frame skipping when working with video in Photoshop, here's a cautionary note from Adobe's Julieanne Kost, "... if the project has audio, and the audio button is ON, Photoshop will skip frames as necessary (regardless of the Allow Frame Skipping setting) to keep up with the audio (in real time)."

more to like about AmpedFive

The more I work with AmpedFive, the more I like it. One of the cool features, especially for those in a Frye state, is the reporting feature.

AmpedFive's automatic report generation feature includes the sequence of all operations applied to all files, the used parameters and a detailed description of their usage and implementation. It also has links to the relevant science behind the operations. How cool is that?

AmpedFive Professional is the perfect addition to your tool kit. It's purpose built for the forensic analysis of video and images. Check out a demo today. I think that you'll like it.

Enjoy.

PremierePro - under the hood

Here's a good reason to process video on a CUDA capable workstation.

When Premiere Pro is just using the CPU for the processing of scaling operations, it uses the following scaling methods:

• playback: bilinear
• paused: Gaussian low-pass sampled with bilinear
• high-quality export (Maximum Render Quality off): Gaussian low-pass sampled with bilinear
• Maximum Render Quality export: variable-radius bicubic

The variable-radius bicubic scaling done on the CPU is very similar to the standard bicubic mode in Photoshop, though the Premiere Pro version is multi-threaded and optimized with some SSE instructions. Even with these optimizations, it is still extremely slow. For high-quality scaling at faster-than-real-time processing, you need to use a CUDA card.

When Premiere Pro is using CUDA on the GPU to accelerate the processing of scaling operations, it uses the following scaling methods:

• playback: bilinear
• paused: Lanczos 2 low-pass sampled with bicubic
• export: Lanczos 2 low-pass sampled with bicubic

For export, scaling with CUDA is always at maximum quality, regardless of quality settings. (This only applies to scaling done on the GPU.) Maximum Render Quality can still make a difference with CUDA-accelerated exports for any parts of the render that are processed on the CPU. Over time, we are working on reducing the list of exceptions to what can be processed on the GPU. For an example of a limitation that can cause some rendering to fall back to the CPU, see this article: “Maxium dimensions in Premiere Pro CS5″.

When rendering is done on the CPU with Maximum Render Quality enabled, processing is done in a linear color space (i.e., gamma = 1.0) at 32 bits per channel (bpc), which results in more realistic results, finer gradations in color, and better results for midtones. CUDA-accelerated processing is always performed in a 32-bpc linear color space. To have results match between CPU rendering and GPU rendering, enable Maximum Render Quality.

Note: There are two places to enable or disable Maxium Render Quality—in the sequence settings and in the export settings. The sequence setting only applies to preview renders; the export setting (which defaults to the sequence setting) overrides the sequence setting.

- source: Adobe.com

Configurator 3 for CS6 is here

With the release of Configurator 3, I'll be hard at work updating the Forensic Photoshop Configurator Panel to version 3. It'll be uploaded to the book's secure site soon (version 1 [CS4] and 2 [CS5] are still available).

Enjoy.

Exporting video from Photoshop CS6

If you've captured video, processed it in Photoshop CS6, and are concerned with compression and aspect ratio ... there's good news. In Photoshop CS6, the new export tie-in with Adobe Media Encoder makes it simple to export video. All of your controls are right there on the same screen. No more having to dive deep for compression and aspect presets.

Enjoy.

Which version are you using?

I get a lot of Photoshop questions, either as comments or via e-mail. Most folks fail to include the version of Photoshop they use. Regardless, expectations are that I can help. So ... I've got to keep most versions loaded and ready to go.

Additionally, plug-ins like OptiPix work in CS3, others in CS4, most in CS5 - but few in CS6 (yet). When I'm on the road training folks, it's nice to be able to show them in the version that they use at work. After all, what's the point of showing CS6 when the class is still stuck with CS3? Sure, they can see all the new stuff, but if their agency is broke, they'll still want to be effective within their status quo.

Enjoy.

New police photographer faces tough cross examination

This just in from the Independent.ie: "... Police photographer Sutish Sharma Jeetwooth faced tough cross-examination from the defence team as they probed the thoroughness of his work documenting the scene.

Michaela's brutal killing was the first murder case the young photographer had worked on.

He was called upon the day she died, first to photograph her body, laid down beside the bath, and then the hotel room.

In subsequent weeks he was called again to take pictures of reconstructions in the room.

The defence lawyer asked why he hadn't photographed CCTV cameras near Michaela's room or the sand on the beachfront outside in case there were footprints.

In all cases he said he photographed only what his superior officer told him to.

Counsel for Avinash Treebhoowoon, Ravi Rutnah, asked: "You don't use your technical expertise to take other pictures you deem necessary?"

He also asked: "Do you think in this modern era black-and-white pictures are less likely to assist an investigation than colour?" to which he replied: "I can't say."

Black and white or not, the images are a glimpse into the horror that greeted the young husband who found his wife dead during a honeymoon that was, as the prosecutor put it, so "brutally interrupted."