Computers Today, April 1-15, 2001; Tech Trends: A Look through The Peephole

The Internet might have given international crime gangs an advantage that law enforcers are quite keen to match.

Imagine this. A suspicious-looking person enters into the premises of a school, and starts speaking to a group of senior students about personal freedom and modern trends. A few students get alarmed and inform the administration. The principal rings up the police, who log on to the Internet and see live images of the intruder without going anywhere near the school. A database match is carried out and the person turns out to be a well-known drug dealer. Call that digital surveillance, where secure, digitally encrypted images are collected and stored using computer/Internet technology. Digital storage provides for an infinite number of cameras on a single wire, uses no VCR or tape, and archives all images onto a network-accessible computer database. The server delivers one high-quality still image per second for live viewing, and simultaneously stores clips in an archive for later viewing. Any authorised user can view the images over the Net.

Being comparatively new, the state-of-the-art digital snooping is yet to seep in the concerned circles. It allows for faster retrieval, uses less storage space and provides higher quality images, says Jim Masten, director with SecureEye, a Seattle, US-based digital surveillance firm. Conventional closed circuit TV (CCTV), on the other hand, uses expensive coaxial cabling and high-end industrial VCRs for recording. To find a previous image, someone must rewind and watch a tape. CCTV technology also requires an individual wire for every camera.

Policing E-tools

Digital Vehicle Tracking System:
A second-generation computerised location system for security surveillance and law enforcement operations. The system uses a discreet digital transmission method to provide the user with distance to target, direction to target and target direction of travel.

Supercardiod Mini Shotgun Microphone:
A sound-locating device, equipped with an internal high quality amplifier and earphone monitoring system.

Complete Electronic Countermeasure System:
Designed to perform the basic countermeasure checks either for personal security or as a business offering the service to others.

MiWatcher III Digital Surveillance Switcher:
Monitors multiple surveillance cameras from a remote PC. Also, automatically transmits images when the security system is triggered.

In general, digital technology is more expensive than traditional CCTV tape, and much of the cost of digital surveillance is in the installation, Masten said. Night vision devices, security metal detectors, CCTV surveillance, GPS satellite tracking equipment and body worn devices are some of the cyber policing gadgetry.

US Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Carnivore E-mail surveillance system was among the first initiative of cyber policing.

Carnivore is a program that monitors packets of data passing through an ISP's network. While officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice said the surveillance system would be legally deployed only to monitor alleged criminal activity under a court order, privacy advocates fear the software could lead to widespread and ransom surveillance of E-mail messages.

The need for such technologies arises as criminals are bringing their act together on the Internet. Technology, after all, provides everybody a level playing field. The problem, no doubt, is far more acute in technology-developed nations like the US, where an antidote to a breakthrough in communications revolution precedes the technology. Kevin Delli-Colli, who heads the US Customs Cybersmuggling Centre, said E-commerce is a nemesis, an ideal distribution tool for illegal drug sellers. Worse yet, the Internet at first left custom officials wondering whom to arrest.

"We had always focused on the middleman, the smuggler, who brings the stuff into the country," he said. Now there is no middleman... They no longer drive with their bumpers dragging on the highway, car trunks loaded with drugs. Instead, thanks to the Net, consumers buy direct from overseas sites. And their goods are often unwittingly delivered by the greatest distribution system-the postal service.

Among the drugs that can be ordered over the Net are prescription-only medicines like Valium and steroids. But marijuana and other illegal drugs are also available. Delli-Colli indicated one Web site selling marijuana seeds that brags about its ability to piggyback on postal deliveries. A message on the site reads: "Our orders tend to be hidden very well in our shipments, so if you receive something from our area of the world, and you don't know what it is, DO NOT throw it out. Inspect it very carefully, and if you need help, give us an E-mail to find out where we hid the eggs."

Massachusetts, USA, investigator Sergeant John J. McLean cites the case of undercover work performed by an ATF agent hunting down a murder suspect last year. Posing as a flirtatious young woman, the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent E-mailed the murder suspect and gained his confidence. Agent and suspect struck up a cyber-relationship, and four painstaking months later the agent's feminine persona managed to coax an admission out of the suspect, along with leads on additional evidence.

To counter the advantage criminals have using the Net, police officers and corporations have to learn their own Net-savvy tricks, says McLean. He advocates undercover work by police detectives and corporate security officers-such as engaging potential criminals in chat rooms, building relationships and learning what criminals might have on their minds.

Though electronic surveillance may eat away our piracy in the digital era, we have no choice but to get used to it. And policymakers are unanimous in realising that governments have no other way to fight organised crime effectively in a digital age. "Covert surveillance is likely to prove the only effective answer to increasingly sophisticated crime," said Lord Justice Murray Stuart-Smith, the former overseer of M15 and M16, Britain's security and intelligence agencies. "Increasingly, the protection of the well-being of the many may require infringement of the rights of the nefarious few."

Britain is pushing a highly controversial law forcing firms to install equipment so authorities can intercept and decode E-mail messages. Though an elaborate digital surveillance system is yet to appear in India, the software you installed in the server to check the surfing habits and chat content of your employee, sometimes blocking access to Web sites deemed "objectionable", might just be the beginning.