High Technology Crime

This book provides law enforcement investigators, corporate investigators, prosecutors, and corporate counsel with step-by- step procedures for investigating cases that involve computers. The book uses the term "high-technology crime" to identify two types of crime associated with high technology. First, the term includes new crimes created by society's widespread use of computers; for example, the crime of breaking and entering into computers flourished after businesses began connecting computers to sophisticated telecommunications networks. High-technology crime also includes traditional crimes so transformed by computer technology that investigators handling such cases must be familiar with computers and the high-technology industry. One chapter discusses basic principles common to investigating high- technology crime, and three chapters examine the most common high-technology crimes: theft of components, computer intrusion, and theft of information. These three chapters provide readers, including those with no technical background or competence, with the necessary technical information to investigate those crimes, along with a procedure for doing so. An appendix contains a checklist for these investigations. The second part of the book examines a growing challenge facing every law enforcement agency in the United States: safely and legally obtaining evidence stored within computers. Obtaining evidence from a computer without damaging equipment or losing data is just one part of the problem; there are also substantial legal hurdles to searching and seizing computer evidence. Few courts have applied the Fourth Amendment to searches for computer evidence, which means that the law in this area remains unclear. Three chapters discuss the legal obstacles to searching and seizing computer evidence and suggest how readers can draft search warrants to surmount those obstacles. A diskette contains investigative checklists and sample search warrant language. Appended introduction to computer technology and an article on how to protect trade secrets from disclosure during a criminal prosecution, along with a sample protective order to be used for that purpose.