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ICE investigators plan to "read" typewriter ribbons

It may seem a bit archaic, but the Immigration and Customs (ICE) unit of DHS is planning to purchase a piece of forensic equipment, known as a Ribbon Analysis Workstation, which will enable its investigators to capture, download to a computer and print out the contents of single-strike carbon typewriter ribbon.

This technology, which would sound more at home during the Cold War than in 2008, is supplied by a UK-based firm called Envisage Systems Limited.

"The surprising continuing widespread use of single-strike carbon typewriter ribbons, from which typed text can be read directly, provides investigators with a potential source of evidence and information," explains the Envisage Web site.

The resulting display contains everything on the original ribbon, including errors and blemishes.

The workstation, known as RAW, reduces the necessity for a human to handle the tape itself (which could damage potentially important evidence) and reduces operator costs for what is a highly labor-intensive transcribing task.

According to Envisage, the manual transcription of a three-row typewriter ribbon might require two or three weeks of operator effort, while its RAW device can handle the same task in one day (requiring only one to two hours of operator involvement.)

Beyond explaining that the RAW workstation "is designed to enable specialists to transcribe and analyze any of the wide range of single-strike film typewriter ribbons," the solicitation issued by ICE on July 21 did not make clear how the agency plans to use the newly-purchased equipment. ICE indicated that the "place of performance" would be at its offices in McLean, VA.

Established in 1990, Envisage in based in Berkhamsted, Herts, UK. It is a supplier of a variety of industrial vision inspection systems.

The theory of operation of the RAW equipment can be split into two distinct tasks: Recording and Processing. First, the ribbon is transported at a controlled speed from one spool to another in front of a light unit that illuminates the ribbon for the camera, which records the data.

"Before processing may commence," explains Envisage, "the system must be taught the basic layout of the text on the ribbon."

The RAW is able to process and print out non-Roman characters, including Japanese and Cyrillic alphabets, together with mathematical and technical symbols.

"This will be set out in a format which shows all the characters as they would have appeared on the original typed page with the absence of spaces, carriage returns and paragraphs," says the company.

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