[117295] in Cypherpunks
IP: Detectives in cyberspace
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Mon Aug 30 23:22:08 1999
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Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 18:36:14 -0400
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From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
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From: believer@telepath.com
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 15:24:15 -0500
To: ignition-point@precision-d.com
Subject: IP: Detectives in cyberspace
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Source: Nando Media
http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,87368-138056-960829-0,00.html
New technology gets detectives off the pavement and into cyberspace
Copyright © 1999 Nando Media
Copyright © 1999 Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (August 29, 1999 9:27 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -
Private investigator Allison Blackman is fair-skinned and hazel-eyed,
stands about 5-feet 10-inches tall, wears his gray hair buzzed close to the
scalp, and nearly always wears black.
Unlike the typical detective, he doesn't mind if you know all that --
because you'll probably never lay eyes on him. Good luck if he's been hired
to keep an eye trained on you, though.
It's a safe bet you'll get caught in his net. The 53-year-old Raleigh
private investigator, one of 137 in the Triangle, is a far cry from the
gumshoe sitting curbside all night in a beat-up LTD.
Sure, Blackman still snaps photos and trails targets in his car -- a Lexus,
by the way. It's just that the tools of his trade have changed. Cameras so
small they fit on the bridge of a pair of glasses, inside a watch, or a
pager. Crisp photos that can be taken from a quarter-mile away. Tracking
devices that, affixed to a car, will log where it went, at what time and
how long it was there.
Blackman, who surfs the Internet for two hours a day looking for the latest
technology, says staying current is the only way to score these days.
"People who don't use it and won't use it, they won't be in the business in
five years," he says, "not the private eye business."
In other words, goodbye Sam Spade, hello Inspector Gadget. There are 819
licensed private eyes in North Carolina, more than double the number five
years ago, according to Lou Rogers, assistant administrator for the
regulatory Private Protective Services Board. There are also 212
"associates" in the state, or private eyes in training who need to log
3,000 hours as apprentices to get a license.
Blackman says he wouldn't be surprised if the new technologies are making
his business look more attractive -- a James Bond fantasy come to life.
What he does know for sure is that business is booming. "I'm not saying I'm
getting rich, but I'm doing a lot better than last year," Blackman says.
"My business has been growing 20 percent every year since I opened it."
Donald Harris, of MSA Investigators in Raleigh, is bringing on four
associates in addition to the one he already has. Not only that: He has
recently installed a 24-hour 900-number information line for $2.99 a minute
to keep up with demand.
It makes sense. What once took private eyes hours or days can now be done
in just minutes on the Internet. And with numerous databases available for
a subscription and additional search fees -- everything from personal and
criminal information to insurance and sometimes medical data - they're
getting better results, faster. Just this year, for example, a database
with statewide criminal records has become available to any licensed
private eye with a modem. "Now we can do it cheaper for people," says Lee
Denny, a private investigator in Raleigh since 1974. "We can do it faster."
That's the key: cheap and fast. And if success once depended on stamina and
hunches, today it is as much about search engines and gizmos.
"The old days of these huge camcorders are gone," says Lenora Topp, a
private investigator in Asheville and president of the North Carolina
Private Investigators Association. "Now a camera can be so minute, it can
be the size of a head of a pin. That type of technology is very important,"
she says.
"My gosh, the better your equipment, the better job you can do and anyone
without a computer and a modem now is going to be left behind."
The nature of the requests is changing as a result. Cheating spouses and
workers compensation claims still make up the bulk of the private
investigator's business.
But calls are up for "nanny cams" that keep a silent watch on the
baby-sitter; for tracking devices that monitor teens in the family car or
employees in the company car; for tiny computer chips that can tell if
cashiers are bilking the company of cash or merchandise.
Denny, for example, has recently placed hidden video recorders in a book, a
pager, a cookie tin and a notebook. Each one could take in 95 hours of
tape. The cost for a camera small enough to handle such a job: $150. And
for the time-lapse recorders that private eyes are so dependent on: about
$1,000.
Blackman said a full quarter of his business has turned to helping
employers determine whether employees are loafing on company time, or
worse, stealing company property. The culprits are typically drivers who
take trucks from the plant.
"You'd be surprised how many of the guys go out and sit and eat breakfast
and drink coffee and talk to the girlfriend," he says. "They get to the
first job at 10 a.m. and say to the boss, 'Man, it took a long time on that
job.' "
He hides what is called a Global Positioning System unit -- a bug with an
antenna the size of a quarter -- somewhere on the vehicle to chart its
speed, idling time and stop time. The information is then downloaded into a
computer mapping program, which will, with different colors, illustrate
precisely where the vehicle has been. Units available just this month can
beam signals to multiple satellites and allow whoever is on the other end
to pinpoint, via modem connection, a vehicle's location in real time.
Most private eyes have a GPS unit in large part because they can finally
afford one. Denny bought a tracking system three years ago for $17,000.
This year, Richard Lowry, a partner with Philip Robertson in LR&M Corp. of
Raleigh, bought one for $1,200.
"I think it's absolutely the greatest thing that ever happened," says
Lowry. The device has meant a boon to his business, especially from
companies trying to head off liability and catch thieves in action.
"Heat and air conditioning people. They've got employees that are stealing
units from the warehouse and installing them on their own time.
"Installation companies, they're missing hundreds of rolls of insulation
and we find out who's taking them and where they're going with them. Money
missing out of the cash registers."
He once installed a chip under the keys of a cash register keypad to catch
an employee ringing up "no sale" and then pocketing the money.
For a few minutes a day, Bill Brooks, millwork operations supervisor for
Carolina Builders in Apex, scans over the travel logs from three trucks
outfitted with tracking devices.
The company called Blackman about six months ago when officials suspected
that property was missing. He was asked to monitor, but instead recommended
installing a tracking system called "The Boss" -- which he sells for about
$1,000.
Turns out there was no thief, but the data proved invaluable nonetheless.
Brooks takes a look at the output recorded on an inch-long unit he removes
from under the carpet in the cab of the trucks.
It's been clean for months -- ever since the company let it be known that
it was there. He then points to a long line of numbers from the logs on
April 21, before the disclosure.
"See that?" he says. It showed a stop for 32 minutes, in Apex, at 4:30
p.m., which is closing time. He loaded the mapping software and checked the
address.
"The guy's house," Brooks says. The employee was spoken to, and hasn't been
a problem since.
Carlene Hempel writes for The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C.
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-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
