Dozens of child predator arrests attributed to ORNL software

Software here does not find offenders, what it does is search hard drives (See video at end) of offenders already arrested likely waiting in jail. Notice stats, used in 50 cases which resulted in 30 arrests. That means 20 people were unlawfully detained or said another way, the software was wrong 40% of the time. I'd say thats a bad record and those folks need to be suing for false arrests.

9-9-2010 Tennessee:

A year ago, Oak Ridge National Lab developed computer software to speed up the arrests of child predators in East Tennessee.

That work is now well underway.

The software breaks down the main barrier standing in the way of making arrests -- time.

KPD ICAC Investigator Mel Pierce spends hours in front of a computer, staring at images from other computers.

"There's really no misunderstanding the content that they have," Pierce explained. "It's usually prepubescent images engaged in sex acts. There's no misunderstanding."

Sifting through the images, text and videos requires a lot of work for Pierce and his small team of ICAC investigators.

"Many computers will hold 10,000 or 100,000 files, some images, video text, and it takes weeks to months to go through that," said ORNL Applied Software Engineering Research Group Leader Tom Potok.

Potok is no stranger to such a challenge. For years, he's worked on software to help the US government track down potential terrorists.

"Our hope was, can we use that technology in our own neighborhood? Can we use it in our own backyard? Help the police do a better job of catching criminals," Potok said.

So far, the answer's yes.

The program searches a computers files with unmatched speed, telling investigators everything from how what type of image it's located to how much skin tone is in it.

"It gives you everything that you need to generate a report for the D.A.'s office or to go get charges," Pierce said.

The software's cut the time investigators spend researching criminal behavior in half, which doubles the amount of work they can pursue.

"That's the real key. The sooner we can figure out somebody is harming a child, the sooner we can get the child to safety," Potok said.

"Which ultimately means a safer community. We're able to put more people in jail that would harm our children," Pierce said.

KPD's been using the software for six months.

So far this year, investigators have used the software on about 50 child pornography cases, resulting in about 30 arrests. ..Source.. Alison Morrow