Securing Critical Information – CDAC, Noida

In today’s day-and-age, the digital information can be easily distributed, duplicated, modified and re-distributed. Due to this, the information received from off-the shelf products has low legal sanctity as it can be easily tampered. Tamper Evident Recorder & Player (TERP) captures multiple forms of information along with the date, time, place and system information. It encapsulates the captured information (audio, video, time, place and others) into one packet and saves a digitally signed copy
of it.

The objective really was to design and develop a digital information recorder to record various forms of information for use in evidence collection and other related areas to make law enforcement system more digital, fast and transparent.

The information captured in this manner is tamper evident – and recorded information can be played on an easily available player. This can potentially be used as a valid document for law enforcement purposes and judiciary.

Challenges

• Handling of interaction with various devices; lack of support in open source operating system at device driver level.
• Selection of suitable container and codecs to ensure minimum information loss during the recording.
• Time taken in calculating HASH of big files in software.
• Integration of module.
• Legal acceptance of the system.
• Educating users, providing training etc.
• Acceptance of the solution as replacement of manual system.

Solution

Audio-Video Session: It offers an option to select the resolution and frame rate. After comparing a lot of available video codecs, MJPEG as compression is used. An open container format AVI is used to store the captured video in interleaved fashion. It also renders the captured video frames on a window. The GPS data is hard subbed on the video frames.

Fingerprint Session: Tamper Evident Recorder captures fingerprints, using high resolution Finger Print Reader.

The captured fingerprint data is being stored in a lossless open image format BMP. GPS data is also captured and overlaid on the fingerprint image. Individual original fingerprint as well as GPS stamped fingerprint file is digitally signed and stored so that both original as well as GPS stamped information can be verified later on.

Document Scanner Session: The architecture of this module is
same as the fingerprint module except that here a document scanner is used.

Digital Signature: This module is responsible to compute the hash of input information and then sign it digitally.

Outcomes

The system is deployed at three locations in the country. Kerala Police has reported satisfaction with this system, which is being used for live recording or the interrogation proceedings. Uttarakhand Police has appreciated and recommended the system saying it has the potential to change the way information collection is done that helps in investigation. Bhopal Police is using it for live interrogation recording.

Obviously, a better evidence collection helps in reducing judicial delays, enhancing trust in the Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and the Judicial System—thereby help in creating a “law abiding society”.