ISU Police are taking on a new kind of crime — crime where prosecution utilizes high-tech computer software and forensic science, instead of the standard patrol cars and handcuffs.

ISU Police have formed a collaborative effort with university computer experts to investigate computer-related crimes for the State of Iowa.

The project entails putting together a lab and the personnel to help ISU Police and other agencies deal with computer crime and do forensic work for criminal cases, said Doug Jacobson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Agencies will bring in cases and the lab will have the tools, computers and expertise to analyze the systems and to see what crimes have taken place and to what extent, he said.

The type of investigations that will be performed are two-fold, Jacobson said. On one end, there are crimes where the computer is the resource used in the crime, including software piracy, child pornography, constructing fake driver’s licenses and identity theft.

On the other end are crimes where the computer is the victim of the crime, such as break-ins to computer databases.

The idea for the new partnership came internally from the university, Jacobson said.

“The idea came from us, realizing the state had lost the person who did [computer forensic work],” Jacobson said. “We knew we had the expertise and thought this would be a great partnership in helping students, the state, ISU Police and other law enforcement [agencies].”

A team of graduate students will assist in the computer probing, giving them hands-on training in the investigation process.

“These students have interests in computer forensics and they’re interested in pursuing it as a career,” Jacobson said. “They will learn how to do computer forensics and get good jobs working for various state or local agencies.”

The computer forensic work will be done at a physical facility housed within the confines of the ISU Police in the Armory building, Jacobson said.

ISU Police Capt. Gene Deisinger said the ISU Police department has seen a wide variety of computer-related crimes at Iowa State.

“Within ISU, we’ve seen a fair number of harassment [crimes] that are Internet or e-mail based,” Deisinger said. “We’ve also seen some cases regarding child pornography and potential copyright violations through file sharing.”

He added any crime that already exists can be aided with the help of computers.

“With the help of Mr. Jacobson and his students, we hope to be able to broaden our availability to other departments,” Deisinger said.

Jacobson said the “trial project” is funded internally from the various agencies that are involved, such as ISU Police, the Midwest Forensics Research Center, located in Ames, and the university.

“We will look for additional funding and keep this going,” Jacobson said.

The project will be interdepartmental, Deisinger said.

“The most exciting thing is the collaboration between the academia and the service arm of the university,” Deisinger said. “It’s exciting to do something on the cutting edge.”