Browser, the Cyberdog.

• Author: Rice, Stephen J.
• Position: Lake County, Illinois Attorney's Office's English Labrador retriever

THINK ABOUT THE LAST TIME you scoured your house for--say--car keys. Or a cell phone. Or any other object you needed to proceed about your day. We've all been there, and it's a frustrating process.

Now imagine you're searching for something even smaller: a thumb drive, for example. Or a fingernail-sized memory card. And imagine you're searching in a place you've never even been before, such as the home of someone else. Wouldn't it be nice to have a "search engine" for that?

At the State's Attorney's Office in Lake County, Illinois, there is just such a search engine, fittingly named "Browser." But Browser is no product of Silicon Valley. Rather, he's an English Labrador Retriever that was trained by Todd Jordan of Indiana, who operates Jordan Detection K-9, LLC. The State's Attorney obtained Browser in cooperation with the Waukegan Police Department.

Dogs can be trained to smell all sorts of odors undetectable to the human sense of smell. Browser's capabilities are a product of his specialized training and the fact that computer circuits contain a particular chemical that produces a recognizable odor. The chemical is used to prevent devices from overheating. Browser can detect the chemical even if the device is contained within a slipper buried under dirty clothes (a real-life example), in the trash, or otherwise buried where one would least expect it.

Browser and his sniffer have worked with the State's Attorney's Office since November 2017. The Office's Cyber Division has long provided local law enforcement agencies with assistance in cybercrimes policing, having operated a cybercrimes lab that agencies partner with to complete their investigations. Browser is an addition to that lab's other tools, which mostly consist of highly specialized computers and the highly trained individuals who run them. Browser is thus a "Lab" in support of a lab: his snout is the four-legged field tool that helps collect the evidence that is later analyzed in the State's Attorney's cybercrimes lab.

To date, Browser has accompanied the police on over a dozen search warrants. When searching, the police first do their search, and then Browser immediately follows. The search warrants are no different than ones that are used without a dog because unlike some police dogs, which can be used to establish probable cause, Browser comes to the scene only when a warrant already exists.

Browser lives and works exclusively with his handler, Carol Gudbrandsen, who has...