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  1. Cooper
  2.  
  3. The Electric Network Frequency - An Automated Approach
  4.  
  5. THE ELECTRIC NETWORK FREQUENCY (ENF) AS AN AID TO
  6. AUTHENTICATING FORENSIC DIGITAL AUDIO RECORDINGS – AN
  7. AUTOMATED APPROACH
  8. ALAN J. COOPER
  9. Metropolitan Police Service, London, UK
  10. alan.j.cooper@met.police.uk
  11.  
  12. A recent forensic technique developed to establish the authenticity of recorded digital audio evidence is the Electric
  13. Network Frequency (ENF) Criterion. This paper confirms the applicability of the ENF criterion for use in mainland
  14. UK and introduces an automated approach to matching ENF estimates taken from a questioned recording to a database
  15. of ENF values. The signal processing procedures described have been used successfully by the Metropolitan Police
  16. Forensic Audio Laboratory in London to extract and match ENF data from evidential recordings.
  17.  
  18. INTRODUCTION
  19. The term ‘forensic audio’ refers to audio material that
  20. may provide evidence in legal proceedings. The party
  21. introducing the recorded audio evidence must show that
  22. it has not been altered since the time of its production
  23. and this is achieved using standardised evidencehandling procedures and chain-of-custody records.
  24. When these safeguards fail, the reliability of the
  25. evidence may depend upon a technical analysis to prove
  26. the originality and integrity of the recording.
  27. The field of audio recording authenticity examination is
  28. a complex forensic science forming an important
  29. function of a forensic audio laboratory. An authentic
  30. recording is defined by the AES as:
  31. A recording made simultaneously with the
  32. acoustic events it purports to have recorded,
  33. and in a manner fully and completely
  34. consistent with the methods of recording
  35. claimed by the party who produced the
  36. recording; a recording free from
  37. unexplained artefacts, alterations, additions,
  38. deletions, or edits [1].
  39. Methods for the authenticity examination of analogue
  40. recordings are well established [2-4] and recently
  41. introduced magnetic feature visualisation techniques
  42. may be applied to both analogue and digital recordings
  43. stored on magnetic media [5,6]. However, the signal
  44. conditioning principles associated with digital
  45. recordings are completely different to that of analogue
  46. and additional techniques for assessing the integrity of a
  47. suspect recording are required [7-9]. One such
  48. technique is the ‘Electric Network Frequency (ENF)
  49. Criterion’ proposed by Grigoras [10-12].
  50. ENF relates to the frequency of a networked electricity
  51. supply transmission system. The ENF criterion is based
  52. on estimating the frequency of power line related
  53.  
  54. signals that may have been recorded alongside the
  55. wanted audio data as a result of the digital recorder
  56. being connected directly to the network supply, or in the
  57. case of battery powered recorders, being in the
  58. proximity of electro magnetic fields emanating from the
  59. network supply.
  60. The ENF is not constant but changes by small amounts
  61. in a random fashion over a period of time, further, the
  62. same frequency value is experienced throughout the
  63. network [10]. Thus, extracted ENF data from a
  64. recording may be compared to a database of ENF
  65. information, allowing the date and time of the recording
  66. to be ascertained. Additionally, it may be used to
  67. establish if and where the recording has been edited.
  68. Therefore, the ENF criterion provides a powerful
  69. method to assess the evidential integrity of audio data
  70. that has been recorded onto audio, video, computer and
  71. telecommunications equipment [10-13].
  72. This paper confirms the validity of the ENF criterion for
  73. use in mainland UK and describes a method to extract
  74. ENF data from evidential recordings that allows
  75. automatic searching and matching of the data to an ENF
  76. database.
  77. 1
  78. PRINCIPLES OF THE ENF CRITERION
  79. Previous studies on the ENF criterion have been limited
  80. to transmission systems for countries in continental
  81. Europe who form a large single network controlled by
  82. the “Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of
  83. Electricity” (UCTE) [14].
  84. The electric power transmission system in England and
  85. Wales, which is not part of UCTE, is run by the
  86. National Grid Company (NGC) [15] and connects
  87. power stations and substations in a high voltage network
  88. and distribution system known as ‘The National Grid’.
  89. The NGC also operate electricity interconnection
  90.  
  91. AES 33rd International Conference, Denver, CO, USA, 2008 June 5–7
  92.  
  93. 1
  94.  
  95. Cooper
  96. systems linking the transmission network in England
  97. and Wales to the transmission systems in Scotland and
  98. direct current inter-connectors with France and Northern
  99. Ireland [16]. A map of the high voltage network
  100. distribution in the UK (275 kV or above) is shown in fig
  101. 1 [17]. The majority of power introduced into a
  102. network comes from turbines which drive alternating
  103. current generators. The turbine’s speed of rotation
  104. determines the ENF and standards adopted by countries
  105. worldwide are based on either 50 Hz or 60 Hz
  106. transmission systems; in the UK and Europe the ENF is
  107. 50Hz while in North America it is 60 Hz. An electrical
  108. distribution network, or grid, is organised and powergenerating facilities distributed in a way that allows the
  109. grid operators to cope with wide changes in the
  110. dynamics of supply and demand. Within a network, the
  111. generating systems operate in synchronicity, and the
  112. ENF will remain constant if the sum of all loads and
  113. losses equals the total generation of the network [18].
  114. When there is not enough power available to meet the
  115. demand on the grid, the generators all slow down
  116. together and the ENF falls, conversely, if the demand
  117. for power drops the generators speed up and the ENF
  118. increases. If the average rate of demand on the system
  119. differs from the average rate of supply in any given
  120. period, the network operators will be presented with a
  121. change in frequency for which it must immediately
  122. compensate by shedding load for under-frequency or
  123. shedding generation for over-frequency [18]. System
  124. frequency will therefore vary around the 50 or 60 Hz
  125. target and the network operators have statutory
  126. obligations to maintain the frequency within certain
  127. limits. For the NGC this is +/- 0.5 Hz, however, it is
  128. normally kept within more stringent 'operational limits'
  129. which are set at +/- 0.2 Hz [19].
  130.  
  131. The Electric Network Frequency - An Automated Approach
  132. The Metropolitan Police Forensic Audio Laboratory has
  133. been collating a database of ENF estimates for over four
  134. years. The database located in London has been used to
  135. corroborate the date and time of both test and evidential
  136. recordings made in places located around England
  137. Wales and Scotland. A typical histogram produced
  138. from one month of ENF data is shown in fig 2, the
  139. distribution is Gaussian having a mean of 50 Hz and a
  140. standard deviation of 0.06 Hz.
  141.  
  142. Mean=50 Hz
  143. STD=0.06 Hz
  144.  
  145. Frequency
  146.  
  147. Fig 2: Histogram of ENF data taken from the archive
  148. for November 2006. A Gaussian distribution has been
  149. overlaid for reference.
  150.  
  151. ENF components may find their way onto a recording
  152. due to poor power supply regulation, earth loops
  153. between recording equipment or more likely via
  154. inductive coupling of ENF currents into high gain
  155. recorder circuitry as the result of electromagnetic fields
  156. emanating from recorder power supply components
  157. such as transformers. In the same way, battery powered
  158. recorders may have ENF signals induced from nearby
  159. mains-operated equipment.
  160. The recorded ENF signal may contain harmonics with
  161. one or more of the harmonics having a higher power
  162. than the fundamental. These harmonics may also be
  163. used for analysis; however, frequencies above the third
  164. harmonic are unlikely to be useful due to masking
  165. caused by lower frequency acoustic signals [20].
  166. In summary, the synchronicity of the generators produce
  167. a uniformity of ENF across any geographic part of the
  168. grid, and over a period of time the dynamic behaviour
  169. of the supply and demand provides a unique ENF
  170. deviation pattern. The combination of these two factors
  171. makes the ENF a powerful forensic tool when an audio
  172. recording has captured the ENF as a by-product of the
  173. recording process.
  174.  
  175. Fig 1: High voltage power line distribution across
  176. England, Wales and Scotland [17].
  177.  
  178. AES 33rd International Conference, Denver, CO, USA, 2008 June 5–7
  179.  
  180. 2
  181.  
  182. Cooper
  183. 2
  184.  
  185. SIGNAL PROCESSING OF ENF SIGNALS
  186. AN OVERVIEW
  187. To date there have been three main methods used to
  188. extract ENF data from an evidential recording:
  189. ‘time/frequency domain analysis’ based on the
  190. spectrogram, ‘frequency domain analysis’ based on
  191. selecting the maximum magnitude of a series of power
  192. spectrums calculated from consecutive time segments of
  193. data, and ‘time domain analysis’ based on zero crossing
  194. measurements of a band-pass filtered signal, [10-12].
  195. For all methods, the results reported have relied on a
  196. visual comparison of the extracted data to a database of
  197. ENF information. Visual searching may therefore
  198. require many hours of work on the part of the examiner,
  199. making an automated search process attractive.
  200. The methods described in this paper are based on a
  201. frequency domain approach. Producing a practical
  202. method for automatically searching and matching the
  203. ENF requires the resulting data from a Fast Fourier
  204. Transform (FFT) to be reduced so as to minimise the
  205. computational overheads of the search routine. The
  206. obvious method is to use an algorithm that stores only
  207. the peak value of the frequency estimate taken over a
  208. well-defined bandwidth.
  209. Two related problems are encountered when extracting
  210. ENF data from evidential recordings. The first relates
  211. to the precision of the measurements on the ENF
  212. signals. This is limited not only by practical
  213. considerations, but additionally by the time-bandwidth
  214. product in Fourier Transformation theory known as the
  215. ‘uncertainty principle’, which states that you can not
  216. obtain arbitrarily high resolution in both the time and
  217. frequency domains simultaneously, making low
  218. frequency signals that vary with time very difficult to
  219. estimate [21]. The second being that in general the
  220. recorded ENF signal energy is usually small, producing
  221. frequency estimates that are susceptible to error due to
  222. noise. A number of signal processing techniques have
  223. been proposed to help overcome the limitations of the
  224. Fourier transform uncertainty principle, including those
  225. based on parametric frequency estimators [21], zero
  226. padding/interpolation schemes [22] and signal
  227. derivatives [23].
  228. The paper is split into three parts. The first part
  229. introduces a method for ENF extraction for
  230. database/archiving purposes that allows a commercially
  231. available real time FFT analyser and peak frequency
  232. data logger to be used. Suitable time and frequency
  233. resolution are obtained by using a technique that trades
  234. time for bandwidth. The second part describes a
  235. method for ENF extraction from evidential recordings
  236. based on an overlapping Short Time Fourier Transform
  237. (STFT) combined with a peak interpolation scheme
  238. [22], allowing good time and frequency resolution for
  239. minimal computational overheads. The third part
  240. describes the automated matching process of the
  241.  
  242. The Electric Network Frequency - An Automated Approach
  243. extracted data from the evidential recording to the
  244. archive of database ENF values, and is based on a
  245. simple Mean Squared Error (MSE) search. Both the
  246. extraction and matching algorithms have been
  247. developed using MathWorks MATLAB.
  248. 3
  249.  
  250. PRODUCING AN ARCHIVE OF ENF
  251. ESTIMATES
  252. The archiving process to be described produces ENF
  253. estimates every 1.4 seconds at a spectral resolution of
  254. 0.0009 Hz and along with associated time for each
  255. estimate, stores them to a simple text file which has the
  256. start date of the file contained in a header. Each file
  257. will contain approximately one month of ENF data,
  258. allowing the automated searches to be carried out using
  259. easily manageable data sets.
  260. Transformation to the frequency domain is achieved
  261. using a standard FFT having inherent time and
  262. frequency resolution trade-offs. In practice, this means
  263. that suitable frequency resolution requires a very long
  264. length of signal. A method has been used that provides
  265. acceptable time and frequency resolution by increasing
  266. the analysis bandwidth for a directly proportional
  267. reduction in the analysis time window. This is achieved
  268. by making the original ENF sine-wave signal nonlinear, producing higher order harmonic components.
  269. The analysis is carried out using one of these ENF
  270. harmonics, where compared to the fundamental, its
  271. frequency will have a directly proportional increase in
  272. bandwidth, and for a given frequency resolution will
  273. require a directly proportional reduction in FFT size and
  274. therefore a directly proportional reduction in the amount
  275. of input data required. Thus allowing proportionally
  276. more ENF estimates to be made over a period of time.
  277. The non-linearisation process is achieved using a simple
  278. pulse generator locked to a full wave rectified signal
  279. taken from the output of a step-down transformer
  280. connected directly to the electrical network. The output
  281. of the locked pulse generator is then fed to a high
  282. quality 16 bit PC soundcard. The impulse response of
  283. the soundcard will be convolved with the incoming ENF
  284. locked pulses which in the frequency domain produces a
  285. spectrum consisting of a set of harmonically related
  286. frequencies under an approximate sin x/x envelope. The
  287. full-wave rectification produces even order harmonics
  288. only. It is expected that the ENF frequency will
  289. normally be within the range 49.5 Hz to 50.5 Hz [19].
  290. The harmonic of the fundamental 50 Hz signal chosen
  291. for analysis is the 100th, equating to a centre frequency
  292. of 5 kHz and at this frequency the bandwidth of interest
  293. will be between: 49.5 × 100 = 4950 Hz and
  294. 50.5 × 100 = 5050 Hz, a one hundred-fold increase.
  295. After each Fourier transform the peak frequency is
  296. selected from within the band of interest, building a
  297. vector of peak frequency estimates representing the
  298. changing pattern of the ENF. The resulting frequency
  299.  
  300. AES 33rd International Conference, Denver, CO, USA, 2008 June 5–7
  301.  
  302. 3
  303.  
  304. Cooper
  305.  
  306. The Electric Network Frequency - An Automated Approach
  307.  
  308. estimates are then simply scaled back down to the
  309. baseband, achieving the same frequency resolution as
  310. would normally be obtained for 100 times the data
  311. length, thus allowing 100 times more ENF estimates for
  312. a given time period. The FFT, frequency windowing,
  313. peak picking and storage operations are all carried out
  314. in real time using Sound Technology Inc, SpectraLab
  315. software, running under Microsoft Windows XP. The
  316. overall process is described by fig 3.
  317. In practice the ENF signal to noise ratio (SNR) ranges
  318. from between 50 dB to 70 dB [18] and using the nonlinear technique described, the 100th harmonic still
  319. produces a signal to noise circa 45 dB. Therefore, the
  320. proposed technique produces negligible estimation error
  321. due to noise.
  322.  
  323. 240v rms
  324. 50 Hz
  325.  
  326. Step down
  327. transformer
  328. and rectifier
  329.  
  330. ENF locked
  331. pulse
  332. generator
  333.  
  334. leads to an approximately maximum likelihood
  335. estimator for moderate signal to noise ratios.
  336. 4.1 Short time Fourier transform (STFT)
  337. The STFT may be derived by splitting the original data
  338. sequence x[ n ], 0 ≤ n ≤ N − 1 , into J overlapping
  339. segments of length M samples:
  340.  
  341. xm[n] = x[mL + n], 0 ≤ n ≤ M − 1
  342.  
  343. (1)
  344.  
  345. Where xm is the mth frame of the input signal and L is
  346. the number of samples advanced between each
  347. consecutive frame, known as the ‘hop size’. Each frame
  348. is then multiplied by a length M spectral analysis
  349. weighting window w producing:
  350.  
  351. Sound
  352. Card
  353.  
  354. Log
  355. power
  356. spectrum
  357.  
  358. Window
  359. 100th
  360. harmonic
  361. +/- 50 Hz
  362.  
  363. PC
  364.  
  365. Peak
  366. detection
  367. and storage
  368. including
  369. date & time
  370. information
  371.  
  372. Fig 3: Process for estimating and archiving ENF data.
  373. 4
  374.  
  375. EXTRACTION OF ENF DATA FROM
  376. RECORDINGS
  377. The problem of extracting the ENF data from an
  378. evidential recording may be defined as: ‘track and
  379. estimate at regular time intervals a single sinusoidal
  380. component having a finite SNR, a relatively narrow
  381. bandwidth and a slow rate of change of frequency’.
  382. From network operational practices as described by the
  383. NGC [19], the total bandwidth for the ENF may be
  384. defined over the range 49.5 Hz to 50.5 Hz. The SNR is
  385. determined by the induced level of ENF into the
  386. recording system and the relative levels of electronic
  387. and acoustic noise found over the ENF bandwidth of the
  388. recording.
  389. The process must provide adequate frequency resolution
  390. and sampling interval between ENF estimates that are
  391. compatible with the archive database. This will allow a
  392. simple and efficient matching process to be used.
  393. The method chosen to track the dynamic behaviour of
  394. the ENF is based on the Short Time Fourier Transform
  395. (STFT) [24]. Peak magnitude estimation is achieved
  396. using a quadratic interpolation and mild zero padding
  397. scheme as described by Abe & Smith [22]. The process
  398.  
  399. xm[n] = xm[n] â‹… w[n]
  400.  
  401. (2)
  402.  
  403. The data from the windowed frame is then extended by
  404. zeros using a factor of b to produce a zero-padded
  405. windowed frame x ′m[ n] . Converting each frame to the
  406. frequency domain using a length P FFT produces the
  407. STFT at frame m:
  408.  
  409. Xm[k ] =
  410.  
  411. − j 2π kn
  412. 1 P −1
  413. P
  414. ′
  415. 
  416. x
  417. n
  418. e
  419. m
  420. [
  421. ]
  422. ∑
  423. P n=0
  424.  
  425. (3)
  426.  
  427. Where k is the kth frequency bin. The hop size L is set
  428. to match the sampling time interval of the archiving
  429. database (1.4 seconds) and the FFT transform size P is
  430. variable and dependent on a user-defined parameter D
  431. expressed in terms of multiples of hop size L:
  432.  
  433. P = L â‹… fs â‹… b â‹… D
  434.  
  435. (4)
  436.  
  437. Where fs is the recorded data sampling rate. The STFT
  438. segmentation process is described by fig 4. Each frame
  439. is analysed to find the prominent local maximum or
  440. peak in the magnitude spectrum corresponding to the
  441.  
  442. AES 33rd International Conference, Denver, CO, USA, 2008 June 5–7
  443.  
  444. 4
  445.  
  446. Cooper
  447.  
  448. The Electric Network Frequency - An Automated Approach
  449.  
  450. ENF. The ENF peak value in any frame is unlikely to
  451. coincide with the exact frequency position of an FFT
  452. transform point. One advantage of zero padding in the
  453. time domain is that it increases the FFT size, making
  454. each FFT bin bandwidth fs/p proportionally narrower.
  455. This produces a more densely sampled spectrum,
  456. providing accurate interpolation in the frequency
  457. domain. However, to gain reasonable accuracy, the
  458. zero padding factor has to be very large, resulting in a
  459. very high FFT size. This has obvious implications for
  460. processing efficiency, where time scales are increased
  461. according to P â‹… log( P ) .
  462.  
  463. From eq 3, the three frequency samples expressed in dB
  464. from each frame as defined in a) and b) are given by:
  465.  
  466. α = 20 log10 Xm(kβ −1 )
  467.  
  468. (5)
  469.  
  470. β = 20 log10 Xm(kβ )
  471.  
  472. (6)
  473.  
  474. λ = 20 log10 Xm(kβ +1 )
  475.  
  476. (7)
  477.  
  478. Total data length
  479. DxL
  480.  
  481. Frame 1
  482. Frame 2
  483.  
  484. DxL
  485.  
  486. L
  487.  
  488. Frame 3
  489.  
  490. DxL
  491.  
  492. L
  493.  
  494. Frame 4
  495.  
  496. DxL
  497.  
  498. L
  499.  
  500. Frame 5
  501.  
  502. DxL
  503.  
  504. L
  505. L
  506.  
  507. Frame 6
  508.  
  509. DxL
  510.  
  511. L: hop size (sampling interval)
  512. D: Sample interval multiplication factor
  513. D x L: Frame length
  514.  
  515. DxL
  516.  
  517. L
  518.  
  519. Frame J
  520.  
  521. Fig 4: Segmentation and overlap scheme used for the STFT.
  522.  
  523. 4.2 Quadratic interpolation
  524. In order to overcome the computational limitations of
  525. high zero-padding factors, a quadratic interpolation
  526. scheme has been used in conjunction with a low zero
  527. padding factor as described by Abe & Smith [22]. The
  528. procedure is straightforward: compute the log power
  529. spectrum of each STFT frame using a zero padding
  530. factor of 4, and then apply quadratic interpolation
  531. (QIFFT) to each frame as follows:
  532. a)
  533.  
  534. b)
  535. c)
  536. d)
  537.  
  538. Select the FFT bin β having maximum
  539. magnitude over the spectral bandwidth of
  540. interest (coarse estimate).
  541. Select the adjacent FFT bins
  542. β − 1 and β + 1 either side of the peak.
  543. Fit a second order (quadratic) model to the
  544. 3 values of data.
  545. The estimated peak value (ν ) of the
  546. QIFFT is the peak value of the quadratic
  547. model.
  548.  
  549. Solving for the peak location ν of the quadratic model
  550. using α , β and λ [25]:
  551.  
  552. 1
  553. α −λ
  554. 2 α − 2β + λ
  555.  
  556. ν= ⋅
  557.  
  558. (8)
  559.  
  560. Estimation error bias inherent in quadratic interpolation
  561. is the difference between the true peak value and the
  562. peak value of the fitted quadratic model. The bias is
  563. reduced to acceptable levels by the application of the
  564. mild zero padding factor as described [22].
  565. 4.3 The overall extraction process
  566. To improve the efficiency of the processing the initial
  567. sampled audio data is decimated to 300Hz. This is
  568. followed by a band-pass filter set to the ENF frequency
  569. region of interest (49.5 Hz to 50.5 Hz). The time
  570. domain signal is then split into J overlapping frames
  571. and each frame processed as previously described. The
  572. overall extraction process is shown in fig 5.
  573.  
  574. AES 33rd International Conference, Denver, CO, USA, 2008 June 5–7
  575.  
  576. 5
  577.  
  578. Cooper
  579.  
  580. The Electric Network Frequency - An Automated Approach
  581. Input data
  582. Decimation
  583. to
  584. 300 Hz
  585.  
  586. Bandpass filter
  587. 49.5 Hz - 50.5 Hz
  588. Split data into J
  589. overlapping frames
  590.  
  591. Weighting
  592. window
  593. Frame 1
  594.  
  595. Weighting
  596. window
  597. Frame 2
  598.  
  599. Weighting
  600. window
  601. Frame J
  602. Segments
  603. 3 to J-1
  604.  
  605. Zero pad
  606. data by a
  607. factor 4
  608.  
  609. Zero pad
  610. data by a
  611. factor 4
  612.  
  613. Zero pad
  614. data by a
  615. factor 4
  616.  
  617. FFT frame 1
  618.  
  619. FFT frame 2
  620.  
  621. FFT frame J
  622.  
  623. Quadratic
  624. interpolation
  625. of peak value
  626. Frame 1
  627.  
  628. Quadratic
  629. interpolation
  630. of peak value
  631. Frame 2
  632.  
  633. Quadratic
  634. interpolation
  635. of peak value
  636. Frame J
  637.  
  638. Vector of ENF estimates:
  639.  
  640. f1 , f 2 , "" f J
  641.  
  642. Fig 5: Overall ENF signal processing procedure.
  643. 4.4 Noise robustness
  644. This section discusses the practical problem of
  645. estimating the peak value of a single slowly varying
  646. sinusoid from a finite number of noisy discrete time
  647. observations. The application of the band-pass filter
  648. provides frequency selectivity, confining the data to the
  649. ENF region of interest only. The band-pass filter,
  650. which is applied before the signal is segmented, will
  651. also prevent spectral leakage components produced
  652. from signals outside the region of interest masking the
  653. ENF. This allows a rectangular weighting window to be
  654. deployed, leading to greater noise immunity, due to it
  655. having the narrowest main-lobe in the frequency
  656. domain of all weighting windows [26].
  657. Stochastic noise is also a major problem for the
  658. extraction process, as the level of induced ENF is often
  659. very small. For decreasing SNR’s peak estimation
  660. errors increase and there is usually a point at which the
  661. error rises very rapidly [27]. The FFT can be very
  662.  
  663. effective in picking out periodic components of a signal,
  664. even when it is affected by relatively high noise levels.
  665. A P point FFT may be considered as P/2 contiguous
  666. band-pass filters, with the bandwidth of each filter being
  667. dependant on the sample rate and the number of points
  668. used in the FFT (fs/p). Considering the noise to be
  669. white, a SNR improvement can be achieved by
  670. spreading the noise over P filters producing a noise
  671. power reduction Ï• of:
  672.  
  673. ⎛1⎞
  674. ⎟
  675. ⎝P⎠
  676.  
  677. ϕ = 10 log10 ⎜
  678.  
  679. (9)
  680.  
  681. Thus, within the FFT frequency bin containing a
  682. sinusoid, the SNR will be improved by 3dB for every
  683. doubling of FFT size. However, doubling the FFT size
  684. requires a doubling of data size and therefore a trade-off
  685. between SNR and time resolution between frames.
  686.  
  687. AES 33rd International Conference, Denver, CO, USA, 2008 June 5–7
  688.  
  689. 6
  690.  
  691. Cooper
  692.  
  693. The Electric Network Frequency - An Automated Approach
  694.  
  695. For typical evidential recordings, the SNR’s for ENF
  696. estimation needs a large frame size requiring many
  697. seconds of data for each frame. In the overlapping
  698. frame system previously described (fig 4), the sampling
  699. interval multiplication factor, D, is used to increase the
  700. transform/frame size to exploit the noise suppression
  701. properties of the FFT, allowing a trade-off between
  702. noise performance and ENF envelope resolution.
  703. An example of noise performance verses frame length is
  704. shown, where a noisy ENF signal has been extracted
  705. from a 6-minute long section of recording. Fig 6 shows
  706. an extraction using a frame length of 1 sample interval
  707. (D=1, 1.4 seconds), fig 7 shows an extraction of the
  708. same data using a frame length of 5 sample intervals
  709. (D=5, 7 seconds) and fig 8 shows the same data
  710. extracted using a frame length of 15 sample intervals
  711. (D=15, 21 seconds). It can be seen that increasing the
  712. frame length reduces the effects of the noise.
  713.  
  714. ENF samples
  715.  
  716. Fig 6: Frame length set to 1 sample interval.
  717.  
  718. ENF samples
  719.  
  720. Fig 8: Frame length set to 15 sample intervals.
  721.  
  722. 5
  723. AUTOMATED MATCHING OF ENF DATA
  724. An algorithm is required that searches for the extracted
  725. ENF pattern in the archived ENF data. The process
  726. involves overlaying two length N vectors a and t and
  727. computing a metric that determines the degree to which
  728. the two vectors match. The metric used for this
  729. matching process is the mean squared error (MSE).
  730. The extracted data is overlaid at the start of the archive
  731. file and the MSE between the extracted data and the part
  732. of the archive that has been overlaid is calculated, the
  733. result is then stored. The extracted data is advanced one
  734. sample and the process is repeated until the extracted
  735. data has slid across the entire archive file. A vector of
  736. ‘error’ values is therefore formed and the minimum
  737. value is tagged as the best match. This error value
  738. directly indicates the start position of the match in the
  739. archive and therefore the date and time. The error ε is
  740. given by the logarithm of the MSE:
  741.  
  742. ⎛1
  743. ⎝N
  744.  
  745. ε = log ⎜
  746.  
  747. ENF samples
  748.  
  749. Fig 7: Frame length set to 5 sample intervals.
  750.  
  751. i= N
  752.  
  753. ∑ (a − t )
  754. i =0
  755.  
  756. i
  757.  
  758. i
  759.  
  760. 2
  761.  
  762. ⎞
  763. ⎟
  764. ⎠
  765.  
  766. (10)
  767.  
  768. Where ai is the i th element of the overlapped archive
  769. file and ti is the i th element of the extracted file, N is
  770. the number of samples or elements in the extracted file.
  771. The logarithm provides better visual discrimination
  772. when the errors are plotted graphically and produces
  773. less skew in the overall error distribution aiding
  774. statistical analysis.
  775. An example showing the results of an automated
  776. matching process using the techniques described is
  777. shown in fig 9. The extracted data is from a 70 minute
  778. recording produced in Glasgow Scotland UK and the
  779. archive produced in London England UK, a distance of
  780. 420 miles (676 km), the archived data has been offset
  781. by 0.1 Hz to aid visual comparison.
  782.  
  783. AES 33rd International Conference, Denver, CO, USA, 2008 June 5–7
  784.  
  785. 7
  786.  
  787. Cooper
  788.  
  789. The Electric Network Frequency - An Automated Approach
  790.  
  791. Archive (London)
  792.  
  793. Extract (Scotland)
  794.  
  795. Fig 9: Automated match found using the
  796. techniques described. The extracted waveform
  797. has been offset by 0.1 Hz to aid visual
  798. comparison.
  799. Statistically, the strength of the match may be
  800. ascertained by examining the minimum MSE value in
  801. relation to all the other MSE values obtained during the
  802. search of the archive. It is found that for relatively long
  803. recordings > 30 minutes, the error distribution may be
  804. close to Gaussian. From the Scotland/London example,
  805. fig 10 shows the standardised errors and fig 11 shows a
  806. histogram of the standardised errors with a Gaussian
  807. distribution overlaid for comparison purposes. It can be
  808. seen that the minimum error is >6 standard errors below
  809. the mean, indicating that the match has almost certainly
  810. not resulted by chance.
  811.  
  812. Fig 11: Histogram of errors with a Gaussian overlay.
  813. As the recording length diminishes the ENF pattern
  814. becomes less complex. The differentiation between
  815. lower error values therefore decreases and the
  816. probability of a match occurring by chance increases.
  817. However, if the extracted ENF signal is of good quality,
  818. reliable automated matches can still be obtained with
  819. relatively short recording lengths. As an example of
  820. this, a two minute ENF extract was matched
  821. 6
  822. from 2 × 10 comparisons taken over a 36 day archive
  823. file and the results are shown in fig’s 12, 13 and 14.
  824. Over this short recording, very good visual correlation
  825. can be seen between the archive and extracted ENF
  826. values (fig 12). A high discrimination between the
  827. lowest error value and its nearest neighbours are shown
  828. in fig 13. The error distribution is shown to be skewed
  829. (fig 14) making statistical inference more difficult.
  830. However, transforming the results to Gaussian may be
  831. possible.
  832.  
  833. Archive
  834. Extract
  835. point of minimum error
  836.  
  837. Fig 10: Standardised errors showing the point of match
  838. being >6 standard errors below the mean.
  839. Fig 12: Automated match found using a 2 minute ENF
  840. extract. The extracted waveform has been offset by
  841. 0.01 Hz to aid visual comparison.
  842.  
  843. AES 33rd International Conference, Denver, CO, USA, 2008 June 5–7
  844.  
  845. 8
  846.  
  847. Cooper
  848.  
  849. The Electric Network Frequency - An Automated Approach
  850. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  851. The author would like to thank Dr Catalin Grigoras of
  852. the National Institute of Forensic Expertise in Bucharest
  853. Rumania for introducing him to the ENF criterion and
  854. for the useful discussions and exchange of ideas over
  855. the past several years. Thanks also to Robin How of the
  856. Metropolitan Police Audio Laboratory for helpful
  857. suggestions and feedback relating to draft versions of
  858. this paper.
  859. point of minimum error
  860.  
  861. Fig 13: Even for a 2 minute section the minimum
  862. error value of the match is still well below its
  863. nearest neighbours.
  864.  
  865. Fig 14: The overlaid Guassian distribution
  866. highlights the skew in the error histogram.
  867.  
  868. 6
  869. CONCLUSIONS
  870. This paper further demonstrates the ENF criterion as a
  871. powerful methodology to authenticate digital audio
  872. recordings and validates its use in mainland UK by
  873. establishing ENF correlation over large geographical
  874. distances. Relatively simple processing procedures
  875. have been instigated allowing reliable automated date
  876. and time matching of extracted ENF data to an archived
  877. ENF file, even for a recording as low as two minutes in
  878. duration. Obviously, the reliability of a match
  879. diminishes with decreasing ENF to noise ratio and is the
  880. single biggest limitation of the ENF criterion. It is
  881. therefore anticipated that future research will target the
  882. development of robust and efficient ENF extraction
  883. algorithms.
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