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The long arm of the law has extended its reach with help from Bagley College of Engineering students and their knowledge of law and order.

The computer science in engineering computer forensics class recently received first-hand experience in crime scene investigation during mock crime scene take-downs and trials. The semester-long project allowed students to work with crime scenes, evidence and participate in trials involving the common cyber-crimes of identity-theft, embezzlement and child pornography. Although staff members and their classmates simulated the “crimes” and “evidence”, the forensics class allowed students to experience a different side of computer engineering.

“This has been a change in direction from my normal coursework and it is quite different from what we experience in most of our computer science classes,” explained Mark Parisi, a graduate student. “This class has really let us put the techniques we learned into play.”

The semester began with the class being divided into groups to create evidence, which was then given to another group to be analyzed. That five-week process then culminated with a two-part exercise that allowed students to get a taste of being a computer forensics expert. First, the students traveled to the Naval Air Station in Meridian, Miss., to take-down crime scenes and gather evidence while apprehending and questioning their “suspects.”

“It was almost like a scene from COPS where you bust down the door, apprehend the person and try to keep them away from the evidence,” explained Kristen Baten, a graduate student. “You’re busy looking for things and they are trying to escape. It was exciting to get to experience how the process works, but I’m glad that it’s usually a job for the police. It was a little too physical for me.”

The students enjoyed the crime-scene take-downs, which allowed them to interrogate and capture their suspects who happened to be the teaching assistants they had dealt with all semester. However, at the mock trials, the tables were turned as the forensics students took the stand at the Oktibbeha County Courthouse. There, a judge from MSU’s Stennis Institute for Government and lawyers from the University of Mississippi School of Law put the students through the paces of a real trial making them defend their knowledge, procedures and analysis.

“Everybody has a computer these days and more and more courts are looking to those computers for evidence. So, the primary role of a computer forensics expert is to educate the judge and jury about that evidence,” explained Dr. Dave Dampier, director of the Southeast Region Forensics Training Center. “As a computer forensics expert in the real-world, these students would have to be able to explain their evidence and procedures thoroughly during their testimony or their evidence might not be taken seriously.”

Like other courses in computer science and engineering, the computer forensics class uses an active leaning approach allowing students to gain applicable experience practicing the theories they study. Although this was the first semester these exercises were conducted the reputation of the class always ensures that its seats fill-up fast.

For more information about computer forensics and the CSI: Bagley exercises, please visit www.cse.msstate.edu or contact Dr. Dave Dampier at dampier@cse.msstate.edu.