December 5, 2007

Purdue holding computer crime workshop in Columbus

Tim Wedge, a computer crime specialist at the National White Collar Crime Center and a visiting faculty member at Purdue in West Lafayette, will offer the two-day course "Cyber Investigation 101" for parole officers, detectives and others in the law enforcement community. The class will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days at the Columbus Learning Center.

Wedge will focus on teaching participants how to conduct a manual search of a computer, how to use an automated tool to search the computer and how to save evidence. The workshop is sponsored by the Columbus Police Department.

"This course allows law enforcement officers with no technical background and without expensive equipment to gather and quickly evaluate electronic evidence at the scene in a forensically sound manner," Wedge said. "This can be a tremendous advantage for smaller agencies that might otherwise miss significant evidence simply because they lack the resources to gather or analyze it."

The National White Collar Crime Center is a nonprofit, national organization funded in support of state and local enforcement efforts. It is open to federal, state and local agencies to help them coordinate enforcement efforts to fight economic and cyber crimes. The center has worked with Purdue and the Indiana State Police for several years on a variety of projects and training sessions.

This is the second time this year that the Department of Computer and Information Technology in Columbus has held a National White Collar Crime Center workshop.

"In today's world where we rely on computers and the Internet for many of our daily activities, computer crime and computer security are not just the concern of businesses - we all have a stake in these issues," said computer and information technology associate professor Dewey Swanson. "By hosting this course, we can be a good neighbor to the community because many of the attendees are Columbus law enforcement. Hopefully, we can also open the door for continued collaboration between law enforcement and our department in Columbus."

The College of Technology at Columbus offers degrees in mechanical engineering technology, computer and information technology, industrial technology, and organizational leadership and supervision. It is one of three educational institutions located at the Columbus Learning Center. Also at the center are Ivy Tech and Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus. The institutions share space at the center but are governed by three separate organizational entities.

Writer: Kim Medaris, (765) 494-6998, kmedaris@purdue.edu

Source: Dewey Swanson, (812)348-7238, dswanson@purdue.edu  

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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