Welcome To DefenderWiki!

Alright.

It's done.

DefenderWiki is finally online!

Anyone with even the least bit of interest that meets the following requirements can email me for access: 1) Employed by a Public Defender office in the United States. 2) Is able to prove employment with an email and/or contact number or 3) An existing member of DefenderWiki is able to vouch for you.

Please email me at Sancho@REMOVETHISBEFOREEMAILINGpdiblog.com for an invitation email with the directions on how to access the site. Once you are a member of the site, and you are logged into Google, the DefenderWiki site will pop-up on your screen instead of the sign up screen whenever you enter: www.defenderwiki.com into your URL.

Please pass this on to anyone who might be interested. Its quite bare right now, but I'm hoping to get some substance built into the wiki over the weekend. I already have a few friends and associates signed up so things are starting slow, but I'm hoping we can keep this an active tool for years to come.

DefenderWiki

Hi everyone, I've received emails from all three of my regular readers with questions about DefenderWiki. What is it and why does it not seem to allow me to request access? I don't know how many of you remember a post I did last year on Intellipedia, but in the words of the official Wiki on their Wiki:

Intellipedia is an online system for collaborative data sharing used by the United States intelligence community (IC). It was established as a pilot project in late 2005 and formally announced in April 2006 ^[1][2] and consists of three wikis running on JWICS, SIPRNet, and Intelink-U. They are used by individuals with appropriate clearances from the 16 agencies of IC and other national-security related organizations, including Combatant Commands and other federal departments. The wikis are not open to the public.I wanted to create something similar.

Obviously, I don't have the resources of the federal government but I thought it would be a cool and useful idea for a similar resource to be available to those of us in the Public Defender community...and DefenderWiki was born!

Wiki's really depend on input by the users and obviously this project is going to be as useless as tits on a log unless people with a little knowledge on a lot of issues are able to contribute. I'm not sure if it will work or not but only time will tell.

Access to DefenderWiki should be opened up this week or next week at the latest. It will be completely free and access will be limited to Employees/Interns of Public Defender offices in the United States. Access will only be given to those that are able to prove they meet those requirements.

Some of the delay in getting DefenderWiki up and running has been as a result of me learning and attempting to create a framework that people can fill in...unfortunately, it took me a while to figure out that it's the individual users that create the direction in which this freeform source of information grows. I just hope it works and people use it.

More later...

Making It Harder For Witnesses To Hide

Let’s say you’re a witness, and you think you’re being crafty by constantly hiding from me. I’ve left countless business cards with my cellular telephone number on your front door and numerous messages with family members…but you continue to hide.

One day, you decide to call me at 3am from a blocked number, knowing that your message will probably go straight to voice mail (it does) and you won’t have to talk to me.

You do this every time you want to leave a message with me and there is nothing I can do about it because of your damn blocked number…

Until now.

TrapCall.Com is a new service that offers cellular telephone users the ability to set-up their cell phones to “unblock” blocked numbers that are calling their phones….actively! The incoming caller has no idea their number is being unblocked! I love technology!

The service is FREE! Well, if you just want to have blocked numbers unblocked…that service is free. They also offer some other really cool services that are unfortunately not legal here in California so I can’t use them but I have the Unblock service set up on my phone and it works like a charm!

The other services they offer?

Update: Anyone interested in BLOCKING their number or even pretend to call from a number they're not actually using should check out Spoofcard. This stuff used to be in limited use by law enforcement and even collection agencies but now its available to anyone with computer and a phone....for better or worse.

Crime Labs In A Funk

A new report just released from The National Academy of Sciences that puts our nations crime labs in a seriously negative light:

For decades, forensic scientists have made sweeping claims in court about fingerprints, ballistics, handwriting, bite marks, shoe prints and blood splatters that lack empirical grounding and have never been verified by science.

If anyone gets a PDF of the actual report from The National Academy of Sciences, can you email it to me or send me a link where I can actually read it for myself?

Little Projects

Okay, so I have been busy! A couple of trials I've been focusing on for the last few months have resolved unsuccessfully, and my life is mine again!

Lets see, some stuff I've been working on? Trying to figure out how to get out my information on advanced Social Networking Investigation Techniques that I've held back on posting here due to security concerns. I've set up DefenderWiki which is still in its testing phase and I'm toying with the idea of just setting up a FAQ for Social Networking Investigation but I'm not sure how any of this is going to work yet.

Other news? This week, I'm happy to announce that you'll hopefully be seeing my first guest blogger! I will still be posting of course, but I wanted to keep this blawg a little more fresh than its been and since I've been a little weak on the posts lately. I thought some more faces would keep things more interesting around here! I'm hoping it works out.

If anyone reading this has any stories of budget cuts in their offices, I'd be curious to hear about them. This shouldn't be limited to California offices. I just wanted to see what other investigators are seeing out there and find out the effects of this crappy economy on other offices.

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I know this is a little last minute but for those attorneys and investigators in the San Diego area, I just found an announcement for a 1 hour training involving Social Networking that is good for MCLE credit:

This 1 hour training will explore how to investigate and obtain materials from social networking sites – your client’s and other witnesses. Sites such as “MySpace” and “Facebook” are regularly mined for photos, writings and other information not only by police, but by probation, parole, military recruiters, potential employers and schools. Definitely a trap for the unwary and unsophisticated, along with a morass of privacy and identification issues for investigators and attorneys. Please join us for an interesting session with two pros in the field.

DATE: Wednesday, February 18, 2009
TIME: 12:00 - 1:15 p.m.
LOCATION: 233 A Street , 10th fl. Conf. Rm.

ALL ARE WELCOME

I'm a little jealous that I'm not involved with any trainings but what is an anonymous blawging investigator really going to do? This training looks like its being done by the Public Defenders Office in San Diego County.