Police on the lookout for cyber crimes
Police on lookout for cyber crimes
Indianapolis Hamilton County sheriff's deputies accustomed
to looking for burglars and speeders are now being trained to spot
roving cyber thieves, so called war drivers.
They roam neighborhoods with laptop computers searching for unsecured
home computers and Internet connections.
Hamilton County Sheriff's Captain Jim Jowitt believes, "they are a
potential huge financial threat."
Eyewitness News showed you how many homeowners don't bother installing
the security features on their home computer wireless networks. How
easy it is to hijack Internet connections or rummage through personal
computers.
Accessing someone's computer system without their permission, under
Indiana law, is trespassing.
"And that is just accessing. If you do things with the information
there can be other crimes involved. We are going to take this
seriously."
In Greenwood, police say they are just as serious about enforcing the
computer trespassing law. Detective Eric Klinkowski adds, "We know
several businesses that were targeted and denoted on war chalking web
sites."
War drivers use something as simple as chalk or as sophisticated as
satellite global positioning systems to mark businesses with open
wireless computer systems so other war drivers can find them.
They even put a so-called wireless hot spot on the Internet.
Klinkowski, who investigates crimes committed using computers, can't
understand why people who lock their doors would leave their computers
open to anyone. "It's just a matter of time before we have to
investigate one of these things."
Neither police department has arrested anyone for computer
trespassing. However in Hamilton County, in two separate financial
fraud cases, the suspect either admitted or had the equipment
necessary to commit crimes using someone else's wireless computer
