http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24597325-15306,00.html

Tool to help fight child porn

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Jennifer Foreshew | November 04, 2008

TECHNOLOGY that has been likened to a "random breath test" for computers and
laptops for illicit images or video has captured the interest of law enforcement
bodies nationally, including the Australian Federal Police.

The tool has been developed at Perth's Edith Cowan University in partnership
with Western Australia Police, which is in the early stages of beta-testing the
technology.

The system enables frontline officers - regardless of computer competency or
level of training - to know on the spot if a computer contains illicit images or
video.

Its main purpose is to capture users of child pornography.

The tool, which has received additional input from the AFP, is planned for
release early next year.

Known as Simple Image Preview Live Environment (SImPLE), the tool is heralded as
the new frontier fighting cybercrime.

It uses a cut-down version of a Linux kernel and can be deployed on almost any
standard operating system.

WA Police computer crime squad Detective Senior Sergeant Tim Thomas said the
tool would enable investigators to more quickly access information relevant to
cases.

"Assuming that SImPLE goes the way we hope, we would plan for a very wide
deployment in the agency," he said.

SImPLE would also reduce the volume of work computer forensic specialists were
being asked to perform.

Some 30-60 per cent of the case load for computer crime specialists globally
relates to child pornography. "If the project is satisfactorily completed, we
would certainly be encouraging its release as widely as possible because it is
going to improve policing and services to the community," Sergeant Thomas said.

Craig Valli, co-director of the university's security research group SECAU,
based in the School of Computer and Information Science, said a final release
version of the tool was expected by the end of February.

Associate Professor Valli said a range of government agencies, including
Customs, had shown interest in the tool.

"Particularly for Customs at the border, that sort of stuff is a problem," he
said.

Professor Valli, who is also head of the university's School of Computer and
Information Science, said police required a simple tool that could eliminate the
need for highly trained experts to undertake initial profiling of evidence.

"The design concept is that any police person with adequate training could use
the tool, so that when they go into a crime scene they can quickly review a
computer for illicit images or videos," he said.

"It is not digging down into the hard drive to find anything that has been
deleted, it is just what is topically available."

Professor Valli said computers that were seized were usually bagged, tagged and
taken to a lab to be investigated. "This cuts out that loop because it allows
officers to preview the computer.

"If they find evidence this allows them to write images to a disc and take it to
a judge straight away."

SImPLE is a Linux-bootable CD that is put into the CD-ROM drive of a computer or
laptop and boots into its own forensically clean environment.

"The disc goes into the CD-ROM drive of the PC and if files are found, the user
connects a USB-DVD writer to the back of the computer, and the images that are
stored in memory in the RAM of the computer are written to the DVD," Professor
Valli said. "Nothing gets written to the original evidence at all, which is the
key."

This means the technology can be used in court and an accused cannot challenge
it on the basis of forensics.

SECAU was also considering another purpose-built CD to search financial
documents for use by a fraud squad or those hunting terrorists using keywords.

The team is exploring commercialisation opportunities for the tool, using a
low-cost licence model.

"We are talking to people about commercialising it in Britain and further afield
as well," Professor Valli said.

The AFP planned to test and evaluate the final SImPLE product when it was
completed, a spokesman said.


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