TECHNOLOGY that has been likened to a "random breath test" for computers and laptops for illicit images or video has captured the interest of law enforcement bodies nationally, including the Australian Federal Police.
The tool has been developed at Perth's Edith Cowan University in partnership with Western Australia Police, which is in the early stages of beta-testing the technology.
The system enables frontline officers - regardless of computer competency or level of training - to know on the spot if a computer contains illicit images or video.
Its main purpose is to capture users of child pornography.
The tool, which has received additional input from the AFP, is planned for release early next year.
Known as Simple Image Preview Live Environment (SImPLE), the tool is heralded as the new frontier fighting cybercrime.
It uses a cut-down version of a Linux kernel and can be deployed on almost any standard operating system.
WA Police computer crime squad Detective Senior Sergeant Tim Thomas said the tool would enable investigators to more quickly access information relevant to cases.
"Assuming that SImPLE goes the way we hope, we would plan for a very wide deployment in the agency," he said.
SImPLE would also reduce the volume of work computer forensic specialists were being asked to perform.
Some 30-60 per cent of the case load for computer crime specialists globally relates to child pornography. "If the project is satisfactorily completed, we would certainly be encouraging its release as widely as possible because it is going to improve policing and services to the community," Sergeant Thomas said.
Craig Valli, co-director of the university's security research group SECAU, based in the School of Computer and Information Science, said a final release version of the tool was expected by the end of February.
Associate Professor Valli said a range of government agencies, including Customs, had shown interest in the tool.
"Particularly for Customs at the border, that sort of stuff is a problem," he said.
Professor Valli, who is also head of the university's School of Computer and Information Science, said police required a simple tool that could eliminate the need for highly trained experts to undertake initial profiling of evidence.
"The design concept is that any police person with adequate training could use the tool, so that when they go into a crime scene they can quickly review a computer for illicit images or videos," he said.
"It is not digging down into the hard drive to find anything that has been deleted, it is just what is topically available."
Professor Valli said computers that were seized were usually bagged, tagged and taken to a lab to be investigated. "This cuts out that loop because it allows officers to preview the computer.
"If they find evidence this allows them to write images to a disc and take it to a judge straight away."
SImPLE is a Linux-bootable CD that is put into the CD-ROM drive of a computer or laptop and boots into its own forensically clean environment.
"The disc goes into the CD-ROM drive of the PC and if files are found, the user connects a USB-DVD writer to the back of the computer, and the images that are stored in memory in the RAM of the computer are written to the DVD," Professor Valli said. "Nothing gets written to the original evidence at all, which is the key."
This means the technology can be used in court and an accused cannot challenge it on the basis of forensics.
SECAU was also considering another purpose-built CD to search financial documents for use by a fraud squad or those hunting terrorists using keywords.
The team is exploring commercialisation opportunities for the tool, using a low-cost licence model.
"We are talking to people about commercialising it in Britain and further afield as well," Professor Valli said.
The AFP planned to test and evaluate the final SImPLE product when it was completed, a spokesman said.
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