Computers and modern technology are being used increasingly by crooks to carry out crimes around the world. But the crimefighters whose job it is to detect them are also finding this equipment useful in their work. ANTHONY OSBORNE met one man, a former hacker, whose knowledge of computers is being passed on to those hunting criminals in cyberspace

A FORMER computer hacker now teaches students how to track down criminal evidence on computer.

And the police are making good use of his skills to solve cases including murder.

Neil Barrett, 42, a Professor of Computer Criminology at the Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University at Shriven-ham studied for a PhD in computer science and now lectures the next generation of police cyber-investigators.

A specialist in computer forensics, Mr Barrett has travelled across the world and his expert testimony in court has helped to secure the convictions of a range of e-criminals including that of Paul Gadd the pop star Gary Glitter on child pornography offences.

Mr Barrett explained: "As com-puter use grows, the amount of computer crime increases and the more evidence we can get from those computers.

"Even now with all the mobile phones in circulation, wherever you are with your phone your location can be tracked. If you are sitting in an office at your desk, your phone is sending out signals to base stations."

"Using information kept by whoever your phone provider is on computer, the police can track your location to within three desks of your position."

Similar techniques were used to help convict Ian Huntley for the murder of Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Mobile phone base station information tracked where Jessica's phone was turned off next to Huntley's home.

And Glyn Razzell of Highworth, who was convicted of murdering his wife Linda, was tracked through his mobile phone signal.

Neil's work has taken him across the world to help convict virus creators.

He has now written a book, Traces Of Guilt, which looks at some of the cases he has worked on.

"There are two types of computer criminal," said Mr Barrett.

"Currently we have the young cyber-vandal, who sits in a room showing off to friends with his defacing of websites or writing of viruses.

"But recently we have had a spate of extortion cases particularly against bookies' websites.

"There is clearly a connection with organised crime in these cases. They know that a website is going to make money at a certain time of the week, say Saturday, so they will make their demands of a certain amount of money or deny the website of use to anyone losing the bookies thousands of pounds in bets.

"This clearly sounds like the extortion stories from High Streets where organised criminals have protection rackets and threaten violence if payments are not met."

But the most worrying form of cyber-crime for experts is where criminals are able to steal the electronic identities of internet users.

This escalating problem is causing major headaches for investigators because of the increasing number of financial services being made available on the internet.

In several cases identities have been stolen and used to buy items using credit cards, take out loans and even take out second mortgages all without the victims knowledge or consent.

"It is extremely difficult to hide information on a computer.

"They store a massive amount of information and unless the criminal has an knowledge of the sort of clues that people like me or the police look for, evidence is difficult to hide or disguise," said Mr Barrett.

One of the main concerns being addressed in his lectures at Shrivenham is the problem of cyber-terrorism.

Mr Barrett explained the problem: "Cyber-terrorism is one of the key areas we are dealing with at Shrivenham. This is something that has come about since the first Gulf War where people have tried to break into and stop the use of information-gathering systems or bring them to a halt.

"This occurred during the Kosovo conflict in 1999 when thousands of e-mails were sent to NATO in Brussels in an attempt by hackers, believed to be Serbian nationals, to disrupt communica-tion networks.

"This is very different from using bombs and guns, and during the recent Gulf War expert information on warfare were sent out to Iraq to battle against this problem."

Traces of Guilt is published by Bantam priced £16.99.

Anthony Osborne