crime

Counterfeiting is as old as money itself, with the history of currency including a millennia-long arms race between mints and the forgers that copy them. While governments have finally crafted paper money so intricate that counterfeiting isn't a major problem, detecting counterfeit coins remains a challenge. Now, Spanish scientists have modified a regular optical computer mouse to create a cheap and easy device for sniffing out phony Euro coins.

Hostage situations are often described like explosive devices, as ticking time bombs waiting to go off. And just as bomb disposal units have robots to help with their job, now police negotiators have a bot of their own for defusing a different kind of explosive situation.

As Doctor Hibert so eloquently put, "only one in two million people has what we call the "evil gene". Hitler had it, Walt Disney had it, and Freddy Quimby has it." And while we understand that line as a joke, it seems that an Italian court has taken the idea far more seriously.

The media generally portrays hacker as criminals going after law-abiding computer users, but one Dutch hacker has turned his sights on more fertile prey: other less-skilled, or even aspirational hackers. Like a digital stickup boy, he has remotely kidnapped illegally (according to Apple) jailbroken iPhones in the Netherlands, holding them hostage for five Euros.

Bringing the "wanted poster in the post office" concept into the 21st century, the FBI has begun using facial recognition software to identify fugitives on North Carolina highways. The software measures the biometric features of thousands of motorists' DMV photos, matching them against mugshots. When the face matches that of a known criminal, the authorities jump into action.

Researchers are now profiling the chemicals released from decaying bodies, in an effort to create a sensor that might be able to sniff out corpses in the rubble, or determine a dearly departed's precise time of death.

With cop cars disappearing from his rearview mirror and an open road ahead, a fugitive thinks he’s in the clear—until his car comes to a sudden halt. A sheriff, hiding in the bushes, has activated a road trap that sprung a ball of straps into the car’s undercarriage, immobilizing its drive shaft and axles.