SurfRecon of Orem, Utah, a company that develops rapid-image-analysis tools for law enforcement, has created the largest image-hash-value database for safe, sexual, pornographic, and child-pornographic images in the world. Currently the database contains over 120 million image hash values.
An image hash value functions much like a digital fingerprint, allowing the SurfRecon Elite pornography-detection tool to quickly and accurately categorize image files found on a computer system. SurfRecon has been building the database for the past year by accepting submissions from trusted sources, as well as from their own internal efforts.
"Only six months ago, we were at about 10 million hash values - and that took several months to achieve," said Matthew Yarro, vice president at SurfRecon. "Now we can add 10 million hash values in a few days. As our technology matures and our user base increases, we will continue to add more and more hashes, and add them at a higher rate of speed. We hope to approach the half-a-billion mark by the end of this year."
The reason SurfRecon categorizes safe, sexual, pornographic, and child-pornographic image hash values is to achieve two goals: first, it allows an officer in the field to find and accurately identify as many computer images as possible; second, it reduces the number of unidentified images that an officer must manually process. SurfRecon's goal is to allow an officer in the field to quickly scan a computer and take the appropriate action needed to keep our communities safe.
Using SurfRecon Elite in conjunction with the database offers officers in the field a number of additional benefits. The software runs from a thumb drive, making it highly mobile; SurfRecon can be used on almost any computer system including Windows-, Macintosh-, and Linux-based systems; it includes a number of safety tools to protect an officer's mental health and sensitivity from the harmful nature of pornography; and finally, using SurfRecon to perform a field search allows an officer to keep his attention on a suspect, avoiding potentially dangerous situations.
SurfRecon is in use with police forces, parole-and-probation departments, and federal agencies around the world. The product retails for $499.95 and can be purchased www.surfrecon.com and other websites and retail locations. SurfRecon is also available for consumers as well as businesses.
