The UK’s Police Central E-crime Unit (PCeU) are looking to one day develop a breathalyzer-type device for on-the-spot detection of illegal activity such as credit card fraud, or the selling of stolen goods. The digital forensic tool would avoid the unnecessary seizure of all laptops and PCs during raids and reduce the six to twelve month backlog for forensics officers to uncover evidence.

The device would be used in a similar way to an alcohol-sensing breathalyzer, in that ordinary beat cops – without any forensic knowledge – can in most cases successfully identify which people to bring in. The technology could lead to the immediate questioning of suspects, instead of having to wait up to a year for solid evidence.

PCeU architect, Charlie McMurdie also envisions a central forensic server to which seized devices could be connected and where experts all over the UK could remotely login and analyze data for faster forensics work.

While a centralized server may be plausible and perhaps beneficial for speeding up the forensics process, I think they underestimate the complexity involved in devising such a device for rapid e-crime detection. The task would be difficult enough to intelligently differentiate between legal and questionable material on a hard drive under normal circumstances, then you have password protected files and directories, hard-core encryption, or even just a lack of data from users that store most of their files in the cloud behind a login.

There’s also a chance a user may have one of those Fujitsu HDDs that can erase 500GB in under a second or activate a complete instantaneous lockout via text message when the cops show up – thanks to new laptop security tech by Lenovo and an Intel / Ericsson partnership.

Sources:
Silicon and The Inquirer
Via: Slashdot