Taken from www.cbs4denver.com
February 5, 2008
Reporting: Shaun Boyd
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) ― A physicist in Boulder has created a crime fighting device for the FBI that’s even caught the attention of producers at the hit CBS show CSI: Miami.
David Pappas of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) invented the first forensic tape scanner. It allows investigators to see what they can’t hear.
The scanner shows marks on a tape where it has been erased, recorded over or tampered with.
The technology is so revolutionary, the writers of CSI: Miami called to see if they could use it in a show.
“They said we heard about you’re magnetic scanner and we’d like to know if you can get data out of this erased magnetic tape,” said Pappas. “And I said, ‘No I don’t think so. Once erased, it’s pretty much gone.’ And they were probably thinking I was a wet blanket, because I saw a show where they had a magnetic scanner and they ran off and got the data back.”
Pappas’ scanner can even reconstruct tape that someone has tried to destroy by cutting it up. It can also detect counterfeit money because the ink on dollar bills is magnetic.