AfterDawn: News

Malaysian pirates using chemical spray to mask DVD scent

In an update to our previous article here in which Malaysian pirates put out a bounty on MPAA sniffer dogs, the dogs have gone into hiding and Malaysian pirates have begun using a chemical spray on their pirated discs to mask the smell.

Lucky and Flo, the two sniffer dogs, have been moved from safe house to safe house in an effort to spare them from Malaysian bounty hunters.



The two labradors have been trained to detect the polycarbonate chemicals used in manufacturing DVDs, but Fahmi Kassim, a Malaysian official, has said that officials received a lead that pirates are now using chemical sprays to mask the scent.

"The pirates are believed to be desperate because the dogs were so successful," Fahmi told The Associated Press.

The dogs are on loan from the MPAA so how long they will have to remain in hiding before they are shipped back to the US is still in question.

Source:
Zeropaid

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 7 Apr 2007 9:17

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• 11 comments

• corn

  Seems thats just stupid, but smart at the same time...

  7.4.2007 09:18 #1

• Pop_Smith

  "The pirates are believed to be desperate because the dogs were so successful," Fahmi told The Associated Press.
  
  Duh! If I was making $3 million profit off pirated DVDs etc. I would find ways to keep my lofty livelihood. However, from what I remember, this is probably gonna have the same effect as a drug dealer putting some other strong scented stuff with his drugs to try and fool the dogs.
  
  I read something that said to a properly trained dog, finding drugs (or DVDs in this case) by scent, even with chemical sprays etc. to try and 'mask' the scent is like us picking out a white dot in a black background.
  
  It does them no good, but if they spray some sort of anti-dog chemical on it that might do it.

  7.4.2007 09:35 #2

• Thora

  "Let's hide our sniffer dogs so the pirates and their bounty hunter buddies wont ever found them."
  
  It just sounds funny to hide dogs. :D

  7.4.2007 09:48 #3

• McPot

  How are the dogs able to determine whether the DVD is in fact a pirated disc versus just a blank DVD?
  
  I mean when burning a DVD no special chemicals are added to the disc, so the reality of it is that all DVD's would all smell the same. Correct?
  
  Won't they realize this is a stupid idea when they keep uncovering DVD's that are everything, BUT pirated material?
  
  What if the DVD sniffer dogs are just a hoax to use as a scare tactic for illegal piraters?

  7.4.2007 09:54 #4

• club42

  McPot, its probably they strength of the smell from having so many dvd's in one spot.

  7.4.2007 10:03 #5

• orngcrsh

  yeah man, i'm sure they're not moving just a few dvds at a time. I would guess its something like those big marijuana busts that you hear about... tons of the stuff. and all probably packed into a small area (hundreds or thousands of dvds in one bag).. donno, just my two cents

  7.4.2007 13:11 #6

• craftyzan

  Originally posted by McPot:How are the dogs able to determine whether the DVD is in fact a pirated disc versus just a blank DVD?
  
  I mean when burning a DVD no special chemicals are added to the disc, so the reality of it is that all DVD's would all smell the same. Correct?
  
  Won't they realize this is a stupid idea when they keep uncovering DVD's that are everything, BUT pirated material?
  
  What if the DVD sniffer dogs are just a hoax to use as a scare tactic for illegal piraters?Lable them 'home movies' if your moving them in small numbers LOL! And put a few home movies in there hahahaa

  7.4.2007 18:49 #7

• Tiroskan

  Originally posted by McPot:How are the dogs able to determine whether the DVD is in fact a pirated disc versus just a blank DVD?
  
  I mean when burning a DVD no special chemicals are added to the disc, so the reality of it is that all DVD's would all smell the same. Correct?
  
  Won't they realize this is a stupid idea when they keep uncovering DVD's that are everything, BUT pirated material?
  
  What if the DVD sniffer dogs are just a hoax to use as a scare tactic for illegal piraters?The dogs can't distinguish. That exact point was discussed on another recent article about them. According to the poster on the other topic numerous storage areas were broken into by the police which contained large amounts of items made out of similar materials to the DVDs before they ever found any DVDs, but that bit was hushed up by many reports.

  7.4.2007 20:02 #8

• plazma247

  Poor old lucky and flo, no so lucky now are you :(
  
  Tho this site says:
  
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...6092601505.html
  
  According to Japanese patent JP 61147201 or United States Patent 6739719, theres a method for reducing/killing the smell of polycarbonate in lense manufacture.
  
  I would assume they would just adopt this chemical into the mix before they injection mould the disk.

  8.4.2007 15:01 #9

• Franco45

  Yeah, dogs sense of smell works different than ours. They can smell each seperate item, whatever they are.

  8.4.2007 20:14 #10

• akaangus

  Does it really matter if they can discriminate between legal/illegal discs?
  
  Dogs smell discs,
  Cops say open your bag,
  They see they are blank,
  You get on your plane...
  
  I guess you can use medical vs. non medical pot as an analogy ;)

  16.12.2007 06:06 #11