title: Buffalo Braves

text: For most of the team's existence, WBEN (930 AM) was the radio home of the Buffalo Braves, with Van Miller on play-by-play. Miller also called play-by-play on the team's telecasts over WBEN-TV (channel 4, now WIVB-TV), the local CBS television affiliate. Snyder claimed that the Braves broadcasts were drawing far higher ratings than the Sabres at the time and insisted that if he had managed to keep the Braves in Buffalo, the Sabres would have been the team eventually forced to move out of the city.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The politics of Vietnam is dominated by a single party, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). The President of Vietnam is the head of state, and the Prime Minister of Vietnam is the head of government, both of these are separate from the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam who leads the Communist Party and is head of the Politburo and the Central Military Commission, thus the General Secretary is the "de facto" supreme leader of Vietnam. Executive power is exercised by the government and the President of Vietnam. Legislative power is vested in the National Assembly of Vietnam (). The Judiciary is independent of the executive. The parliament adopted the current Constitution of Vietnam, its fifth, on 28 November 2013.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The Vietnamese political system is authoritarian, with the freedom of assembly, association, expression, press and religion as well as civil society activism being tightly restricted. There are no freely elected national leaders, political opposition is suppressed, all religious activity is controlled by the CPV, and dissent is not permitted and civil rights are curtailed. Elections in Vietnam occur under a single-party authoritarian political system. Vietnam is among the few contemporary party-led dictatorships to not hold any direct elections at the national level. The competitive nature of the elections is highly constrained by the Communist Party's monopoly on power in Vietnam, limitations on free speech, and government interference with the elections.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The National Assembly is a unicameral legislative body. The National Assembly has 500 members, elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms. The legislature is, according to the constitution, the highest organ of the state. Its powers includes the enactment and amendment of the constitution and laws; the adoption of the government budget; supervising the Government of Vietnam and other holders of public powers responsible to the National Assembly; and appointing members of the judiciary. The Vietnamese constitution and legislation provide for regular elections for the office of the President of the Socialist Republic, the National Assembly and the People's Councils.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The President () is elected by National Assembly for a five-year term and acts as the "de jure" commander-in-chief of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces and Chairman of the Council for Defence and Security. However, the president has the right to decide on executive brands. The government (), the main executive state power of Vietnam, is headed by the Prime Minister, who has several Deputy Prime Ministers and several ministers in charge of particular activities. The executive branch is responsible for the implementation of political, economic, cultural, social, national defence, security and external activities of the state.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: Vietnam has a judicial system governed by the Constitution of Vietnam and national legislation enacted by National Assembly. The Supreme People's Court () is the highest court of appeal in Vietnam. There are other specialised courts in Vietnam, including the Central Military Court, the Criminal Court, the Civil Court and the Appeal Court. The Supreme People's Procuracy observes the implementation of state organs and makes sure that Vietnamese citizens follow the law.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: Vietnam is a one-party socialist republic. The current Vietnamese state traces its direct lineage back to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the 1945 August Revolution led by Hồ Chí Minh. The current constitution was adopted on 28 November 2013 by the National Assembly of Vietnam. There have been four other constitutions in Vietnamese history: the 1946, 1959, 1980, and 1992 constitutions. The Communist Party of Vietnam, the leading non-State organ, operates in accordance with the laws. Government powers in Vietnam are divided into legislative, executive and judiciary powers. Vietnam's legal system is based upon socialist legality according to Article 12 of the constitution.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: Vietnam is a socialist republic with a one-party system led by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). The CPV espouses Marxism–Leninism and Hồ Chí Minh Thought, the political philosophy and ideology of the late Hồ Chí Minh. The two ideologies function as a firm ideological basis and serve as guidance for the activities of the Party and state. According to the Constitution, Vietnam is "in the period of transition to socialism". Marxism–Leninism was introduced to Vietnam in the 1920s and 1930s, and Vietnamese culture has been led under the banner of patriotism and Marxism–Leninism. Hồ Chí Minh's beliefs were not systematised during his life, nor quickly following his death. Trường Chinh's biography of "Chairman Hồ" in 1973 emphasised his revolutionary policies. The thoughts of Hồ Chí Minh were systematised in 1989, under the leadership of Nguyễn Văn Linh. Hồ Chí Minh Thought, alongside Marxism–Leninism, became the official ideology of the CPV and the state in 1991. The CPV's claim to legitimacy was retained following the collapse of communism in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 by its commitment to the thoughts of Hồ Chí Minh, according to Sophie Quinn-Judge. According to Pierre Brocheux, the author of "Ho Chi Minh: a Biography", the current state ideology is Hồ Chí Minh Thought, with Marxism–Leninism playing a secondary role. While some claim that Hồ Chí Minh Thought is used as a veil for the Party leadership since they, according to this version, have stopped believing in communism, others claim this is not true considering that Hồ Chí Minh was an avid supporter of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Others see Hồ Chí Minh Thought as a political umbrella term whose main function is to smuggle in non-socialist ideas and policies without challenging socialist legality.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: Since its foundation, the key ideology has been Marxism–Leninism, but since the introduction of a mixed economy in the late 1980s and 1990s, it has lost its monopolistic ideological and moral legitimacy. As became clear because of the Đổi Mới reforms, the Party could not base its rule on defending only the workers and the peasants, which was officially referred to as the "working class-peasant alliance". In the constitution introduced in 1992, the State represented the "workers, peasants and intellectuals". In recent years, the Party has stopped representing a specific class, but instead the "interests of the entire people", which includes entrepreneurs. The final class barrier was removed in 2002, when party members were allowed to engage in private activities. In the face of de-emphasising the role of Marxism–Leninism, the Party has acquired a broader ideology, placing more emphasis on nationalism, developmentalism, and becoming the protector of tradition.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: According to the official version, the Communist Party of Vietnam () is leading the Vietnamese people "in carrying out the country's renovation, modernisation and industrialisation." According to the Party's statute, amended at the 9th National Congress on 22 April 2001, the CPV was "established and trained by President Hồ Chí Minh, has led the Vietnamese people to carry out successfully the August Revolution, establishing the Democratic Republic of Việt Nam, now the Socialist Republic of Việt Nam, to defeat foreign invaders, to abolish the colonial and feudalist regime, to liberate and reunify the country, and then carry out the cause of renovation and socialist construction and firmly defend national independence." It believes in socialist internationalism of the working class, and supports the "struggle for peace, national independence, democracy and social progress of the world's people." The CPV acts as the vanguard of the working people and the whole nation by representing their interests. Its aim is to create "a strong, independent, prosperous and democratic country with an equitable and civilized society, to realise socialism and ultimately, communism." The Party's ideological foundation is Marxism–Leninism and Hồ Chí Minh Thoughts. These ideologies guide the activities of the Party, while promoting "the nation's traditions, and absorbing other nations' essential ideas."


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The CPV is organised on the principles of democratic centralism. It practices "criticism, self-criticism, and strict discipline" and pursues "collective leadership and individual responsibility, and promoting comradeship and solidarity in line with the Party's political programs and statutes." The CPV is subject to Vietnamese laws and the Constitution. It is the country's ruling party and promotes the "mastery of the people over the country". The Party is under the supervision of the people. It is dependent on having the people contribute to the party, by strengthening, uniting, and leading the people in the revolutionary cause. The political system in Vietnam is led by the CPV, and it "leads, respects and promotes the role of the State, the Vietnamese Fatherland Front (VFF) and other socio-political organisations."


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The National Congress is the party's highest organ. The direction of the Party and the Government is decided at the National Congress, held every fifth year. The Central Committee is elected by the National Congress. Delegates vote on policies and candidate posts within the central party leadership. Following ratification of the decisions taken at the National Congress, the National Congress dissolves itself. The Central Committee, which is elected by the National Congress every fifth year, implements the decisions of the National Congress in the five-year period. Since the Central Committee only meets twice a year, the Politburo implements the policies of the National Congress.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The Central Committee (CC) is the CPV's most powerful institution. It delegates some of its powers to the Secretariat and the Politburo when it is not in session. When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the Vietnamese leadership, led by Lê Duẩn, began to centralise power. This policy continued until the 6th National Congress, when Nguyễn Văn Linh took power. Linh pursued a policy of economic and political decentralisation. The party and state bureaucracy opposed Linh's reform initiatives; because of this, Linh tried to win the support of provincial leaders. This caused the powers of the provincial chapters of the CPV to increase in the 1990s. The CPV lost its power to appoint or dismiss provincial-level officials in the 1990s; this is proven by the fact that Võ Văn Kiệt tried to wrestle this power back to the centre during the 1990s without success. These developments led to the provincialisation of the Central Committee; for example, more and more CC members have a background in provincial party work. Because of these changes, power in Vietnam has become increasingly devolved. The number of Central Committee members with a provincial background increased from a low of 15.6 percent in 1982 to a high of 41 percent in 2000. The former President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Trương Tấn Sang (2011–2016) was directly elected from the provinces at the 8th Party Congress, held in 1996. Because of the devolution of power, the powers of the Central Committee have increased substantially; for instance, when a two-thirds majority of the Politburo voted in favour of retaining Lê Khả Phiêu as General Secretary (the leader of Vietnam), the Central Committee voted against the Politburo's motion and voted unanimously in favour of removing Lê Khả Phiêu from his post of General Secretary. The Central Committee did this because the majority of its members were of provincial background, or were working in the provinces; because of this, these members were the first to feel the pinch when the economy began to stagnate during Lê Khả Phiêu's rule.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The Central Committee elects the Politburo in the aftermath of the Party Congress. Since the full Central Committee meets only once a year, the Politburo functions as the Party's leading collective decision-making body. The Secretariat is also elected by the Central Committee, and is headed by the General Secretary (). It is responsible for solving organisational problems and implementing the demands of the Central Committee. The Secretariat oversees the work of the Commissions of the Central Committee. The General Secretary is the de facto leader of Vietnam.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The following is the official order of precedence of the Politburo according to the 13th National Party Congress.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The Secretariat (term 13) includes some Politburo members assigned to join the Secretariat and 5 comrades elected at the first PCC meeting (term 13).


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The Vietnamese Fatherland Front (VFF) () is an umbrella group of pro-communist movements. According to Article 9 of the Constitution, the VFF and its members constitute "the political base of people's power". The state must create a favorable environment for the VFF and its member organisations. The VFF is a voluntary mass organisation of political, socio-political and social organisations and "individuals from all classes, social strata, ethnic groups, and religions, including overseas Vietnamese." Its main objectives are to gather and build a people unity bloc, "strengthen the people's political and spiritual consensus, encourage the people to promote their mastership, to implement the CPV's guidelines and policies, and to abide by the Constitution and laws." The VFF is governed on the principles of "democratic consensus, coordinated and united action." Its organisation has been modelled after the state structure, and the VFF has its own independent statute. Notable member organisations of the VFF include the General Confederation of Labour, the Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth Union and the Veteran Association, among others.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The President of the Republic () is the head of state, elected to a five-year term by the National Assembly, and is limited by the Constitution to a maximum tenure of 3 terms. In addition to being the Chairman of the Council for Defence and Security and commander-in-chief of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces, the president has the procedural duty of appointing or dismissing of the Vice Presidents, Prime Minister, Deputy Chief Judge of the Supreme People's Court and Head of the Supreme People's Procuracy, with the consent of the National Assembly through a simple majority vote. The President has influence on foreign policy, and has the right to declare a state of emergency and to declare war.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The Government () It is headed by the president, prime minister and consists of deputy prime ministers, ministers and other members. The Government is a unified administration responsible for the implementation of political, economic, cultural, social, national defence, security and external activities of the state. It is also responsible for the effectiveness of the state apparatus itself from the top down, stabilisation in the country and the observance of the constitution. As with the President, the Government is elected by the deputies of the National Assembly for a five-year term. The Prime Minister of the Government () is the head of government and is elected or dismissed by the National Assembly, at the request of the president. Since 5 April 2021, the prime minister of the government has been Phạm Minh Chính.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The National Assembly () is a unicameral legislative body, and is governed on the basis of democratic centralism. It is the highest representative organ and the highest state organ. The National Assembly is the only organ vested with constitutional and legislative powers. It is responsible for fundamental domestic and foreign policies, socio-economic policies, defence and security issues, and it exercises supreme control over all state activities. Delegates (or members) of the National Assembly are elected through secret ballots in democratic elections which are held every fifth year. The National Assembly is convened twice a year, and its Standing Committee represents it between sessions.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: "The membership of the Standing Committee consists of the Chairman (), deputy chairmen and other members; these members are elected by the National Assembly. Standing Committee members cannot simultaneously be members of the Government. Members work on a full-time basis, and their terms of office correspond with the term of the National Assembly. The Standing Committee continues to function until a new National Assembly is elected. According to the constitution, the Standing Committee is responsible for 12 duties. Of these, the most important are the powers to announce, convene and chair the National Assembly sessions, to interpret the constitution, laws and ordinances, and to issue ordinances on those matters assigned by the National Assembly. It supervises and guides the People's Councils and their activities, and directs, regulates and coordinates the activities of the Ethnic Council and the committees of the National Assembly."


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: There are seven committees of the National Assembly. Committee membership is determined by the National Assembly. They are responsible for the studying and examination of bills, legislative initiatives, drafts of ordinances and other drafts of legal documents and reports assigned by the National Assembly or the Standing Committee. The committees provide the National Assembly and its Standing Committee with their opinions on the legislative programme. The committees supervise and conduct investigations within their respective competency and exercise powers which are stipulated by law. The National Assembly elects the Ethnic Council, which consists of a Chairman, Deputy Chairmen and other members. The Ethnic Council studies and recommends actions to the National Assembly; the National Assembly has to consult with the Ethnic Council before issuing any decisions on ethnic policy. The Chairman of the Ethnic Council has to attend meetings of the Government which concern ethnic policy. The powers of the Ethnic Council are comparable to those of the committees.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The Vietnamese judicial system is based upon Socialist legality. The country's highest judicial organ is the Supreme People's Court (SPC) (). The composition of the SPC includes the Chief Justice (), Deputy Chief Judge, jurors and court secretaries. The structure of the SPC (from the top down) is as follows: Council of Judges, Commission of Judges, Central Military Court, Criminal Court, Civil Court, Appeal Court, and assisting staff. The Chief Judge of the SPC is elected by the National Assembly, while the President of the Socialist Republic has the power to nominate and dismiss the Deputy Chief Judge and judges at the Chief Judge's request. The Central Committee of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front introduces People's Jurors, which are in turn appointed by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly. According to the Government Web Portal, the operating principles of the courts are, during hearings, that the "judges and jurors are independent and only obey the laws." Justice and democracy within the system is supposedly ensured because legal decision-making is an open process. Jurors play an essential role, and defenders have the right of defence and to hire a lawyer.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The Supreme People's Prosecutor (SPP) (), the Vietnamese equivalent to an attorney general, observes the implementation process of the Ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government organs, local authorities, social and economic organisations, the armed forces, security forces and the Vietnamese citizens in general. The SPP respects the Constitution and state laws, practices public prosecution as stated by the law and ensures law enforcement. The head of the SPP is elected, dismissed, or removed from office by a proposal of the President. The Deputy Heads, prosecutors and inspectors appointed by the SPP head can be dismissed by the President on the Head's request.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The SPC is the highest court for appeal and review, and it reports to the National Assembly, which controls the judiciary's budget and confirms the president's nominees to the SPC and SPP. The SPP issues arrest warrants, sometimes retroactively. Below the SPC are district and provincial people's courts, military tribunals, and administrative, economic and labor courts. The people's courts are the courts of first instance. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has military tribunals, which have the same rules as civil courts. Military judges and assessors are selected by the MOD and the SPC, but the SPC has supervisory responsibility. Although the constitution provides for independent judges and lay assessors (who lack administrative training), the United States Department of State maintains that Vietnam lacks an independent judiciary, in part because the Communist Party selects judges and vets them for political reliability. Moreover, the party seeks to influence the outcome of cases involving perceived threats to the state or the party's dominant position. In an effort to increase judicial independence, the government transferred local courts from the Ministry of Justice to the SPC in September 2002. However, the Department of State saw no evidence that the move actually achieved the stated goal. Vietnam's judiciary is also hampered by a shortage of lawyers and by rudimentary trial procedures. The death penalty often is imposed in cases of corruption and drug trafficking.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: Article 6 of the Constitution states that "The people make use of state power through the agency of the National Assembly and the People's Councils, which represent the will and aspirations of the people, are elected by them and responsible to them". Deputies (members) of the National Assembly are directly elected on a democratic basis through secret ballots. All citizens who are 18 or older, regardless of ethnic group, gender, social position, belief, religion, level of education, occupation or length of residency have the right to vote, the exceptions being the mentally disabled and those people who have been deprived of the right to vote by law. People aged 21 or older have the right to stand as a candidate at elections. Three election commissions have been established to manage elections; at the central level is the Election Council, at the provincial level and in centrally-run cities the Election Committee is responsible for election monitoring and the Election Commission is responsible for election monitoring at constituencies.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: Nguyễn Sinh Hùng, the Chairman of the National Assembly, nominated Trương Tấn Sang for the Presidency. 487 deputies of the National Assembly, meaning 97.4 percent, voted in favour of Trương Tấn Sang. In his victory speech, Trương Tấn Sang said, "I pledge to improve my moral quality and study the example of the late President Hồ Chí Minh to cooperate with the government to bring Vietnam to become a fully industrialized country by 2015."


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: Provinces and municipalities are subdivided into towns, districts and villages. Provinces and municipalities are centrally controlled by the national government. Towns, districts and villages are locally accountable to some degree through elected people's councils. Certain cities and provinces are under direct control of the central government. The provinces are divided into districts, provincial cities and towns; cities under direct rule are divided into towns, urban and rural districts. In turn, the district is divided into communes and townlets. In the words of Article 118 of the Constitution, the "provincial city and the town are divided into wards and communes; the urban district is divided into wards." The establishment of People's Council and People's Committees is determined by law.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: In the provinces, the People's Council is the "local organ of State power", and it represents the "aspirations, and mastery of the people". The People's Council is democratically elected, and is accountable to the people and to superior organs of the state. It must pass resolutions which are formal orders of superior organs of state, and it acts on behalf of the constitution. The People's Council decides the plans for socio-economic development, decides the budget and is responsible for national defence and security at the local level. The deputy (member) of the People's Council acts on the behalf of the people, and has the right to make proposals to the People's Council and other local State organs. In turn, officials of these local organs have the responsibility to receive and to examine them.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: The People's Council appoint a People's Committee, the executive organ of the People's Council. It is the People's Committee which has the responsibility to implement "the Constitution, the law, the formal written orders of superior State organs and the resolutions of the People's Council." The People's Committee is headed by a Chairman, who acts as the body's leader. All decisions of the People's Committee are taken through a collegial decision-making process, and have to "conform to the will of the majority." The chairman has the power to annul decisions of lower standing organs.


title: Politics of Vietnam

text: Local officials of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, its local head, and officials from other mass organisations in the locality have the right to attend the meetings of the People's Council and the People's Committee if relevant problems are discussed. According to Article 125 of the constitution, "The People's Council and the People's Committee shall make regular reports on the local situation in all fields to the Fatherland Front and the mass organisations; shall listen to their opinions and proposals on local power building and socio-economic development; shall cooperate with them in urging the people to work together with the State for the implementation of socio-economic, national-defence, and security tasks in the locality."


title: Night Trap

text: Night Trap is a 1992 interactive movie developed by Digital Pictures and published by Sega for the Sega CD. Presented primarily through full-motion video (FMV), "Night Trap" tasks the player to observe teenage girls having a sleepover visiting a house which, unbeknownst to them, is infested with vampires. The player watches live surveillance footage and triggers traps to capture anyone endangering the girls. The player can switch between different cameras to keep watch over the girls and eavesdrop on conversations to follow the story and listen for clues.


title: Night Trap

text: The "Night Trap" concept originated in a 1986 prototype game developed by Axlon to demonstrate their Control-Vision game console to Hasbro. The system used VHS tape technology to present film-like gaming experiences. With the system picked up by Hasbro, the production of "Night Trap" commenced. The video footage was recorded in 1987, followed by six months of editing and game programming. Hasbro suddenly canceled the Control-Vision in 1989, which prompted the game's executive producer, Tom Zito, to purchase the film footage and found Digital Pictures to complete "Night Trap". "Night Trap" was eventually released in October 1992 as the first interactive movie on the Sega CD.


title: Night Trap

text: "Night Trap" received mixed reviews; critics praised the B movie-esque quality, humor, and video animation, but criticized the gameplay as shallow. The game was one of the principal subjects of a 1993 United States Senate committee hearing on violent video games, along with "Mortal Kombat". "Night Trap" was cited during the hearing as promoting gratuitous violence and sexual aggression against women, prompting toy retailers Toys "R" Us and Kay-Bee Toys to pull the game from shelves that December, and Sega to cease producing copies in January 1994. The Senate hearing led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), the North American video game ratings board still used today.


title: Night Trap

text: After the controversy subsided, "Night Trap" was ported to other consoles, including the 32X, 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, MS-DOS, and Mac OS. It was re-released in 2017 and 2018 for eighth-generation consoles to mark its 25th anniversary. Retrospective reviews of "Night Trap" were negative, owing to FMV's aging appeal as a game medium, and it has been cited as one of the worst video games of all time.


title: Night Trap

text: "Night Trap" is an interactive movie video game that uses full motion video (FMV) to present the story and gameplay. The player is instructed by the in-game police squad to watch live surveillance footage of the Martin household and trigger traps to capture anyone that is seen endangering the house guests. Cameras are situated in eight locations in and around the house: the entryway, living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, driveway, and two hallways. A map is available as well so the player can see how the rooms are connected. The player can freely switch between viewing the different cameras to keep up with house activities and pick up clues from conversations. Kelli, an undercover agent, will also provide clues to the player. The player must avoid trapping her, any other agent, or the house guests.


title: Night Trap

text: When someone is within range of a trap, a sensor bar will move into a red zone. Activating the trap at this moment will capture them. If the trap is activated when the bar is not in the red zone, the trap will not work and will become disabled for a short period of time. The traps will also only work if the access code is correct. There are six possible access codes, and the player can eavesdrop on conversations to find out when the Martins change the code. When a new code is learned, the player must wait until the speaker leaves the room before changing the access code to the correct color to maintain control of the traps. Counters on the screen indicate how many perpetrators have entered the house and how many have been captured.


title: Night Trap

text: The opening exposition to "Night Trap" is presented to the player by Cmdr. Simms of the Sega Control Attack Team (S.C.A.T.) on Sega CD, or Special Control Attack Team in other versions. He explains that the team was alerted to the disappearance of five teenage girls who were last seen at the Martin winery estate. The Martin family consists of Victor Martin, his wife Sheila, their children Jeff and Sarah, and cousin Tony. The missing girls were reportedly invited to stay for the night. Police questioned the Martin family, but they claimed the girls had left safely, and they refused to let the police search the property. The police then handed over the case to S.C.A.T., which investigated the house and discovered a series of traps, security cameras, and an operational unit in the basement to control the apparatus. The S.C.A.T. agents spliced an override cable onto the control system and connected it to a control panel in the back hallway of the house. The player is given the role of an internal S.C.A.T. operative charged with controlling the traps and cameras from this back hallway.


title: Night Trap

text: Five more teenage girls head towards the estate, Kelli, Ashley, Lisa, Cindy, and Megan. S.C.A.T. has placed agent Kelli Medd within the group as an undercover agent. The girls are not aware of her true identity. Also with the girls is Danny, Lisa's younger brother. The house is invaded by Augers, vampiric beings that need blood to survive. The Martin family themselves are full vampires. The following events and the ending vary widely depending on which characters the player saves from the Augers.


title: Night Trap

text: Rob Fulop, developer of "Demon Attack" (1982) and other Atari games, began working with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell at his company Axlon shortly after the video game crash of 1983. James Riley was also working with Bushnell at the time on a series of interactive retail advertising campaigns. Riley received a call from Fulop, his neighbor, who explained that an engineer presented an interesting device to another one of Bushnell's employees, Tom Zito. The system used VHS technology to create movie-like gaming experiences and allowed four video tracks to be played simultaneously. The team dubbed this system "NEMO" (Never Ever Mention Outside).


title: Night Trap

text: Zito wanted to put together some demos to present the technology to Hasbro. Riley wanted to create an environment the player could move freely about, leading to the idea of surveillance cameras. Fulop and Riley were inspired by the play "Tamara" (1981) which ran parallel stories running in 13 different rooms. The audience would need to decide for themselves which stories they wanted to follow. Fulop and Riley watched the play three times over the course of a weekend in 1985. Fulop and Riley liked the design model and thought it would make a good basis for an interactive media experience. A prototype game titled "Scene of the Crime" was produced to demonstrate the new technology to Hasbro and test the surveillance camera gameplay. It was a short five-minute demo where the player follows suspicious characters around a house to find who stole a stash of money. The player switches between cameras to observe the characters and eavesdrop on their conversations; all the characters have a plot to steal the money. At the end of the game, the player must guess who stole the money. In December 1986, the team flew to Hasbro headquarters in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and pitched the technology to Hasbro CEO Stephen Hassenfeld and a boardroom of 22 executives who liked the system and gave funding to support further development for the technology and games.


title: Night Trap

text: Ready to begin work on a full game, the NEMO team returned to the idea of surveillance cameras but wanted to make a more interactive and engaging experience. Zito originally had a plan for an interactive movie based on the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" film series. After negotiations with the film studio fell through, Zito hired Terry McDonell to write an original script. A cross-functional team of writers, directors, game designers, and programmers discussed how to blend the art of film with the interactivity of video games to create a compelling interactive narrative. The initial idea was to take the basis of "Scene of the Crime" to an extreme with a billionaire leaving an extremely large sum of money alone in a large house, guarded by a state-of-the-art security system. In this concept, the billionaire's daughter is staying at the house with her teenage friends when the house is attacked by ninja burglars who are attempting to steal the money. Through much deliberation, the game evolved into the final vampire concept seen in "Night Trap". Hasbro was concerned that the game may feature "reproducible violence". As a result, Hasbro did not want the vampires, later dubbed Augers, to bite or move too quickly. In addition, the device used by the Augers to drain blood from their victims was purposely designed to pass Hasbro's non-reproducible violence requirements.


title: Night Trap

text: "Night Trap" was developed over six months and was part movie shoot and part programming. The film was shot on 35 mm film in Culver City, CA across 16 days in 1987, with editing taking another few months. The film was directed by James Riley. The director of photography was Don Burgess, who later went on to shoot the award-winning "Forrest Gump" (1994). Originally the set was going to be darker, but it was made brighter for fear the footage would pixelate in-game. The script was unusual because it was built around the multi-linear gameplay. Riley was focused on timing the shoots correctly to sync the movement of actors among the rooms. There were four scenes occurring simultaneously at any given time, although there were eight rooms (the other four being still images). Dana Plato was the most famous actor involved, known for her work on the American sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes" (1978–86). Plato's career was spiraling downward at the time, partially due to her personal problems with drugs and alcohol. Fulop recounted that at first, she was very professional, but later she began showing up late and did not want to rehearse. The Augers were played by stuntmen. They developed a hobbling walk so that they would always be prepared to fall when the traps dropped under their feet. The software was developed concurrently with the filming and editing. Through developing "Night Trap", Fulop and his team came to realize their old-fashioned development methods did not always work with interactive movies. The team could not go back and "tweak" on-screen elements and other assets, such as inserting new scenes or changing the time an actor comes into view. They had to work with the video footage they were handed over.


title: Night Trap

text: "Night Trap" was ready for the launch of the NEMO in 1989 alongside another interactive movie, "Sewer Shark". Both games had a combined budget of about US$4.5 million ($1.5 million for "Night Trap", and $3 million for "Sewer Shark") making them two of the most expensive video games of the era. However, just before the launch of the NEMO in early 1989, which was now called the Control-Vision, Hasbro canceled the system release. The company cited high hardware costs as the reason. The system was originally intended to sell for $199, but the high manufacturing costs of the system's DRAM drove it to . In contrast, the market-leading Nintendo Entertainment System sold for around $100 in 1989. Riley also cited the high cost of filmmaking for deterring Hasbro. Fulop went on to form PF Magic, which later created the "Petz" virtual pet simulation series.


title: Night Trap

text: Zito purchased the rights to the abandoned Control-Vision games, and after learning that Sony was considering "Sewer Shark" for a release on its forthcoming Super NES CD-ROM, he founded his own company to bring them to the system, Digital Pictures. When the Super NES CD-ROM failed to materialize, Zito began working with Sega for a release on the Sega CD. "Night Trap" transitioned from VHS to CD-ROM and was released in 1992 for the Sega CD, five years after it was originally filmed. In May 1993, British censors banned the game from being sold to children under 15 years old in the United Kingdom, which led to Sega creating the Videogame Rating Council (VRC) age rating system. Sega also released the Sega CD version in Japan on November 19, 1993.


title: Night Trap

text: On December 9, 1993, a United States Senate committee held a hearing on the subject of video game violence. The hearing was led by senators Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl and was covered in major newspapers including "USA Today", "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times". At the hearing, the committee scrutinized "Night Trap" along with Midway's "Mortal Kombat" (1992). Lieberman claimed "Night Trap" featured gratuitous violence and promoted sexual aggression against women. One game over scene considered particularly offensive involved the nightgown-clad character Lisa being captured by Augers attempting to drain her blood. Tom Zito attempted to explain the context of the nightgown scene in defense of the game, but he claims he was silenced.


title: Night Trap

text: In the short documentary "Dangerous Games" (included with PC versions), the producers and some members of the cast explain that the plot of the game was to in fact prevent the trapping and killing of women. In addition, the blood draining device was intended to look very unrealistic to mitigate the violence. There are scenes in which the girls are grabbed or pulled by enemies, but no nudity or extreme acts of violence appear in the game. "Night Trap" designer Rob Fulop was irked that his relatively tame game was being compared to "Mortal Kombat", which is based on such ultraviolent gore as ripping the heart out of an opponent. During the hearings, Nintendo of America senior vice president Howard Lincoln testified that "Night Trap" would never appear on a Nintendo system because it did not pass its guidelines. Critics noted this as a deliberate move from Nintendo to distance itself from the scandal and make Sega look unfavorable.


title: Night Trap

text: As a result of the publicity generated by the hearings, retailers sold 50,000 copies of "Night Trap" the following week. Two weeks before Christmas, the game was removed from store shelves in the United States' two largest toy store chains, Toys "R" Us and Kay-Bee Toys, after receiving numerous complaints that were suspected to be part of an organized telephone campaign. Both stores continued to stock "Mortal Kombat". The "Night Trap" box art was also criticized by interest groups for what many believed to be a sexist depiction. In January 1994, Sega withdrew "Night Trap" from the market. Bill White, Sega Vice President of Marketing, stated that "Night Trap" was pulled because the continuing controversy surrounding it prevented constructive dialogue about an industry-wide rating system. He also stated that the game was misunderstood and was developed as a parody of vampire melodramas. Sega also announced in January the upcoming release of a censored version. The hearings led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in 1994, the video game ratings board in North America still used today. After the controversy subsided, the game was ported to the 3DO, Sega 32X, MS-DOS, and Mac OS, each with a different cover from the original. Virgin Games released the 3DO version in Japan on June 25, 1994.


title: Night Trap

text: Initial reviews for "Night Trap" on the Sega CD were mixed. It was the first interactive movie on the system and was thus seen as breaking new ground in both genre and technology. Critics were quick to point out the game's qualities that were reminiscent of teen horror movies. The staff at "Sega Force" said that playing the game was like "directing your own B movie. "Night Trap" makes you feel part of the game." Critics identified the "warped" and "tacky" sense of humor as helping the game's appeal and adding to its charm. From a technological perspective, the video was praised for being high-quality and smooth, although the Sega CD's low color capabilities were identified as a weakness. The most common point of complaint was the gameplay. Some critics cited it for being boring and shallow because it mostly involved pressing one button at the right time to trap the enemies. The staff at "Computer and Video Games" said "Night Trap" was reminiscent of "Dragon's Lair" (1983) and "Space Ace" (1984) and shared the same issues those games had with gameplay just being a matter of hitting buttons in the right moments. Reviewing the game in "Wizard" magazine, Glenn Rubenstein said that "Night Trap" "could be called the best game ever. Well maybe not the best, but it certainly is the most entertaining, that's for sure." He particularly praised the use of live actors and the need to play through the game multiple times in order to see everything.


title: Night Trap

text: Ports of "Night Trap" to other platforms received more harsh reviews; critics said the game did not age well. Staff at "GamePro" said it was "innovative at one time, but "Trap"s graphics and sounds now play like standard stuff." Reviewers at "GameFan" blamed the game's extensive publicity for making it seem better than it truly was, saying "it's a so-so game that got a lot more attention than it deserved." Critics overwhelmingly found the game to be boring and dull. "Next Generation" called it "one of the most crashing bores ever released...this is a nongame." Critics agreed that the 3DO and 32X provided a larger color palette and higher-quality video than the Sega CD original. "Night Trap" was a commercial success, with sales totaling 400,000 copies by 1998.


title: Night Trap

text: In retrospect, "Night Trap" is viewed negatively and is mostly remembered for the controversy it stirred. It was ranked the 12th worst video game of all-time by "Electronic Gaming Monthly" editor Seanbaby in 2001. He and other game journalists also featured the game in a 2007 episode of "Broken Pixels," a comedy web series that covers bad and obscure games. "Yahoo! Games" listed it among the most controversial games of all-time in 2007, saying: "If it weren't for controversy...this throwaway Sega CD game would have drifted into obscurity as merely another failed attempt at marrying gameplay with live-action video." "Game Informer" listed the game among the worst horror games of all time in 2008. It was ranked number 59 on GamesRadar's 100 worst games of all time in 2014, in which they believed it was "less of a game and more a test of patience". In 1996, "Computer Gaming World" listed "Night Trap" at number six of 50 worst games of all time, saying that it was "the ultimate experience of FMV gone bad".


title: Night Trap

text: In May 2014, "Night Trap" designer James Riley announced that he was in talks to re-release the game with improved resolution and gameplay. That August, a Kickstarter campaign appeared for the game's original creators, who formed a company titled Night Trap LLC. The developers said that if the campaign was successful, they would be looking into re-releasing other Digital Pictures titles. Furthermore, the company was also considering making a sequel to the original game. The Kickstarter failed, only gaining $39,843 of its $330,000 goal.


title: Night Trap

text: Two years later, in May 2016, game developer Tyler Hogle created a tech demo of "Night Trap" being played on a smartphone. Hogle had previously worked on official ports for two other Digital Pictures games, "Double Switch" (1993) and "Quarterback Attack" (1995). He posted a short video of his "Night Trap" demo online anonymously, and some gaming websites published stories on the video and contacted Tom Zito to ask if he was involved. Hogle got into contact with Zito, and the two began working towards a full release. The original source code and 1987 master footage are lost. Riley, however, possessed a copy of the timed master footage and provided it to Hogle. Because the footage was already timed, it was easier for Hogle to develop; however, he had to replay the original game multiple times to learn what actions triggered which scenes.


title: Night Trap

text: "Night Trap: 25th Anniversary Edition" was announced in April 2017 to commemorate the game's 25th anniversary. The game was released on PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows on August 15, 2017, with an Xbox One release planned for the future. The game was developed and published by Hogle's Screaming Villains, and a limited-edition physical release by Limited Run Games was made available for the PlayStation 4 with three different cover art variations available that mimic the packaging of the original Sega CD release, the later Sega CD release, and the 32X version. The ESRB gave the re-release a "Teen" rating, a grade lower than the original's "Mature" rating. The anniversary edition of "Night Trap" uses the full uncompressed video footage with various new additions: deleted scenes including an introduction and a death scene featuring Danny, a behind-the-scenes developer commentary, a "theater mode" to watch all the story-related videos, a "survivor mode" which places Augers randomly in the house, and a playable version of "Scene of the Crime".


title: Night Trap

text: The anniversary edition was released on the Nintendo Switch on August 24, 2018. Some journalists found the Switch release ironic, given Lincoln's statement that ""Night Trap" will never appear on a Nintendo system" during the 1993 congressional hearings. A version for the PlayStation Vita was also released.


title: Scott Thorson

text: Scott Thorson (born January 23, 1959) is an American known for his relationship with and lawsuit against the entertainer Liberace.


title: Scott Thorson

text: A teenaged Thorson met Liberace in 1976 through his romantic friendship with dancer Bob Street (a friend of Hollywood producer Ray Arnett) who was staging Liberace's shows in Vegas. When Thorson was 18, Liberace hired him to act as his personal friend and companion, a position that allegedly included a five-year romantic relationship with lavish gifts, travel, and Liberace's promises that he would adopt and care for Thorson. Liberace claimed that he had "more mink coats and diamonds than Elizabeth Taylor". Liberace also incorporated Thorson into his Las Vegas stage performances – for example, Thorson drove Liberace's Rolls-Royce onstage, and was a dancer.


title: Scott Thorson

text: According to Thorson, their committed relationship ended because of Liberace's promiscuous behavior and Thorson's drug addiction. Thorson also claimed that it was Liberace who originally started him on the drugs, but then when his habit got out of control, Liberace cut him off from all of his credit cards. Thorson stated that following his plastic surgery, the surgeon provided for him a cocktail of highly addictive drugs that included cocaine, Quaaludes, biphetamines, and Demerol. Thorson stated that since he was so young at the time of meeting Liberace, he would do anything that he could to please him, including getting plastic surgery so that he could resemble him, but he felt that their relationship was one-sided. He called Liberace both generous and possessive.


title: Scott Thorson

text: In 2000, Thorson was among several people featured in the British television documentary "Liberace: Too Much of a Good Thing Is Wonderful". In 2002, Thorson was interviewed by Larry King on "Larry King Live", during which Thorson confirmed that, in the midst of his relationship with Liberace, he chose to have plastic surgery to look more like Liberace at the pianist's suggestion. Also during the interview with King, Thorson revealed his chin implant had been removed earlier in 2002.


title: Scott Thorson

text: Following his release from prison in 2012, Thorson gave interviews about his relationship with Liberace, one with Howard Stern, in June 2013, in which he talked about former lovers and affairs he had when he lived with Liberace. Another interview was on "Entertainment Tonight" in May 2012, where he stated that memories of his time with Liberace were still difficult for him.


title: Scott Thorson

text: In 1982, after he was dismissed by Liberace, Thorson filed a $113 million lawsuit against Liberace, part of which was a palimony suit. This was the first same-sex palimony case filed in U.S. history. Thorson decided to sue because he claimed that Liberace threw him out on the streets with nothing. Liberace continued to deny that he was homosexual, and during court depositions in 1984, he insisted that Thorson was never his lover. Throughout their lawsuit, Thorson stated that Liberace referred to him in the media as a disgruntled employee, a liar, a gold digger, and claimed that there was never a sexual relationship between them.


title: Scott Thorson

text: The case was settled out of court in 1986, with Thorson receiving a $75,000 cash settlement, plus three cars and three pet dogs worth another $20,000 (a total of $ today). Thorson visited and reconciled with Liberace shortly before the entertainer's death in February 1987. Thorson said, after Liberace had died, that he settled because he knew that Liberace was dying, and that Thorson had intended to sue based on conversion of property rather than palimony.


title: Scott Thorson

text: Thorson's book was later adapted into the 2013 film "Behind the Candelabra", in which Thorson was played by Matt Damon opposite Michael Douglas as Liberace. The movie aired on HBO on May 26, 2013. The film was directed by Steven Soderbergh from a screenplay by Richard LaGravenese, with music by Academy Award-winning composer Marvin Hamlisch.


title: Scott Thorson

text: owner of the West Hollywood nightclub The Starwood, Eddie Nash, in the 1981 quadruple murders of the Wonderland Gang. For his testimony, Thorson was placed in the federal witness protection program. In 1991, he was shot three times when drug dealers broke into his hotel room in Jacksonville, Florida.


title: Sea serpent

text: A sea serpent or sea dragon is a type of dragon sea monster described in various mythologies, most notably Mesopotamian (Tiamat), Judaeo-Christian (Leviathan), Greek (Cetus, Echidna, Hydra, Scylla), and Norse (Jörmungandr).


title: Sea serpent

text: The mytheme, the chief god in the role of the hero slaying a sea serpent, is widespread both in the ancient Near East and in Indo-European mythology,


title: Sea serpent

text: e.g. Lotan and Hadad, Leviathan and Yahweh, Tiamat and Marduk (see also Labbu, Bašmu, Mušḫuššu), Illuyanka and Tarhunt, Yammu and Baal in the Baal Cycle etc. The Hebrew Bible also has less mythological descriptions of large sea creatures as part of creation under God's command, such as the Tanninim mentioned in Book of Genesis 1:21 and the "great serpent" of Amos 9:3. In the Aeneid, a pair of sea serpents killed Laocoön and his sons when Laocoön argued against bringing the Trojan Horse into Troy.


title: Sea serpent

text: In antiquity and in the Bible, dragons were envisioned as huge serpentine monsters, which means that the image of a dragon with two or four legs and wings came much later during the Late Middle Ages. Stories depicting sea-dwelling serpents may include the Babylonian myths of Tiamat, the myths of the Hydra, Scylla, Cetus, and Echidna in Greek mythology, and Christianity's Leviathan.


title: Sea serpent

text: In Norse mythology, "Jörmungandr" (or "Midgarðsormr") was a sea serpent so long that it encircled the entire world, Midgard. Some stories report of sailors mistaking its back for a chain of islands. Sea serpents also appear frequently in later Scandinavian folklore, particularly in that of Norway.


title: Sea serpent

text: In 1028 AD, Saint Olaf is said to have killed a sea serpent in Valldal, Norway, throwing its body onto the mountain Syltefjellet. Marks on the mountain are associated with the legend. In Swedish ecclesiastic and writer Olaus Magnus's "Carta marina", many marine monsters of varied form, including an immense sea serpent, appear. In his 1555 work "History of the Northern Peoples", Magnus gives the following description of a Norwegian sea serpent:


title: Sea serpent

text: Norwegian Bishop Erik Pontoppidan (1698–1764) is more cautious than the Archbishop of Upsala and does not believe that sea serpents would prey on ships. On the other hand, according to sailors of the time, serpents would destroy ships by wrapping the ship in coils of their body and pulling it underwater. Sailors threatened by a sea serpent were said to have thrown large objects such as paddles or shovels overboard in the path of the serpent, hoping that the serpent would take the object and leave without destroying the ship.


title: Sea serpent

text: An apparent eye-witness account is found in Aristotle's "Historia Animalium". Strabo makes reference to an eyewitness account of a dead sea creature sighted by Poseidonius on the coast of the northern Levant. He reports the following: "As for the plains, the first, beginning at the sea, is called Macras, or Macra-Plain. Here, as reported by Poseidonius, was seen the fallen dragon, the corpse of which was about a plethrum [] in length, and so bulky that horsemen standing by it on either side could not see one another, and its jaws were large enough to admit a man on horseback, and each flake of its horny scales exceeded an oblong shield in length." The creature was seen sometime between 130 and 51 BC.


title: Sea serpent

text: Hans Egede, the national saint of Greenland, gives an 18th-century description of a sea serpent. On July 6, 1734, his ship sailed past the coast of Greenland when suddenly those on board "saw a most terrible creature, resembling nothing they saw before. The monster lifted its head so high that it seemed to be higher than the crow's nest on the mainmast. The head was small and the body short and wrinkled. The unknown creature was using giant fins which propelled it through the water. Later the sailors saw its tail as well. The monster was longer than our whole ship", wrote Egede.


title: Sea serpent

text: In 1845, a 35 meter long skeleton claimed as belonging to an extinct sea serpent was put on a show in the New York City by Albert C. Koch. The claim was debunked by Prof. Jeffries Wyman, an anatomist who went to see the skeleton for himself. Wyman declared that the skull of the animal had to be mammalian in origin, and that the skeleton was composed of bones of several different animals, including an extinct species of whale.


title: Sea serpent

text: On 6 August 1848, Captain McQuhae of and several of his officers and crew (en route to St Helena) saw a sea serpent which was subsequently reported (and debated) in "The Times". The vessel sighted what they named as an enormous serpent between the Cape of Good Hope and St Helena. The serpent was witnessed to have been swimming with of its head above the water and they believed that there was another of the creature in the sea. Captain McQuahoe also said that "[The creature] passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter, that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily have recognized his features with the naked eye." According to seven members of the crew, it remained in view for around twenty minutes. Another officer wrote that the creature was more of a lizard than a serpent. Evolutionary biologist Gary J. Galbreath contends that what the crew of "Daedalus" saw was a sei whale.


title: Sea serpent

text: A report was published in the "Illustrated London News" on 14 April 1849 of a sighting of a sea serpent off the Portuguese coast by .


title: Mark McKenna

text: Mark McKenna (born 5 May 1996) is an Irish actor, musician, and singer. He is mostly known for having starred in the film "Sing Street" and the YouTube Premium/Amazon Prime series" Wayne".


title: Mark McKenna

text: McKenna made his film debut in 2016 in "Sing Street". He was the lead singer/guitarist in the band The Girl Talk. McKenna is now the lead singer/guitarist in the band Milk. McKenna landed his first lead role in the American television series "Wayne", which premiered on 16 January 2019.


title: Mark McKenna

text: McKenna posts demos under the name LOVERBOY on SoundCloud starting in 2016. On 16 November 2019, it was announced that he would play the role of Simon on the NBC pilot for "One of Us Is Lying", based on the bestselling mystery novel by Karen M. McManus.


title: Devil's advocate

text: The (Latin for Devil's advocate) is a former official position within the Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith: one who "argued against the canonization (sainthood) of a candidate in order to uncover any character flaws or misrepresentation of the evidence favoring canonization".


title: Devil's advocate

text: In common language, the phrase 'playing devil's advocate' describes a situation where someone, given a certain point of view, takes a position they do not necessarily agree with (or simply an alternative position from the accepted norm), for the sake of debate or to explore the thought further using valid reasoning that both disagrees with the subject at hand and proves their own point valid. Despite being medieval in origin, this idiomatic expression is one of the most popular present-day English idioms used to express the concept of arguing against something without actually being committed to the contrary view.


title: Devil's advocate

text: During the canonization process employed by the Catholic Church, the 'Promoter of the Faith' (), popularly known as the Devil's advocate (), was a canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the canonization of a candidate. It was this person's job to take a skeptical view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate were fraudulent, and so on. The Devil's advocate opposed 'God's advocate' (; also known as the 'Promoter of the Cause'), whose task was to make the argument in favor of canonization. During the investigation of a cause, this task is now performed by the 'Promoter of Justice' (), who is in charge of examining the accuracy of the inquiry on the saintliness of the candidate. The Promoter of the Faith remains a figure in the Congregation of the Causes of Saints and is also known as the Prelate Theologian.


title: Devil's advocate

text: The office was established in 1587 during the reign of Pope Sixtus V. The first formal mention of such an officer is found in the canonization of St Lawrence Justinian under Pope Leo X (15131521). Pope John Paul II reduced the power and changed the role of the office in 1983. In cases of controversy, the Vatican may still seek to solicit the testimony of critics of a candidate for canonization. One notable example of this was in 2003, when author Christopher Hitchens, an atheist and outspoken critic of Mother Teresa, was interviewed as part of her beatification hearings.


title: Devil's advocate

text: Given the Great Schism of 1054, and the position of Devil's Advocate being invented centuries after, there is no equivalent role in the Eastern Orthodox Church (which has no legalistic process for canonization of saints regardless, as was innovated in the West post-Schism). The Coptic Church and Assyrian Church of the East (who separated during the 5th-century Council of Chalcedon) likewise have no "advocatus diaboli" equivalent.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: Ronald Joseph Dominique (born January 9, 1964), also known as the Bayou Strangler, is an American serial killer and rapist who murdered at least 23 men and boys in the state of Louisiana between 1997 and 2006. On September 23, 2008, Dominique was found guilty and sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment without parole for his crimes. Following his conviction, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stated that Dominique's was the most significant serial homicide case in the country over the past two decades in terms of both death toll and duration.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: Despite the number of victims, Dominique's arrest received little publicity outside of the state media.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: Ronald Joseph Dominique was born on January 9, 1964, in Thibodaux, Louisiana, the younger of two children. His parents were poor laborers who lived in a trailer park located on the outskirts of the city. Because of his family's financial circumstances, Dominique lived out his childhood and adolescence in poverty, but still managed to attend the local Thibodaux High School, from which he graduated in 1983. After leaving school, he entered the Nicholls State University, where he studied computer science. However, he quickly lost interest and dropped out in the mid-1980s.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: During his school years, Dominique was known for his melancholic temperament, lack of communication skills and weight problems. These, coupled with low self-esteem and poor health, made him the target of bullying. Despite singing in the school choir, Dominique was considered an unpopular social outcast since he didn't play sports, didn't do drugs or drink alcohol. Shortly before leaving school, Dominique discovered that he was gay, and visited a local gay bar several times. However, some of his classmates had seen him there, resulting in harassment. Dominique vehemently denied accusations of being homosexual.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: On June 12, 1985, Dominique was arrested on charges of sexual harassment committed via telephone, for which he had to pay a $75 fine. Because of his lack of education, Dominique was forced to engage in low-skilled labor for the following years, and struggled to hold down jobs due to disciplinary issues. Unwilling to keep a steady job for a long period of time, he survived by living off relatives and other people's income, most notably his mother and older sister, living with each of them for a time. He was arrested for drunk driving in May 1994 and was fined for the offense.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: Two years later, on August 25, 1996, a partially naked male youth jumped out of the window of the residence of Dominique's sister, where he lived at the time, and told neighbors that Dominique had raped and attempted to kill him. Dominique was arrested and his bail set at $100,000. When the case was transferred to the court, the prosecutor's office was unable to locate the alleged victim or establish his identity, eventually resulting in the case's dismissal in November of that year.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: On February 10, 2002, Dominique was arrested again, this time for assaulting a woman in Terrebonne Parish during a Mardi Gras festival. Ronald claimed that the woman had hit a baby stroller in one of the parking lots due to her dangerous driving, after which he began an argument with her, demanding an apology. After the woman apologized, he punched her in the face. He was charged, but the case was later dropped, after an agreement of reconciliation was reached between him and the woman, with whom he had made amends.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: As a gay man, Dominique was unmarried and had no children, preferring to spend most of his free time in gay bars, often dressed as singer Patti LaBelle, of whom he was a great fan. Dominique was unable to establish a serious relationship and was often looked down upon by the local gay community.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: Dominique's victims tended to be teenagers and men aged between 16 and 46, but not all of them were homosexual. Most of the victims were African-American. He would often meet them during walks or drives in his pickup truck, as well as in gay bars, luring them with offers of alcohol, drugs, housing, or group sex with his supposed girlfriend. After successfully convincing potential victims, Dominique would lure them to his trailer where he would overpower them, bind them and subsequently rape them. According to the investigators, after he was finished having his way, Dominique strangled the victims, loading their bodies into the back of his truck and dumping them in remote rural areas in one of six nearby parishes.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: The murders began in July 1997, with Dominique's first confirmed victim being a 19-year-old African American man named David Mitchell. He was picked up while hitchhiking alone from his grandmother's house after attending a relative's birthday party. His body was found on July 14 in a ditch along a highway, near a wooded area in St. Charles Parish, two days after he was last seen. Forensic research showed that there was ditch water in David's lungs, and with no traces of physical trauma, drugs or alcohol.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: His death was initially ruled as accidental drowning. However, Mitchell's father insisted that his son was an excellent swimmer and that he had been murdered, since the water level was low and the fact that Mitchell's trousers had been lowered to his ankles when found. After Dominique's later confessions, the deceased's relatives denied that he was gay, used drugs or had financial troubles.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: Dominique's next two murders also took place in the St. Charles Parish. The first was in December 1997, when he strangled 20-year-old Gary Pierre, who had recently been arrested for drug trafficking. His body was found fully clothed, with no signs of physical trauma or drugs found in his system. The second killing occurred on July 31, 1998, when he killed 38-year-old Larry Ranson, a drug-addicted vagrant. Ranson was the first victim subjected to bondage by Dominique.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: In early October 1998, Dominique met 27-year-old Oliver LeBanks in Metairie. After his arrest, he claimed that the drug-addicted LeBanks offered him sexual services in exchange for money, after which Dominique had sex with him, then beat and strangled him. LeBanks's body was later disposed of on the outskirts of Metairie, where it was found on October 4. During the autopsy, traces of Dominique's semen was found on Oliver's body. Relatives and friends of the LeBanks later confirmed that he had only recently resorted to leading a vagrant lifestyle after he had been fired from his job for using drugs.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: In October 1998, he met 16-year-old Joseph Brown in Kenner and lured him into his truck, ostensibly to sell crack cocaine. After sharing it together, Dominique beat the teenager several times on the head with a blunt object and then strangled him with a plastic bag. A month later, 18-year-old Bruce Williams fell victim to Dominique in similar circumstances. In May 1999, Dominique was cruising around Kenner when he came across 21-year-old Manuel Reed, who offered to sell him drugs. Agreeing to the offer, Dominique let him into his truck, where he raped and then strangled Reed, later dumping his corpse in a dumpster in the city's industrial zone, about a mile from where Brown's body was found. Similar to LeBanks, semen traces were found which belonged to an unknown male.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: A month later, Dominique killed 21-year-old Angel Mejia, a hobo with past convictions for drug possession. At first, the killer tried to dump Meija's corpse in a dumpster, but after discovering that it was full he discarded it on the street. After examining the corpse, the coroner concluded that the victim had been tied up with a rope prior to his death. While investigating the killings, law enforcement established that Mejia, Brown and Pierre all knew and lived in close proximity to each other.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: In late August, Dominique met 34-year-old Mitchell Johnson, offering him drugs in exchange for sexual favors. He then took Johnson to the forest outside Metairie, where he tied, raped and strangled him. Mitchell's fully nude body was discovered on September 1.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: In January 2000, Dominique claimed another victim, 23-year-old Michael Vincent, in Lafourche Parish. In early October, he became closely associated with 20-year-old Kenneth Randolph, Jr., a thrice-prosecuted child molester who lived near him in a trailer park. Dominique lured Randolph into his trailer, telling him that a girl wanted to have sex with him there, and then attacked and murdered him. He then took the body to a field outside the city, where the partially naked remains were found on October 6. On October 12, 2002, in the late evening, Dominique met 26-year-old Anoka Jones, a financially strained petty criminal, on the streets in Houma. He attacked Jones, after which he tied up, raped and strangled him. Dominique later dumped his body under a highway overpass, where it was discovered several hours later.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: In late 2002, Dominique and his sister moved to the rural unincorporated community of Bayou Blue. There, he found a job as a specialist who checked electricity levels at a local power supply, which allowed him to periodically travel. Around this time, Dominique killed 19-year-old Datrell Woods, dumping both him and his bicycle in a reed field. Woods's decomposed and partially naked body remained undiscovered until May 24, 2003. The cause of death was deemed as asphyxiation; however, until Dominique's arrest, it was considered to be accidental in nature, since the victim was known to suffer from asthma.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: In October 2004, Dominique lured 46-year-old Larry Matthews to his house with the promise of drugs, but during the process Matthews lost consciousness due to an overdose, after which Dominique raped and strangled him. He later dumped Matthews's body twenty miles away from the crime scene. Nobody initially reported Matthews as missing since he was homeless, and his identity later had to be established via fingerprints. Dominique's next victim his first white victim would be 21-year-old Michael Barnett, whose body was found on October 24, 2004.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: In February 2005, Dominique murdered 22-year-old Leon Lirett, an alcoholic vagrant who had previously lived with two other victims Barnett and Anoka Jones and was even considered the prime suspect in Jones' murder, as he was the last person to see him prior to the former's disappearance. Two months later, in April, Dominique met 31-year-old August Watkins, a homeless man who he lured to his truck with promises of an overnight stay. After Watkins ended up in his trailer, Dominique gave him alcohol and offered him to have sex with a supposed female acquaintance, before tying up, raping and strangling the victim. After Watkins's corpse was discovered, police began to consider for the first time that a serial killer was active in Kenner and Houma, since the murders in both areas demonstrated a strikingly similar "modus operandi". The case was handed over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).


title: Ronald Dominique

text: A few days after killing Watkins, Dominique killed 23-year-old Kurt Cunnigham. Later that summer, he murdered 28-year-old Alonzo Hogan in St. Charles Parish and 17-year-old Wayne Smith in Terrebonne Parish, luring them both under the pretense of them having sex with one of his female friends. Unlike the previous victims, Hogan and Smith had no prior criminal convictions and weren't known to use drugs. Hogan had been raped by Dominique pre-mortem, while no traces of semen were found on Smith's corpse since his body had been disposed of in a canal, where it had severely decomposed when discovered only a few days later.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: In September 2005, Dominique murdered 40-year-old Chris Deville, who was trying to hitchhike out of Napoleonville following Hurricane Katrina. He later dumped Deville's corpse in a reed field. His skeletal remains were discovered the following month and identified by relatives, only thanks to ID cards and other personal belongings left beside the body. In late November, Dominique killed 21-year-old Nicholas Pellegrin in Lafourche Parish. During the investigation into his death, Pellegrin's relatives told the police that shortly before his death, the deceased man borrowed $400 from local drug dealers and had missed the payment date, after which he began to receive death threats. Therefore, prior to Dominique's capture, Pellegrin's death was wrongfully thought to be drug-related.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: Dominique's last confirmed victim was 27-year-old Christopher Sutterfield. A bisexual, he had met Dominique in the summer of 2006, after which the two began dating. On October 14, while on a date together in Iberville Parish, Dominique hit Sutterfield on the head with a heavy object, causing him to lose consciousness. After finding his body, police interviewed Sutterfield's relatives, friends and acquaintances, all of whom confirmed that they had last seen him with a man driving a black SUV, but were unable to describe the companion's appearance.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: In November 2006, Dominique came under police suspicion after Ricky Wallace, a resident of Bayou Blue, reported that Dominique had lured him to his trailer in mid-2006 with an offer to share drugs and have sex with a girl. After Wallace entered the trailer, according to his testimony, Dominique tried to convince him that his girlfriend enjoyed bondage, offering to tie Wallace up. Ricky refused, and soon after he was allowed to leave. His testimony was questioned at first because he was a drug addict and had repeatedly lied in the past, but nevertheless Dominique was questioned by police. While he was held at the station, Dominique agreed to donate a blood sample.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: Over the next week, DNA testing matched Dominique's profile with that of the elusive killer who had left behind semen traces on the bodies of Oliver LeBanks and Manuel Reed, resulting in an arrest warrant. On December 1, 2006, Dominique was arrested at a homeless shelter. After said arrest, he told police that he knew it was a matter of time before he was captured, and so he had moved out of his sister's house in order not to inconvenience her.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: Once at the police station, Dominique expressed his desire to cooperate with investigators, readily confessing to 23 murders, describing them in details only known to the officers. As a result, charges were brought against him, but despite his confession Dominique refused to admit guilt in the attacks. He stated that most of his victims, due to their addictions and other factors, voluntarily agreed to be tied, handcuffed, and treated in similar manners, since they wanted to earn money. If the potential victim refused to do so, he let them go without harming them.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: Concerning motive, Dominique claimed that he wanted to get rid of any witnesses, as he was unwilling to serve a prison sentence again. According to him, after his 1996 arrest for rape, he was strongly impacted, allegedly remaining in constantly negative emotional states and even began to show symptoms of a mental disorder.


title: Ronald Dominique

text: After accepting a plea bargain from prosecutors, on September 24, 2008, the court found Dominique guilty on all charges and sentenced him to eight life imprisonment terms without parole.


title: 3-D Secure

text: 3-D Secure is a protocol designed to be an additional security layer for online credit and debit card transactions. The name refers to the "three domains" which interact using the protocol: the merchant/acquirer domain, the issuer domain, and the interoperability domain.


title: 3-D Secure

text: Originally developed in the autumn of 1999 by Celo Communications AB (later Gemplus, Gemalto and now Thales Group) for Visa Inc. in a project named "p42" ("p" from Pole vault as the project was a big challenge and "42" as the answer from the book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").


title: 3-D Secure

text: In 2001 Arcot Systems (now CA Technologies) and Visa Inc. with the intention of improving the security of Internet payments, and offered to customers under the Verified by Visa brand (later rebranded as Visa Secure). Services based on the protocol have also been adopted by Mastercard as SecureCode, by Discover as ProtectBuy, by JCB International as J/Secure, and by American Express as American Express SafeKey. Later revisions of the protocol have been produced by EMVCo under the name EMV 3-D Secure. Version 2 of the protocol was published in 2016 with the aim of complying with new EU authentication


title: 3-D Secure

text: Analysis of the first version of the protocol by academia has shown it to have many security issues that affect the consumer, including a greater surface area for phishing and a shift of liability in the case of fraudulent payments.


title: 3-D Secure

text: The basic concept of the protocol is to tie the financial authorization process with online authentication. This additional security authentication is based on a three-domain model (hence the "3-D" in the name). The three domains are:


title: 3-D Secure

text: The protocol uses XML messages sent over SSL connections with client authentication (this ensures the authenticity of both peers, the server and the client, using digital certificates).


title: 3-D Secure

text: A transaction using Verified-by-Visa or SecureCode will initiate a redirection to the website of the card issuer to authorize the transaction. Each issuer could use any kind of authentication method (the protocol does not cover this) but typically, a password tied to the card is entered when making online purchases. The Verified-by-Visa protocol recommends the card issuer's verification page to load in an inline frame session. In this way, the card issuer's systems can be held responsible for most security breaches. Today it is easy to send a one-time password as part of an SMS text message to users' mobile phones and emails for authentication, at least during enrollment and for forgotten passwords.


title: 3-D Secure

text: The main difference between Visa and Mastercard implementations lies in the method to generate the UCAF (Universal Cardholder Authentication Field): Mastercard uses AAV (Accountholder Authentication Value) and Visa uses CAVV (Cardholder Authentication Verification Value).


title: 3-D Secure

text: In the 3-D Secure protocol, the ACS (access control server) is on the card issuer side. Currently, most card issuers outsource ACS to a third party. Commonly, the buyer's web browser shows the domain name of the ACS provider, rather than the card issuer's domain name; however, this is not required by the protocol. Dependent on the ACS provider, it is possible to specify a card issuer-owned domain name for use by the ACS.


title: 3-D Secure

text: Each 3-D Secure version 1 transaction involves two Internet request/response pairs: VEReq/VERes and PAReq/PARes. Visa and Mastercard do not permit merchants to send requests directly to their servers. Merchants must instead use MPI (merchant plug-in) providers.


title: 3-D Secure

text: The advantage for merchants is the reduction of "unauthorized transaction" chargebacks. One disadvantage for merchants is that they have to purchase a merchant plug-in (MPI) to connect to the Visa or Mastercard directory server. This is expensive (setup fee, monthly fee, and per-transaction fee); at the same time, it represents additional revenue for MPI providers. Supporting 3-D Secure is complicated and, at times, creates transaction failures. Perhaps the biggest disadvantage for merchants is that many users view the additional authentication step as a nuisance or obstacle, which results in a substantial increase in transaction abandonment and lost revenue.


title: 3-D Secure

text: In most current implementations of 3-D Secure, the card issuer or its ACS provider prompts the buyer for a password that is known only to the card issuer or ACS provider and the buyer. Since the merchant does not know this password and is not responsible for capturing it, it can be used by the card issuer as evidence that the purchaser is indeed their cardholder. This is intended to help decrease risk in two ways:


title: 3-D Secure

text: 3-D Secure does not strictly "require" the use of password authentication. It is said to be possible to use it in conjunction with smart card readers, security tokens and the like. These types of devices might provide a better user experience for customers as they free the purchaser from having to use a secure password. Some issuers are now using such devices as part of the Chip Authentication Program or Dynamic Passcode Authentication schemes.


title: 3-D Secure

text: One significant disadvantage is that cardholders are likely to see their browser connect to unfamiliar domain names as a result of vendors' MPI implementations and the use of outsourced ACS implementations by card issuers, which might make it easier to perform phishing attacks on cardholders.


title: 3-D Secure

text: The system involves a pop-up window or inline frame appearing during the online transaction process, requiring the cardholder to enter a password which, if the transaction is legitimate, their card issuer will be able to authenticate. The problem for the cardholder is determining if the pop-up window or frame is really from their card issuer when it could be from a fraudulent website attempting to harvest the cardholder's details. Such pop-up windows or script-based frames lack any access to any security certificate, eliminating any way to confirm the credentials of the implementation of 3-DS.


title: 3-D Secure

text: The Verified-by-Visa system has drawn some criticism, since it is hard for users to differentiate between the legitimate Verified-by-Visa pop-up window or inline frame, and a fraudulent phishing site. This is because the pop-up window is served from a domain which is:


title: 3-D Secure

text: In some cases, the Verified-by-Visa system has been mistaken by users for a phishing scam and has itself become the target of some phishing scams. The newer recommendation to use an inline frame (iframe) instead of a pop-up has reduced user confusion, at the cost of making it harder, if not impossible, for the user to verify that the page is genuine in the first place. , web browsers do not provide a way to check the security certificate for the contents of an iframe. Some of these concerns in site validity for Verified-by-Visa are mitigated, however, as its current implementation of the enrollment process requires entering a personal message which is displayed in later Verified-by-Visa pop-ups to provide some assurance to the user the pop-ups are genuine.


title: 3-D Secure

text: Some card issuers also use activation-during-shopping (ADS), in which cardholders who are not registered with the scheme are offered the opportunity of signing up (or forced into signing up) during the purchase process. This will typically take them to a form in which they are expected to confirm their identity by answering security questions which should be known to their card issuer. Again, this is done within the iframe where they cannot easily verify the site they are providing this information to—a cracked site or illegitimate merchant could in this way gather all the details they need to pose as the customer.


title: 3-D Secure

text: Implementation of 3-D Secure sign-up will often not allow a user to proceed with a purchase until they have agreed to sign up to 3-D Secure and its terms and conditions, not offering any alternative way of navigating away from the page than closing it, thus suspending the transaction.


title: 3-D Secure

text: Cardholders who are unwilling to take the risk of registering their card during a purchase, with the commerce site controlling the browser to some extent, can in some cases go to their card issuer's website in a separate browser window and register from there. When they return to the commerce site and start over they should see that their card is registered. The presence on the password page of the personal assurance message (PAM) that they chose when registering is their confirmation that the page is coming from the card issuer. This still leaves some possibility of a man-in-the-middle attack if the cardholder cannot verify the SSL server certificate for the password page. Some commerce sites will devote the full browser page to the authentication rather than using a frame (not necessarily an iFrame), which is a less secure object. In this case, the lock icon in the browser should show the identity of either the card issuer or the operator of the verification site. The cardholder can confirm that this is in the same domain that they visited when registering their card if it is not the domain of their card issuer.


title: 3-D Secure

text: Mobile browsers present particular problems for 3-D Secure, due to the common lack of certain features such as frames and pop-ups. Even if the merchant has a mobile website, unless the issuer is also mobile-aware, the authentication pages may fail to render properly, or even at all. In the end, many analysts have concluded that the activation-during-shopping (ADS) protocols invite more risk than they remove and furthermore transfer this increased risk to the consumer.


title: 3-D Secure

text: In some cases, 3-D Secure ends up providing little security to the cardholder, and can act as a device to pass liability for fraudulent transactions from the card issuer or retailer to the cardholder. Legal conditions applied to the 3-D Secure service are sometimes worded in a way that makes it difficult for the cardholder to escape liability from fraudulent "cardholder not present" transactions.


title: 3-D Secure

text: Card issuers and merchants may use 3-D Secure systems unevenly with regard to card issuers that issue cards in several geographic locations, creating differentiation, for example, between the domestic US- and non-US-issued cards. For example, since Visa and Mastercard treat the unincorporated US territory of Puerto Rico as a non-US international, rather than a domestic US location, cardholders there may confront a greater incidence of 3-D Secure queries than cardholders in the fifty states. Complaints to that effect have been received by Puerto Rico Department of Consumer Affairs "equal treatment" economic discrimination site.


title: 3-D Secure

text: Version 2 of 3-D Secure, which incorporates one-time passcodes, is a form of software-based strong customer authentication as defined by the EU's Revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2); earlier variants used static passwords, which are not sufficient to meet the directive's requirements.


title: 3-D Secure

text: 3-D Secure relies upon the issuer actively being involved and ensuring that any card issued becomes enrolled by the cardholder; as such, acquirers must either accept unenrolled cards without performing strong customer authentication or reject such transactions, including those from smaller card schemes which do not have 3-D Secure implementations.


title: 3-D Secure

text: Alternative approaches perform authentication on the acquiring side, without requiring prior enrolment with the issuer. For instance, PayPal's patented 'verification' uses one or more dummy transactions are directed towards a credit card, and the cardholder must confirm the value of these transactions, although the resulting authentication can't be directly related to a specific transaction between merchant and cardholder. A patented system called iSignthis splits the agreed transaction amount into two (or more) random amounts, with the cardholder then proving that they are the owner of the account by confirming the amounts on their statement.


title: 3-D Secure

text: A proposal to make 3-D Secure mandatory in Australia was blocked by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) after numerous objections and flaw-related submissions were received.


title: 3-D Secure

text: Some countries like India made use of not only CVV2, but 3-D Secure mandatory, a SMS code sent from a card issuer and typed in the browser when you are redirected when you click "purchase" to the payment system or card issuer system site where you type that code and only then the operation is accepted. Nevertheless, Amazon can still do transactions from other countries with turned-on 3-D Secure.


title: 3-D Secure

text: In October 2016, EMVCo published the specification for 3-D Secure 2.0; it is designed to be less intrusive than the first version of the specification, allowing more contextual data to be sent to the customer's card issuer (including mailing addresses and transaction history) to verify and assess the risk of the transaction. The customer would only be required to pass an authentication challenge if their transaction is determined to be of a high risk. In addition, the workflow for authentication is designed so that it no longer requires redirects to a separate page, and can also activate out-of-band authentication via an institution's mobile app (which, in turn, can also be used with biometric authentication). 3-D Secure 2.0 is compliant with EU "strong customer authentication" mandates.


title: Metal detector

text: A metal detector is an instrument that detects the nearby presence of metal. Metal detectors are useful for finding metal objects on the surface, underground, and under water. The unit itself, consist of a control box, and an adjustable shaft, which holds a pickup coil, which can vary in shape and size. If the pickup coil comes near a piece of metal, the control box will register its presence by a changing tone, a flashing light, and or by a needle moving on an indicator. Usually the device gives some indication of distance; the closer the metal is, the higher the tone in the earphone or the higher the needle goes. Another common type are stationary "walk through" metal detectors used at access points in prisons, courthouses, airports and psychiatric hospitals to detect concealed metal weapons on a person's body.


title: Metal detector

text: The simplest form of a metal detector consists of an oscillator producing an alternating current that passes through a coil producing an alternating magnetic field. If a piece of electrically conductive metal is close to the coil, eddy currents will be induced (inductive sensor) in the metal, and this produces a magnetic field of its own. If another coil is used to measure the magnetic field (acting as a magnetometer), the change in the magnetic field due to the metallic object can be detected.


title: Metal detector

text: The first industrial metal detectors were developed in the 1960s and were used extensively for mineral prospecting and other industrial applications. Uses include detecting land mines, the detection of weapons such as knives and guns (especially in airport security), geophysical prospecting, archaeology and treasure hunting. Metal detectors are also used to detect foreign bodies in food, and in the construction industry to detect steel reinforcing bars in concrete and pipes and wires buried in walls and floors.


title: Metal detector

text: In 1841 Professor Heinrich Wilhelm Dove published an invention he called the "differential inductor". It was a 4 coil induction balance, with 2 glass tubes each having 2 well insulated copper wire solenoids wound around them. Charged Leyden jars (high voltage capacitors) were discharged through the 2 primary coils, this current surge induced a voltage in the secondary coils. When the secondary coils were wired in opposition the induced voltages cancelled as confirmed by the Professor holding the ends of the secondary coils. When a piece of metal was placed inside one glass tube the Professor received a shock.


title: Metal detector

text: This then was the first magnetic induction metal detector, and the first pulse induction metal detector.


title: Metal detector

text: In late 1878 and early 1879 Professor (of music) David Edward Hughes published his experiments with the 4 coil induction balance. He used his own recent invention the microphone and a ticking clock to generate regular pulses and a telephone receiver as detector. To measure the strength of the signals he invented a coaxial 3 coil induction balance which he called the "electric sonometer". Hughes did much to popularize the induction balance, quickly leading to practical devices that could identify counterfeit coins. In 1880 Mr. J. Munro, C.E. suggested the use of the 4 coil induction balance for metal prospecting. Hughes's coaxial 3 coil induction balance would also see use in metal detecting.


title: Metal detector

text: In July 1881 Alexander Graham Bell initially used a 4 coil induction balance to attempt to locate a bullet lodged in the chest of American President James Garfield. After much experimenting the best bullet detection range he achieved was only 2 inches. He then used his own earlier discovery, the partially overlapping 2 coil induction balance, and the detection range increased to 5 inches. But the attempt was still unsuccessful because the metal coil spring bed Garfield was lying on confused the detector. Bell's 2 coil induction balance would go on to evolve into the popular double D coil.


title: Metal detector

text: On Dec 16 1881 Captain Charles Ambrose McEvoy applied for British Patent No. 5518, Apparatus for Searching for Submerged Torpedoes, &c., which was granted Jun 16 1882. His US269439 patent application of Jul 12 1882 was granted Dec 19 1882. It was a 4 coil induction balance for detecting submerged metallic torpedoes and iron ships and the like. Given the development time involved this may have been the earliest known device specifically constructed as a metal detector using magnetic induction.


title: Metal detector

text: In 1915 Professor Camille Gutton developed a 4 coil induction balance to detect unexploded shells in farmland of former battlefields in France. Unusually both coil pairs were used for detection. The 1919 photo at the right is a later version of Gutton's detector.


title: Metal detector

text: The modern development of the metal detector began in the 1920s. Gerhard Fischer had developed a system of radio direction-finding, which was to be used for accurate navigation. The system worked extremely well, but Fischer noticed there were anomalies in areas where the terrain contained ore-bearing rocks. He reasoned that if a radio beam could be distorted by metal, then it should be possible to design a machine which would detect metal using a search coil resonating at a radio frequency. In 1925 he applied for, and was granted, the first patent for an electronic metal detector. Although Gerhard Fischer was the first person granted a patent for an electronic metal detector, the first to apply was Shirl Herr, a businessman from Crawfordsville, Indiana. His application for a hand-held Hidden-Metal Detector was filed in February 1924, but not patented until July 1928. Herr assisted Italian leader Benito Mussolini in recovering items remaining from the Emperor Caligula's galleys at the bottom of Lake Nemi, Italy in August 1929. Herr's invention was used by Admiral Richard Byrd's Second Antarctic Expedition in 1933, when it was used to locate objects left behind by earlier explorers. It was effective up to a depth of eight feet.


title: Metal detector

text: However, it was one Lieutenant Józef Stanisław Kosacki, a Polish officer attached to a unit stationed in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, during the early years of World War II, who refined the design into a practical Polish mine detector.


title: Metal detector

text: The design invented by Kosacki was used extensively during the Second Battle of El Alamein when 500 units were shipped to Field Marshal Montgomery to clear the minefields of the retreating Germans, and later used during the Allied invasion of Sicily, the Allied invasion of Italy and the Invasion of Normandy.