Instructor’s Manual Materials to Accompany
COMPUTER SECURITY FUNDAMENTALS
CHAPTER 13
CYBER DETECTIVE
CHAPTER 13 OBJECTIVES
When students finish reading this chapter, they will be able to:
• Find contact information on the web.
• Locate court records on the web.
• Locate criminal records on the web.
• Use Usenet newsgroups to gather information.
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
To perpetrate identity theft, criminals find out a small amount of information on their target and use that to obtain
even more information. This chapter describes how to find additional information about a person or company on
the Internet using tools available to hackers or identity thieves. You should understand how this is done so that
you can better defend against it and know what information is available about you.
The major sections in this chapter are
1. Introduction. This section explains why you should know how to look up personal information on the
Internet. The example of a network administrator is used.
3. Court Records and Criminal Checks. Using government sites, this section shows how to look up sex
offenders or people that may have criminal records.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Chapter 13 Objectives
II. Introduction
III. General Searches
IV. Court Records and Criminal Checks
Sex Offender Registries
Civil Court Records
Criminal Court Records
Other Resources
V. Usenet
VI. Summary
VII. Test Your Skills
VIII. Exercises
IX. Projects
KEY TERMS
hacker One who tries to learn about a system by examining it in detail and reverse engineering it.
identity theft The process to get enough personal information on someone so that you might pose as that person.
Often done to secure credit or make purchases in the victim’s name.
TEACHING NOTES
I. General Searches
Teaching Tips: Let students know that it is usually acceptable to look up a phone
number or address on the Internet. It has, however, become a common term to “Google someone” to find
out information about a person by typing their name in a Google search. Have students type in their name,
II. Court Records and Criminal Checks
Teaching Tips: Court records are public information. See what local court sites you
can find on the Internet using Google.com or the links in this chapter. Note that URLs in this book can
quickly become obsolete.
III. Usenet
Teaching Tips: Usenet is huge! Currently, there are tens of thousands of discussion
groups. You can use Google or Yahoo tools to search Usenet. However, make sure that students
understand that most users post anonymously or under an alias name. Also, any posts on Usenet or any
PROJECTS/EXERCISES
I. Discussion Questions
A. Discussion Question 1
What would you do if you looked up information about your best friend on the
Internet and found something bad?
B. Discussion Question 2
Should there be consumer data warehouses that compile masses of data about
civilians and then sell the information to companies or governments?
II. Web Projects
A. Web Project 1
Go to Google.com to find articles on ChoicePoint. ChoicePoint aggregates data
from hundreds of sources on millions of Americans. The reports are then sold to
thousands of companies and government agencies that want to know more about their
clients, customers, or employees. Find out what type of information they contain on you,
how they are protecting your privacy, and how you can correct errors that they may have
about you in the database. One place to start is the article at
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7118767/ and their site at http://choicepoint.com/.
B. Web Project 2
There are many other sources of information about people on the Internet. If you
can determine what network systems other people may have IDs on, you can look up a lot
of information from the LAN domain directory using LDAP (Lightweight Directory
Application Protocol). Go to http://www.emailman.com/ldap/public.html and search for a
“Smith” in a college near you. Or find out your college’s LDAP server to see whether
you can find your own entry. Note: You cannot request this resource more than 10 times
in 120 minutes.
C. Web Project 3
It has been noted that many sex offender lists contain numerous errors and are
outdated. Have each student find a sex offender in one of the local government sites and
then check the address on Yahoo. How many of the names match? Do you think sex
offenders will go out of their way to keep this data up to date? Is the data verified by
local governments? What can happen if your address shows up in the offender list?
D. Web Project 4
Access Usenet and find all the groups that someone might post to that pertain to
attending your college or this class. How many did you come up with? How many total
posts were contained in all the groups? What is the best way to filter all of these posts to
find those that would pertain to one person?
WEB RESOURCES
• http://247.prenhall.com Pearson/Prentice Hall product support
• General search resources
• Other name, phone number, and address lookup sites
http://www.smartpages.com
http://www.theultimates.com/white/
http://www.bigfoot.com/
• Court records and criminal checks
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/cac/registry.htm An exhaustive FBI list of individual online state sex
offender registries
http://records.txdps.state.tx.us/ Texas Department of Public Safety public criminal records and
sex offender registries
http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/casesearch.asp Oklahoma court records site
• Other Web sites that should help you start your search for court records:
http://freeprf.com/ Free public records finder
http://www.pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/ PACER Service Center is the Federal Judiciary’s registration,
billing, and technical support center for electronic access to U.S. District, Bankruptcy, and
Appellate court records
http://www.theboost.net/court_records/ Court records search sites
http://ctl.ncsc.dni.us/publicaccess/ National Center for State Courts clearinghouse for public
access to state court records
CHAPTER REVIEW/ANSWERS TO TEST YOUR SKILLS
Multiple Choice Questions
1. How might an identity thief use the Internet to exploit his victim?
2. Which of the following is not an ideal place to seek out phone numbers and addresses?
3. Why do you not want too much personal data about you on the Internet?
4. How could a hacker use information about you found through Internet searches?
5. If you are hiring a new employee, which of the following should you do?
6. Which of the following would be LEAST important to know about a potential business partner?
7. What information would provide the most accurate results for locating a person?
8. Of the Web sites listed in this chapter, which would be the most useful in obtaining the address
and phone number of someone who does not live in the United States?
9. Where would you go to find various state sex offender registries?
10. What is most important to learn about a person listed in a sex offender registry?
11. Which web search approach is best when checking criminal backgrounds?
12. What advantages are there to commercial web search services?
13. Which would you use to begin a search for information on a United States court case?
14. Which of the following is the most accurate description of Usenet?
15. Which of the following is the most helpful data you might get from Usenet on a person you are
investigating?
Exercises
EXERCISE 11.1: FINDING PHONE NUMBERS AND EXERCISE 11.2: CRIMINAL RECORDS CHECKS
These exercises are all procedural. The student should gather some information on the target. The
EXERCISE 11.3: CHECKING COURT CASES AND EXERCISE 11.4: FINDING BUSINESS
INFORMATION ON USENET
EXERCISE 11.5: BLOCKING INFORMATION
To complete this exercise students must delve a little deeper into the Web sites discussed as well as
perform some research to determine other means of blocking access to their personal information. The
Projects
PROJECT 11.1: INVESTIGATING A PERSON AND PROJECT 11.2: INVESTIGATING A COMPANY
With both of these projects the key is to use multiple search modalities, in conjunction, to find accurate
PROJECT 11.3: THE ETHICS OF INVESTIGATION
There is no clear right or wrong answer in this project. Because this chapter has focused on techniques
Case Study
This case study requires students to bring together in one brief essay the elements involved in a logical
investigation of a potential employee. Although there are no absolute answers, successful students should
recognize that an investigation should begin with the broader-based Web sites and then be narrowed