Roadside drug test

[Trooper110]

Technology Review: Device Offers a Roadside Dope Test

Pretty darn interesting technology. You'd think that someone would work something up like this that would actually be worth something other than to law enforcement....like detecting certain viruses or bacteria, etc.

Guess it annoys me that it seems like more is done for anything but the medical industry, and what is done costs an arm and a leg for anyone who actually needs to use it.

[Duke{CLR}]

I think this is an excellent idea and if it's cheap enough it should be used to all those people who receive public assistance.

[Dead_And_Gone]

Cost?

prohibitively expensive or not?

next thing you know, cost is 1/10th, and all the schools have it.

[Duke{CLR}]

Cost?

prohibitively expensive or not?

next thing you know, cost is 1/10th, and all the schools have it.

I bet if they used these at schools they could get rid of the metal detectors.

[Pumpkin_Jack]

People will say they dont have to take it, its against your rights, just like a breathalizer, you buy as much time as possible before you take it.

[Trooper110]

People will say they dont have to take it, its against your rights, just like a breathalizer, you buy as much time as possible before you take it.

Problem there being that with a breathalizer or blood test for alcohol, if you can buy a little time it *might* help you since there's a legal limit. Having any of the drugs they listed for this test in your system would be illegal no matter the amount, and I don't think that 20 minutes is going to get the meth or cocaine out of your system.

[Duke{CLR}]

Problem there being that with a breathalizer or blood test for alcohol, if you can buy a little time it *might* help you since there's a legal limit. Having any of the drugs they listed for this test in your system would be illegal no matter the amount, and I don't think that 20 minutes is going to get the meth or cocaine out of your system.

I wonder if they will ever be able to tell how long it's been since you had the drug. This way if they legalized then they could do the same as they do with alcohol. This way if weed gets legalized then we airline pilots can do bong hits on layovers as long as it's been 8 hours or so.

[Skud]

To lessen the officer's load, I hope that they incorporate a taser into the device.

[Skud]

i Think This Is An Excellent Idea And If It's Cheap Enough It Should Be Used To All Those People Who Receive Public Assistance.

P.s. Lmao

[mapes]

I think this is an excellent idea and if it's cheap enough it should be used to all those people who receive public assistance.

Wow that statement seems to imply a certain governmental intrusiveness but, thats off topic.


I'm extremely leary of just trusting a machine. Actually it's not the machine it's the officers that don't follow instructions to calibrate it properly or for example its the faulty software the the manufacturers make. This was from may this year

May 13, 2009
Software Problems with a Breath Alcohol Detector

This is an excellent lesson in the security problems inherent in trusting proprietary software:

After two years of attempting to get the computer based source code for the Alcotest 7110 MKIII-C, defense counsel in State v. Chun were successful in obtaining the code, and had it analyzed by Base One Technologies, Inc.

Draeger, the manufacturer maintained that the system was perfect, and that revealing the source code would be damaging to its business. They were right about the second part, of course, because it turned out that the code was terrible.

2. Readings are Not Averaged Correctly: When the software takes a series of readings, it first averages the first two readings. Then, it averages the third reading with the average just computed. Then the fourth reading is averaged with the new average, and so on. There is no comment or note detailing a reason for this calculation, which would cause the first reading to have more weight than successive readings. Nonetheless, the comments say that the values should be averaged, and they are not.

3. Results Limited to Small, Discrete Values: The A/D converters measuring the IR readings and the fuel cell readings can produce values between 0 and 4095. However, the software divides the final average(s) by 256, meaning the final result can only have 16 values to represent the five-volt range (or less), or, represent the range of alcohol readings possible. This is a loss of precision in the data; of a possible twelve bits of information, only four bits are used. Further, because of an attribute in the IR calculations, the result value is further divided in half. This means that only 8 values are possible for the IR detection, and this is compared against the 16 values of the fuel cell.

4. Catastrophic Error Detection Is Disabled: An interrupt that detects that the microprocessor is trying to execute an illegal instruction is disabled, meaning that the Alcotest software could appear to run correctly while executing wild branches or invalid code for a period of time. Other interrupts ignored are the Computer Operating Property (a watchdog timer), and the Software Interrupt.

Basically, the system was designed to return some sort of result regardless.

This is important. As we become more and more dependent on software for evidentiary and other legal applications, we need to be able to carefully examine that software for accuracy, reliability, etc. Every government contract for breath alcohol detectors needs to include the requirement for public source code. "You can't look at our code because we don't want you to" simply isn't good enough.

[Duke{CLR}]

Wow that statement seems to imply a certain governmental intrusiveness but, thats off topic.
I

Exactly, they are intruding by accepting government assistance so they should be subjected to the governments intrusiveness.