Tracking Criminals on the Internet

Presented at H2K2 (2002), July 12, 2002, 6 p.m. (60 minutes)

How certain criminal investigations have been investigated in the past couple of years with perps being tracked by IP addresses, email, and web surfing. Such cases include the murder of Daniel Pearl, the search for Bin Laden, the Melissa virus release, the Clayton Lee Waagner escape, the anthrax attacks, and the Wakefield mass murders.


Presenters:

  • Richard M. Smith
    Richard M. Smith once headed the nonprofit Privacy Foundation but now focuses on technology related to security issues. He's been described by The New York Times as "perhaps the nation's most vocal authority on data privacy." A former software entrepreneur, Smith is credited with uncovering dozens of incidents in which high technology companies were trying to breech consumers' privacy by secretly tracking online movements. He has teamed up with the ACLU to show that facial scanning technology would be largely ineffective in identifying terrorists. Smith operates a web site that reports "computer bites man" stories, named ComputerBytesMan.com.

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