You may already know that if the police want to track your comings and goings, your cell phone has become the digital equivalent to a bloodhound. Because it communicates in the background with nearby cell phone towers, and your phone provider records and saves these “pings” in a way that police can search through, they…
One of the consequences of living in the information age is that more and more details about you are available to, and being gathered by, the government at both Federal and state levels. Sometimes this tabulation of your life’s details is connected to programs and services meant for your benefit. But on other occasions, what…
Let’s say (hypothetically, of course) that you have fallen in with the wrong crowd, and they persuade you to drive them to a place where they plan to commit a robbery. While they are committing the crime, something goes wrong and one of them gets fatally shot by the intended victim. The police catch up…
It began in 1993. A series of crimes occurred in Germany, several of them violent, including six murders. Police were at a loss to identify a suspect, but thanks to DNA evidence collected in connection with the crime scenes they were certain about a few things: – the primary suspect was a woman; – she…
Most people associate alcohol testing with breathalyzers or blood draws, but a comparatively new technology that detects alcohol as it leaves your body through your skin is set to take a more meaningful place among the ways in which alcohol consumption can be measured, monitored, and perhaps even used against you. Devices to measure “transdermal…
