Law enforcement is too fractured and restricted to truly tackle the worldwide epidemic of cybercrime. Investigation and financial recovery after the offense is not a legitimate option for those victimized through the Internet. Users of the Internet must not willingly suspend their disbelief that they will ever become a victim and instead suspect that every interaction is potentially hazardous to their personal and financial well-being. Internet users must move to a purely defensive posture, being completely focused on prevention and self-preservation.
I recently spent some time studying the case Commonwealth V. Barr which the Lehigh County (PA) DA’s Office has appealed to Superior Court. Lehigh County Common Pleas Judge Maria Dantos ruled the odor of marijuana emanating from a vehicle is no longer probable cause to search when the driver displays a Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Card.
This is the space where I share a few of those writings – my thoughts, ideas, and projects.
As an practitioner, I am a criminal investigator who specializes in Internet and technology facilitated crime, including cyber-financial crimes and network intrusions. I also play around with digital device forensics and some incident response. I regularly lecture on the criminal use of digital technology and cyber-criminology.
As an academic, I am an adjunct instructor of criminal justice and police science.
1) How will the policing pull back effect victimization? Of course arrest numbers will plummet as the police are not making arrests unless absolutely necessary. But will there be an increase in victimization as a result of the criminals taking advantage of the police pull back. Or will the rate of reported crime and/or victimization remain the same. meaning that we really were over policing and the pandemic created a system correction?
A current buzz term within the computer and network forensics world is the term “Know Normal”. This means that you must know what your computer system should look like in normal situations so you will be able to quickly recognize when something isn't normal. This concept has been popularized by the computer security training organization SANS institute and is taught in several of their courses. The concept is not hard to grasp and is based in simple common sense. How can you know if an attacker is working and making changes in your computer network if you don't know what your computer network should look like. Is that an authorized user? Is that file part of the system and why is it here? Is that a normal application running inside of windows? Do we as a business use this software? If you don't know what should be going on within your network you will never now when something bad is going on within your network.