meshDETECT® is pleased to announce that it has been granted a sixth wireless blockchain patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for U.S. Patent 11,956,383 entitled “Systems and Methods For Blockchain Wireless Services In a Controlled Environment.” This is our twelfth patent granted overall.

The claims in our latest blockchain patent are directed toward a multi-blockchain system to secure, manage, and validate forensic data in controlled environments such as prisons and jails

Digital Forensics

Digital forensics deals with legal evidence left in computers, devices, and digital recording media. This is a procedure and method for legally identifying and demonstrating the facts of a specific activity that occurred using a digital device.

Effective and reliable digital-evidence management systems require non-repudiation, i.e. cryptographic proof that an action regarding forensic data either occurred or did not occur. For instance who accessed information, when, was data altered and if so, how.

Inmate Digital Data Grows

With the wide spread adoption of digital devices such as tablets for use by inmates, the risk of misuse, financial fraud, external party harassment, etc. has grown exponentially.

The evidence of these incidents is essential to prison and police investigations because it illustrates the facts of the cyber-crime and connects inmates to their criminal activities. Therefore, it is crucial to handle the gathered evidence carefully to ensure that it is admissible to police investigations and court trials as well as to prevent tampering or misconduct.

Leveraging the blockchain in a corrections environment provides the inherent capability for insuring the transparency, immutability, and auditability of forensic evidence. However, there are security and privacy risks in using the same blockchain for inmate transactions as for forensic evidence storage, management, and use.

Inmate Data Forensics

Our patent claims a system with at multiple blockchains in a controlled environment. The blockchains are interconnected and networked but segregated.

There are a number of user nodes, each node with selected permission levels to submit and retrieve forensic data and at least one administrative blockchain node that communicates and coordinates the formatting of data, the submission of data, and the retrieval of data from the blockchains.

There is the ability to create and manage smart contracts that regulate creation, access, and modification of data; as well as the rules, settings, and permissions relating to blockchain data, interaction, security, and access.

Through this multi-blockchain system approach, independent but interconnected blockchains can have different security, privacy and access models to handle the forensic data associated with criminal evidence, as well as inmate medical records, financial records, complaints, legal case data, blockchain wallet use, and keys.

Our five previous blockchain patents can be found at US10,694,032, US10,855,838, US11,140,263, US11,425,244 and US11,689,658.

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meshDETECT® is pleased to announce that it has been granted a fifth wireless blockchain patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for U.S. Patent 11,689,658 entitled “Systems and Methods For Blockchain Wireless Services In a Controlled Environment.” This is our eleventh patent granted overall.

The claims in our latest blockchain patent are directed toward:

Leveraging the blockchain to ensure and prove that a privileged voice or video call from an inmate in a prison is not recorded.

Inmate calls are typically recorded and filed into archives that law enforcement agencies and prison officials can later access in the event a person is believed to be engaged in witness tampering or other forms of harassment.

However, calls from detainees in jail to their lawyers are not supposed to be recorded and are confidential under attorney-client privilege.

An Widespread Problem

There a have been multiple instances in jails and prisons across the country where this privilege has not been honored. In fact, the state of Maine has recently enacted a law protecting attorney-client privilege in jail calls.

Listening to the recordings of these call was widespread practice in Maine. Nearly 1,000 of supposedly confidential phone calls between defendants and their lawyers were eavesdropped on in a one-year period between June 2019 and May 2020, in at least four county jails.

In some cases, intercepted calls were turned over to prosecutors, which defense lawyers said gave the prosecutors improper insight into the defendants’ legal strategies during the pretrial phases of their cases, when plea bargaining most often takes place.

“The act of recording inhibits people from having a free exchange of information, but then turning that over to the people that are engaging in the prosecution really destroys the ability to have a meaningful assistance of counsel”

Other Claims in the Patent

Another set of claims in the patent enable streaming payments during a voice, video or usage session by an inmate device, continuously creating and broadcasting transactions via the blockchain at predetermined intervals.

A third set claims a method of proving ownership of and granting access to inmate devices, such as media tablets.

Our previous four blockchain patents can be found at US10,694,032, US10,855,838, US11,140,263 and US11,425,244.

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A major concern in the use of contraband cell phones in prison is the fact that the call content, and associated call data, is not being captured. Now this data can be captured by replacing smuggled cell phones with a secure prison cell phone solution such as meshDETECT that records and stores this critical information for use by law enforcement. This article discusses the importance of these prison phone call recordings to prosecutors and law enforcement.

When Kiheem Taylor was charged with kidnapping two teenagers at a Timonium light-rail station and raping one of them, prosecutors struggled with an all-too common problem — they didn’t have enough solid evidence.

But Taylor gave prosecutors a break when he made phone calls from the Baltimore County Detention Center. Just months earlier, authorities had begun recording inmates’ phone calls, and Taylor implicated himself while talking to an ex-girlfriend. Judge Robert N. Dugan said at the time that the call was “overwhelming, damning evidence of [Taylor’s] guilt.”

The 2008 case was the first time that Baltimore County prosecutors used a taped phone call from the detention center in a case, but the practice has been increasingly used across Maryland and the nation — including in the high-profile Trayvon Martin case. Though prosecutors say the evidence is crucial in otherwise difficult cases, defense attorneys complain that such monitoring is unfair to their clients.

William B. Buie III, who represented a teen in a recent murder case that relied on recorded prison calls, said he’s concerned such calls give government unrestricted power to monitor incarcerated individuals who have not yet been convicted. But such calls are “playing a major part of criminal cases,” he said.

Prosecutors have been monitoring calls for years, but improved — and increasingly affordable — technology has made it easier to record the calls, evaluate them and present them in court.

“It’s definitely a common practice,” said Steven Jansen, vice president of the National Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. “It can be great evidence.”

It’s no secret that the calls are monitored, he said, adding that some facilities even post signs next to phones. In Maryland, defendants are warned that their conversations are being recorded with a prompt each time they pick up receiver; officials can track them without seeking a judge’s approval.

But despite the warning at each call, defense attorney Jerry Tarud said, “The problem is, when these inmates are in jail, they tend to get isolated. Their anxiety sets in.”

For defense attorneys, the calls can be opportunities for their clients to unknowingly undermine their arguments, including in the Martin case in Florida. George Zimmerman, accused of killing the teen, had his original $150,000 bond revoked after authorities heard him discussing additional finances with his wife on a recorded line.

“The jail phone calls tend to be the nails going in the coffin,” Tarud said. It’s an increasing problem.”

In a city shooting trial last year, Tarud’s client, Donte Anderson, was convicted of first-degree assault after prosecutors pulled incriminating calls from jail.

In one call, prosecutors said, Anderson told an acquaintance about hiding the gun, in what they believe was coded language.

“Man … I can’t event tell you where’s it at right now cuz, he won’t be able to get to it,” Anderson said, according to court documents.

Dijon McClurkin, another defendant who was also convicted in the case, was allegedly also recorded telling an acquaintance to put pressure on the victim, who survived.

“You need to tell him that we ain’t do nothing, yeah man, those [expletive] ain’t do nothing, that’s what he needs to say, [expletive] ain’t do nothing, they are jammed up for no reason,” McClurkin said in a recorded call, according to court papers.

In addition to monitoring phone calls, law enforcement officials point out that detention facilities monitor mail and keep records of who visits. Inmates are also subjected to searches inside of their cells.

There, each inmate can choose up to 10 contacts; they can only call people on that list, according to the state Department of Public Safety And Correctional Services.

The Baltimore County Detention Center began recording all inmates’ calls in July 2008, one of the last jurisdictions in the state to adopt the technology. State’s Attorney Shellenberger had suggested the idea to the county police chief and the jail’s warden shortly after he took office in 2007.

The system was aimed at curbing contraband, gang violence and witness intimidation. Officials also hoped to prevent prisoners from ordering crime from behind bars.

Detention center staff, along with police and prosecutors, have access to phones in order to monitor for any potential problems within the facility. They also have the ability to block inmates from calling certain numbers if there are issues of witness intimidation or gangs.

“It’s to ferret out corruption we might have inside,” said James P. O’Neill, director of the detention center. But because the detention center on any given day ranges from 1,300 to 1,400 inmates, who have access to 80 phones from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., not all calls are necessarily monitored.

Calls from attorneys are not recorded, either. O’Neil said all lawyers registered with the state bar association are omitted from recordings.

Last month, 19-year-old Sterlin Matthews was convicted of killing a 16-year-old on Halloween in 2008. It was the second time Baltimore County prosecutors tried the teen, after his first trial ended in a hung jury. Prosecutors were challenged by the lack of physical evidence linking Matthews to the shooting and uncooperative witnesses; the killer had been wearing a mask.

Buie, Matthews’ defense attorney, said after the trial that prosecutors “really did not know who committed the crime.” The jail calls, “sunk our ship,” he said.

County prosecutors William B. Bickel and Danielle Williams built a case around recordings of Matthews’ phone calls from the detention center, in which he is recorded telling friends about the witnesses to keep them from coming to court.

The jury took less than an hour to convict Matthews of second degree murder and related charges. His sentencing is scheduled for January.

“When you have a witness that says one thing to the police and then changes the story, if you can give an explanation, mainly a threat, then the jury will understand more,” Shellenberger said. “I think it was very helpful to give the jury context.”

When the trial was supposed to begin in mid-October, prosecutors said, the witness who identified Matthews in the shooting did not show up in court. She had previously identified Matthews to police as the masked teen who had been seen by the victim’s friends just before the shooting. Officials began to suspect witness intimidation.

Prosecutors said Matthews intentionally used another inmate’s ID number, which must be entered in order for inmates to make outgoing calls, to make it difficult for investigators to listen in on his conversations.

Homicide detective Alvin Barton also testified that he received a call from the witness saying she was too scared shortly before she was supposed to testify.

Matthews was also heard speaking to a friend through a wall, inside an interview room at police headquarters. All six of the interview rooms used by homicide detectives have surveillance cameras to record interviews with detectives.

When the detective left the room, Matthews is recorded speaking to one of his friends through the wall, saying his friend needed to “holler at them,” which prosecutors said was an attempt to deter the witness from testifying.

Source

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A good article below about the forensic value of a confiscated contraband prison cell phone. One clarification, however: A SIM card is not the same as a microSD card – referred to in the article as a data card. The microSD card used in most smart phones is similar to a USB storage device for your PC in that it is used to store user determined data such as documents, pictures, media, etc.

SIM cards are only present in the GSM phones of carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile. Verizon and Sprint use CDMA technology that does not require a SIM card.

Here’s a scenario that involves a triumph in contraband control. Suppose that through vigilance, shared observations and patience, you have uncovered the most insidious of contraband. You have found a smart phone inside the walls.

This is very good news, as it takes out of circulation a dangerous recorder and communicator. Firm in the knowledge that “information is knowledge,” you and your colleagues have disarmed a potential danger and enhanced safety in the facility.

Celebration seems warranted. However, there is more to do. With the evidence secured and key staff informed, the investigation begins. Some of the follow-up questions are:

• Which prisoner last had the phone?
• Did anyone else have it?
• How does the prisoner maintain a charge on the smart phone?
• Did the offender who had the smart phone work in concert with anyone else? In other words, is this a solo effort or part of a concerted effort through a security threat group?
• How did this smart phone come inside?
• Are there patterns with this incident that may aid in future searches?

With so much information to be gathered, it is easy to overlook one crucial question. Is there a data card with the smart phone?

All that one needs do is open up the phone and remove the mini card, SIM card, SD or whatever one would call it. The name is less important than its utility. The point is that it is a very small and potentially dangerous. And this part of the phone can be removed easily.

Why is this so important? Think of the data card as a removable brain in a mini computer. And this brain can be implanted in many other surprisingly easy to acquire smart phones. How can one describe the amazing storage capacity in something so small? Having all the information in the world on something the size of small coin might not be quite accurate. Still, micro storage technology is such that hundreds of pictures, contacts, texts and other data can be stored on a mini card that is smaller than a penny.

Through the eyes of corrections, let us view the nefarious utilities of data cards. The tiny titan of information storage can hold:

• Incriminating photographs of staff
• A store of all text messages sent and received
• Images that propagate gang activity
• Comprehensive directories of partners in crime
• Images of weak points in our defenses
• Maps
• Lists for store and gambling
• Potential for internet access (granted, this is only under certain circumstances)
• A working social media function

It may be that the information on an easy to hide storage chip is more valuable than the phone itself. This is not to diminish the value of an illegal smart phone in the hands of a prisoner. It just points back to the notion that information is power.

Of course, this does not mean that every micro card that one comes across will contain sensitive information. In fact, the laws of numbers dictate that somewhere and at some time a data card will be found in a jail or prison that contains virtually no useful information in terms of investigation or incrimination.

However, as with any contraband search proposition, it behooves us to continue to search for the danger that is possible. Otherwise, we may overlook a valuable clue.

Author: Joe Bouchard
Source

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A major concern about contraband cell phones smuggled into jail is the lack of control over the calls made by prisoners. As this article shows, recorded prison phone calls are a key source of evidence in investigations. The meshDETECT secure cell phone solution provides the ability to record and monitor all calls made by prisoners.

Domestic violence is one of the most confusing crimes prosecutors have to deal with. The victim and suspect know each other. They may even love each other.

But prosecutors do have one powerful tool that gives them insight into, and sometimes ammunition for their cases: inmate phone calls from jail.

Suspects cooling their heels in jail have a lot of time to stew, and make phone calls. In Ramsey County, for example, the fact that these calls have been recorded for more than a decade is no secret. Every call is stamped with a warning that the call is being recorded, and is subject to monitoring at any time.

But Mike Seasly, domestic supervisor in the St. Paul City Attorney’s office, said an awful lot of suspects brought in on domestic violence charges aren’t intimidated by that message.

“So often they’ll call the people that they just hit, that they just battered, or they’ll call people that can get in touch with those victims of domestic abuse,” Seasly said. “And the purpose often times is to apologize for what they’ve done. Often times, it’s to try to get back into their good graces.”

Seasly has saved some examples from past cases he calls his “jailhouse greatest hits.” MPR News can’t disclose full names of the people involved because the tapes aren’t considered public.

A suspect who was arrested for allegedly hitting and slapping his girlfriend instructs her from jail, “Call up that prosecutor and tell him I ain’t f—— do s—, man. Tell them we weren’t even with each other or something. You were just mad because you thought I was with some other girl or something.”

On the phone, his girlfriend says she’s already talked to the prosecutor. Her boyfriend continues, “I know you told them you don’t want to press charges, but the state will so tell them I wasn’t doing nothing. You got to call and tell him that, baby!”

“Tell them that I just made everything up?” asks his girlfriend.

“Yes!” the suspect responds. “You gotta look stupid, otherwise, I’m going to go to jail for a year!”

Seasly points out that the phone call itself is a crime. It violated a no-contact order between the suspect and the victim, which can be charged separately, and it provided evidence for the ongoing case.

This defendant served 18 months in prison. Without the jail tapes, Seasly thinks the case might have been dismissed.

ORCHESTRATING FROM JAIL

Another suspect was determined to outsmart the system.

“He tries to do something a little different, which is to actually tell the victim that court is not even taking place,” Seasly said.

The suspect calls a female friend and instructs her to go down to the police station and use the lobby phone and pretend to be the receptionist. “Call her and tell her the court date has been moved to the 31st,” the suspect said. The girlfriend has been subpoenaed and agreed to testify at the real court date a week earlier.

The suspect adds another precaution. “And then, look, Sunday night, call T-mobile and cut the phone off,” the suspect tells his friend, ensuring that anyone from the outside world who tries to reach the woman and remind her of the real court date, won’t be able to reach her.

The friend promises to make the calls.

But the plot was foiled by the jail tapes, and and the defendant pleaded guilty to the charges.

AN EXTRA BURDEN ON THE POOR

Pat Kittridge, lead public defender for Ramsey County, has concerns about using jail tapes to escalate charges for domestic violence suspects.

Poorer defendants are less likely to post bail so they stay in jail, where calls are monitored.

Kittridge said not all calls are attempts to manipulate the victim. The content can be innocuous — talking about family matters, school and children — but the consequences for the defendant for breaking a no-contact order are severe.

“No-contact orders between parties are very glibly granted by the court, and very grudgingly removed,” Kittridge said. “People have real needs to discuss matters with one another and to do so constitutes a violation of the law and it creates a great difficulty.”

According to the St. Paul City Attorney’s office, defendants in domestic assault cases typically do contact their victims after an assault. But there’s such a huge volume of jail tapes and limited resources to listen to them, prosecutors probably catch only a tiny fraction.

Back in Seasly’s office, one of his prosecutors stops in, visibly irritated. His trial has “imploded.” After repeatedly assuring him she’d be there, the victim failed to show.

“Pull the jail tapes,” said Seasly. “Someone got to her.”

Source

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