October. 25, 2004
Purdue assists law enforcement with e-mail forensics
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue university faculty are joining with two law-enforcement agencies to provide computer forensics training for more than 100 police officers from all over Indiana.
Purdue's Department of Computer Technology has teamed with the Indiana State Police and the National White Collar Crime Center to help train officers to trace and analyze e-mail as evidence in a training session from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 28) at the Holiday Inn Select, 3850 DePauw Blvd., Indianapolis.
Victor L. Lechtenberg, Purdue's vice provost for engagement, will talk to the officers at 9:30 a.m. about how the training fits into the university's outreach programs throughout the state.
James E. Goldman, associate department head and professor of computer technology, said e-mail evidence can be useful in a wide range of investigations, and it is important for law-enforcement officers to be familiar with ways of finding and using it to solve crimes and convict perpetrators.
"Electronic mail can be a key source of evidence in many situations," he said. "It can be a primary element of an event – fraud, harassment or threats, for example – or provide timeline information in support of other investigations."
E-mail forensics is a part of the growing field of computer forensics, a law-enforcement area with implications for fighting and deterring a new generation of crimes, including computer-aided terrorism, espionage, bank and business fraud, and identity theft.
Marcus K. Rogers, a Purdue associate professor of computer technology and one of the instructors at the training session, said computer forensics refers to retrieving and analyzing evidence from computer systems, including individual pieces of computer hardware, electronic data on the Internet, cellular telephones, personal digital assistants and digital cameras.
"If you think of the old days of investigation, your evidence might be in a filing cabinet, and you would have to search through each file and piece of paper," said Rogers, a former police officer in Canada. "Today, those filing cabinets are filled with digital information, and it’s a very different process to sort through them. We have to totally change the way we think about collecting evidence; you can't interrogate a hard drive."
The FBI estimates that cybercrime costs businesses and the government more than $10 billion a year, with reported computer-aided identity theft costing an additional $1 billion each year. The FBI also estimates that more than 80 percent of computer crime goes unreported, often because business leaders think law enforcement agencies will lack the resources and know-how to effectively combat it.
Goldman said Purdue has made advancing the young field a priority through both education and research, and he sees working with law enforcement in training seminars like Thursday's as an important component of that mission.
"Not only do training sessions like this one help us work with officers to become more secure in this type of investigation, but also it allows us to interact with the investigators who are on the front line of defense against computer-based crime," Goldman said. "These sessions can help us, as researchers and teachers, better understand the needs investigators have and how we can help them meet those needs. This information and direction is invaluable."
Purdue also held two in-depth training seminars on campus this past summer – one for Indiana law enforcement officers and one for educators from universities throughout the country who are developing computer forensics programs at their own universities.
Writer: Matt Holsapple, (765) 494-2073, mholsapple@purdue.edu
Sources: James E. Goldman, (765) 494-9525, jgoldman@purdue.edu
Marcus K. Rogers, (765) 494-2561, rogersmk@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: Victor L. Lechtenberg, Purdue vice provost for engagement, will speak to the law-enforcement officers at 9:30 a.m., Thursday (Oct. 28), and journalists will be able to talk to him immediately following. Journalists can also speak to Goldman, Rogers and other instructors, as well as officers involved in the session. For more information and the day's schedule, contact Matt Holsapple at (765) 494-2073 or mholsapple@purdue.edu.
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