New surveillance-CSI method: Beverage hair-isotope trail
International master criminals, spies, investigative journos, subversives, rebels and others who may find government agencies trying to monitor your movements: take note. You already, of course, make sure never to travel in a vehicle whose numberplate can be linked to you, for fear of generating a trace in the ANPR traffic-cam …
This topic is closed for new posts.
The call him "The Bald Guy"-
No-one knows where he comes from, or where he goes.
Title!
Just remember, there is hair on the rest of your body, not just your head.
Mines the one with the industrial sized bottle of Nair in the pocket.
Guinness?
I think you can foil this pretty easily. Just drink Guinness and that means you've spent your life on the Emerald Isle!
and when you've drunk enough ...
.. all the paranoia, free floating anxiety and insecurity will just fade away. You'll become a normal, well-balanced and calm individual .... who farts a lot.
title is required!
F*ck me! 100 pages of preamble for five lines of info. Thanks!!
Bottled Water, Wine, etc.
I don't tink Perrier will ever come from any other source than the southern french one... as most (good) bottled water brands... Or just drink Wine!
FAIL!
Crime avoidance
There could be a large trade in tap water (Peckham Spring anyone?) as an alibi for a planned crime.
Take two bottles in to the shower?
Right, that's water and hair to be collected and sold off.
But does all this mean that those who keep all thier nail clippings etc. etc. are sort of right? That the nasty men can get you?
Does it also mean that those people (as seen on Clean My Whatever) who collect pee and poo are all spies and not poor sad buggers?
Thanks for the tip off
Now I'll be safe from monitoring of all my covert comings and goings!
Always drink the aforementioned French bottled water
Thereby proving that when the alleged crimes took place, you were on or near the French Riveria.
Hairbrush?
Simple solution - don't brush your hair.
(Can't imagine many Reg readers do that anyway. Now there's an excuse.)
here's the science
the udnerlying paper is called
"Links between Purchase Location and Stable Isotope Ratios of Bottled Water, Soda, and Beer in the United States"
and all it really goes into is that you can make a reasoned guess as to whether the water in your drink is local or not.
Probably of more use in investigating cases of orange juice from concentrate being passed off as "fresh"
Take water with you?
So it only works if you drink tap water?
Pink as a baby mouse!
Fortunately, all my water filters through my own volcanic lair... and like all true arch criminals, i am completely hairless. MWU HAHA!
Ah but...
Shorry, but you forgot one minor detail....
There´sh hair on your cat too, and he alwaysh drinksh tapwater. And it jusht sho happensh that you take him wherever you go.
You won't get away thish time!
<cue US marine frogmen entering lair>
Thought I was alright
Ran my hand over what should be hair but isn't and thought they would get nothing from that. Then caught sight of my ears in a mirror.
Does anyone know why, as you get older, nature deems it OK to stop growing hair on your head but grow it in your ears (and nose) instead?
yes you were ...
As we get older, it seems that our hair becomes less strong. It has less strength to climb so high before popping out, so it pops out at lower levels instead! That's why older men also have a greater propensity to growing beards. And as for hair coverage when you are ready to pop your clogs, well I will leave that for the reader to conjecture ...
Beer? 'Cos everything is solved with a beer!
Anyone remember 'Point Break'?
Keanu 'Woah' Reeves and Gary 'I get the jobs Nick Nolte turns down' Busey use a similar technique to figure out what beach the 'Ex-Presidents' were using to surf.
Quick - need information!
Does this work with the hair of the white cat I habitually stroke while muttering something along the lines of 'No, Mr bond, I expect you to die."?
If so, I may have to change puss's whole diet!
WRONG!
EPIC FAIL!
That was Goldfinger, who didn't own a cat. The leader of S.P.E.C.T.R.E. has the cat.
Now go watch all the films again till you get it right.
There will be a test afterward, right next to the shark tank so study hard.
Untraceable?
Presumably for the few spies and subversives, and the rather larger number of paranoid people of no interest to TPTB, they'd have to increasingly worry about being tracked *because* they'd paid for a ticket with cash, via cameras in the ticket office/machine, and/or near the turnstile where they swipe that suspiciously 'untraceable' ticket?
Buxton and Malvern
Crime capitals of the world, must be some huge mob meetings going on there or something.
Nicely done Mr Page
But as to the claim that one's short term presence in a location can be traced from isotopes in hair, I call bullshit. I'm pretty sure you need a largish sample with fairly uniform isotope distribution to get any decent fix. My hair just doesn't grow quickly enough for that.
To Mr Baldie Criminal
All those smarty pants Bald Criminals who think shaving your head will help....
Don't forget all the other hair on your body. Chest Hair, Pubic Hair, etc... time to get the razor out.
Nice work
Do you think they need a researcher? I could quite fancy doing the calibration by visiting lots of places and drinking enough beer to change my hair to the local isotope ratio (I wonder how much that would be exactly?). I could post them a strand now and then...
The Register to the rescue
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/01/holy_water/
Just don't commit any crimes in Lourdes.
This topic is closed for new posts.
