It appears like those of you out there who are fond of carrying a weapon are going to have a tough time doing that. The New York Police Department has just announced a new project which involves the developing of a portable scanner that can remotely detect a concealed weapon on a body.  As you know, frisking someone who is carrying a lethal weapon is certainly a dangerous duty for police officers, especially if that person is not happy about getting arrested. But officers from NYPD (and most probably other departments as well, later on) won’t have to worry about it for too long.  The NYPD started working on the portable scanner three years ago after teaming up with the United States Department of Defense.  The device makes use of infrared light rays to image radiation that is coming from a person’s body. If the person is carrying a metal object such as a gun, it will prevent the rays from reaching the part of the body where the object is. This will result in the appearance of an outline of that object on the scanner.  At the moment, the device is capable of detecting weapons from a distance of about one meter. But they are expecting to increase its range to at least 25 meters. They are planning to mount it on a police vehicle for using it on suspects, and frisking will be avoided.  One day in the future it will probably be in HUDs.

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“We feel for those impacted by this weekend’s riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can,” said Patrick Spence, managing director of global sales and regional marketing at RIM. “Similar to other technology providers in the UK we comply with The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully with the Home Office and UK police forces.”

The assumption is that RIM has access to the messages sent over BBM, pointing toward the people who may have been involved in organizing the rioting and looting. Some may view this as a Big Brother-like direct invasion of privacy, but the RIP Act could also allow UK police to force RIM to hand over the info from its encrypted network anyhow.

In related news, it seems that social media is also being used to organize a social cleanup of the town, not unlike what happened in Vancouver following the Stanley Cup riots.

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As if being able to track your every move wasn’t scary enough, it looks like there is yet another way to learn just about everything about you. Thankfully, the Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) is being provided only to law enforcement. Then again, bad guys could probably swipe one of these too.

Basically, a range of different cell phones can be plugged into the UFED and the device will be able to quickly grab your contact information, messages, stored photos, calling history, and all sorts of other data that could be used against you in a court of law. The kicker is that it’ll scan for deleted and hidden files too, just in case you thought removing those incriminating photos and texts could save you.

“But I have a password.” Tough luck. The next model of the UFED will be able to stomp right on by the password lock on Android and iOS devices. Maybe it really is in your best interest to get a phone off the beaten path with an obscure proprietary data connection. Then the coppers will have a much more difficult time accessing your data.

Will this become standard equipment next to the radar gun and breathalyzer? I somehow doubt it, but it could be added to the arsenal of tools that CSIs bring the scene. It’s not quite as impressive though as the quick chip clone Jason Bourne did on the CIA lady’s phone in Bourne Identity.

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