UA Cyber Initiatives Aid Law Enforcement

Dr. Diana Dolliver
Dr. Diana Dolliver

From the April 2014 Desktop News | Two College of Arts and Sciences professors have been invited to provide law enforcement officials worldwide with a “behind the curtain” look at how academics can help investigate cyber-related crimes.

Dr. Diana Dolliver and Dr. Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar, both faculty members in the Department of Criminal Justice, will present to an audience of about 500-600 law enforcement professionals at an international training event in Atlanta in May. Their goal is to make conference attendees aware of ongoing cyber initiatives at UA, academic statistical methods and data collection, and the value of having law enforcement officials team-up with academics to better understand various elements of cybercrime.

“It feels great to be invited to participate in this international law enforcement training event, particularly because we are representing academia and promoting the importance of joining law enforcement with academic expertise,” Dolliver said. “We have presented our research at international venues in Poland, China, Russia, Ireland and India, but this will be our first international law enforcement training event.”

Dr. Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar
Dr. Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar

Their presentation will provide an overview of partnerships UA faculty members have made with law enforcement agencies and how those partnerships help agencies better understand forensic investigation, evidence processing and socio-behavioral aspects of cybercrime.

Dolliver’s research focuses on drug trafficking organizations’ utilization of cyberspace and the role that opportunity plays in these particular crimes. Dolliver will discuss the Tor Network, a location on the Internet that provides users complete anonymity, and how its existence might exacerbate opportunities for crime by enticing potential offenders to use the network in place of the open Internet. By eliminating the opportunity for crime, the motivated offender becomes less likely to commit the crime, she said.

Seigfried-Spellar’s research involves investigating Internet-based child pornography cases. Individuals who engage in child pornography do so at varying degrees, with some offenders engaging in more offenses than others. She will discuss a case study where a criminal profile and trends analysis of computer forensic evidence was used to determine if the suspect was a hands-on or hands-off offender.

The training event is held annually by the Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Units and the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts. For more information, visit www.leiu.org/training.