Craigslist Killer Case and Cybercrime History Quiz

The Craigslist Killer and Digital Forensics

• Julissa Brisman was murdered in 2009 in a Boston hotel, and Philip Markoff, dubbed the Craigslist Killer, found his victims through Craigslist ads.
• Investigators traced emails between victims and Markoff, leading to his arrest after submitting subpoenas for IP address ownership information.
• Surveillance video captured Markoff entering and exiting the hotel around the time of Brisman’s murder.
• Markoff was engaged to Megan McAllister, and police staked-out their apartment, leading to his arrest six days after the murder.
• Markoff died after his fourth suicide attempt in prison.
• Psychological effects of attacks may lead to long-lasting effects such as hate, reclusion, and isolation, impacting individuals and society.
• Frequent human actions can lead to moral decay and acceptance of formerly immoral actions as normal, which can be seen in e-attacks.
• Headline-making e-attacks have led to a resurgence in the need for quick solutions to the problem, such as patches and intrusion detection tools.
• E-attacks cause a loss of privacy and trust in individuals and businesses, leading to a loss of society's innocence.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) includes weak AI designed for specific tasks and strong AI with human cognitive abilities to find solutions without human intervention.
• Common uses of AI include Siri, Alexa, Tesla, Amazon.com, and Netflix, which utilize machine learning and predictive technology for various purposes.
• Sophia the Robot, created by Hanson Robotics, is an advanced form of AI with visual data processing, facial and voice recognition capabilities.

History of Computer Crimes and Digital Forensics

• The 414-Club, named after the San Francisco area code, launched national news-making computer intrusion attacks from a Stanford University computer in the mid-1980s.
• The years 1984-1987 saw the launch of hacker magazines like "2600: The Hacker Quarterly" and "Phrack," and the passing of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by the US Congress.
• In 1988, a Cornell University graduate student created a computer virus that crashed 6,000 computers, causing a 2-day internet shutdown.
• The 1990s witnessed heightened hacking activities and the anticipation of the "Michelangelo" virus in 1991, which did not cause the expected widespread computer crashes.
• In 1999, President Bill Clinton announced a $1.46 billion initiative to improve government computer security. The year 2000 saw costly and powerful computer network attacks, including the "Melissa," "Love Bug," and "Killer Resume" viruses.
• In 2001, the elusive "Code Red" virus was released, adding to the history of computer crimes.
• A computer crime investigator's role includes recovering file systems on hacked or damaged computers, investigating crimes against children, and retrieving data for prosecuting crimes.
• Digital evidence can be found in deleted files, hidden files, slack space, bad blocks, steganography utilities, compressed and coded files, encrypted files, and password-protected files on computer systems.
• Deleted files on Windows-based systems can often be manually recovered as they still exist on the hard drive but are listed as not to be displayed to the user.
• Hidden files can be difficult to find and may require special software to expose them.
• Slack space, bad blocks, steganography utilities, and compression or coding methods are used to hide data on computer systems, which can be analyzed and exposed by skilled technologists.
• Digital forensics examiners play a crucial role in investigating intrusions, gathering evidence of crimes, and uncovering fraud by analyzing computer storage devices and digital media to track down hackers.