I know, I know, you can’t imagine why a reader would want to visit any source other than the Evince Blog to learn about Internet investigation and Ethics Compliance issues. However, if you are interested in learning what other professionals in the industry are writing about with respect to legal news and computer forensics/e-discovery you may want to check out Alltop’s directory of sites dedicated to these topics.

The second part of Jeff Park’s series on how different generations approach technology has been posted on the IA Podcast.

I blogged about why I thought this series was relevant to those of us involved in Internet investigations a little earlier in January.

On the more positive side the discussion touches on how people of the current high school generation feel about communication, what tools they use, how they expect to be able to communicate in the future when they are in the workforce. On the darker side, the discussion turns to some of the student’s experiences with cyber-bullying and predators.

It’s a good listen.

Although it is not directly related to a civil or criminal case, this story is interesting for the tangential issues that arise from it.

In December 2008 an individual named Brad J. Ward who was until recently the Electronic Communication Coordinator in the Office of Admission of Butler University (he is now “Chief Explosion Officer (CEO)” at BlueFuego) received an email from a colleague at another college.

The email concerned a group on Facebook that had been formed for the graduating class of 2013 at the colleague’s school. It was timely because the colleague’s college had just sent out their admission packs to the prospective new students.

The colleague pointed out that 18 of the 23 members of the group did not attend the university in question, nor did the university have any other application information on these individuals. Ward looked into a similar Facebook group for his own university and found that the same people had started groups there. He continued digging and found that the same individuals had started or were admins on groups for universities all over the United States. Originally the fear was that some kind of domain squatting was happening, but as they dug they found that it was much bigger than what was originally thought.

He appealed for help on his blog Squared Peg citing some of the possible uses of obtaining the personal information of all of these students. According to the story two companies, one called College Prowler and a second company called Match U were behind the unauthorized college groups but these were facts that were turned up through an investigation by Ward and his peers, not because College Prowler or Match U disclosed anything on the groups initially.

Eventually College Prowler apologized and agreed to end their affiliation with Match U and the 2013 groups. At the time of writing Match U still appears to be involved with the groups.

This story is interesting from many different reasons including use of personal information to potential violations of intellectual property rights. However, what I find the most interesting is how this investigation was carried out.

Essentially it was a distributed network of professionals who were able to analyze and provide information on the 250+ groups that were discovered. This isn’t the first time that the blogsphere has investigated something, people remember Rathergate. However, this is the first example I’ve heard of where the bloggers used collaboration tools such as Google docs to effectively share the information they discovered. A video about that collaboration is provided on the SquaredPeg blog, but you can also review the video here.

I first heard this story on CBC’s Spark podcast. Host Nora Young interviewed Ward on the story.

An interesting article posted on TMC News regarding insurance companies’ approach to insuring individuals against libel, slander and other forms of what I might refer to as “Internet harm.”

The article raises a few points worth noting, specifically about how it is difficult to determine what the identity of the slanderer is, how difficult it is to prove intent, etc.

Despite that Pete Spicer who is a spokesperson for Chubb Insurance describes it as an “emerging area” and Jeff McCollum of State Farm indicates that there is a demand for this product from some clients.

This may be a growth area for insurance, and therefore a growth area for investigation companies with niche skills.

On that note, I have been told that the Internet Investigations course at Algonquin College will be running again this fall and I have been invited back to teach again this year. Keep an eye on this page for further details.

The new and interesting implications of the connected nature of virtual worlds continue to amaze. This was going to happen eventually, but leave it to the British Daily Mail to figure it out first.

The story relates to a British Labour MP named Peter Mandelson who is also the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. According to the article from the Daily Mail, Mandelson announced earlier this week that he would be embarking on a number of initiatives to increase the public relations acumen of the Labour Party on the Internet. One of these initiatives included the use of what the paper is calling the “Mandel-Clone” which would be a digital representation of Mandelson that would participate in virtual worlds.

The unfortunate part is that the Mandel-Clone would not be ready for a number of weeks, enter the technophiles at the Daily Mail. They invented their own Mandel-Clone and toured around Second Life pretending to be Mandelson. They engaged the Mandel-Clone-Clone in a number of activities, including liaising with constituents, real-estate shopping and virtual nude sunbathing. The responses from the people he encountered were varied to say the least.

The story is funny, but does raise some implications. As more people and organizations engage in the uses of virtual worlds for communicating the potential for a malicious impersonations are real. Whether it is unauthorized use of an organization’s brand or impersonating an individual this is not the last time we’re going to see this happen. I doubt its going to be all that different than what we have seen on social networking sites.

A special note of thanks to all of those from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner who attended yesterday’s presentation on privacy concerns relating to virtual worlds and MMOs. The group was a fantastic audience and the questions were great!

Steven Davis‘ book “Protecting Games” is due out in a week. His blog PlayNoEvil is always interesting so I am definitely looking forward to the book.

I always find it insightful to listen to discussions from people of different generations on how they use or think about technologies. It helps those of us involved in investigating incidents involving the Internet to think in terms of a user’s experience as opposed to our own experience.

Enter the IA Podcast. I find Jeff Park’s work around usability and information architecture interesting anyway, but I find this particular series of posts/podcasts to be very useful for those of us involved in looking at how people might use the Internet and other networking technologies to connect, conduct business or entertain themselves; and how those activities might be used in the cause, prevention or investigation of crime/civil incidents.

During the first part of Park’s series called “Generations and Technology” he interviews a Grade 6 class about the technologies they use and how they think about them. The interview is informal, entertaining and very insightful, especially if you don’t have younger kids around that would expose you to this kind of human-technology interaction. For example: “instant Messenger is boring…” was one of my favourite quotes.

I’m looking forward to the next session in the series where he interviews high school students.

This brings me to another noteworthy item from this week. Toronto Constable Scott Mills has earned a reputation for his use of Web 2.0 technologies such as YouTube and Facebook to reach out to Toronto’s communities, especially youth and speaking to them through the technology mediums they regularly use.

Not only is his work recognized here in Canada, but his speech on the subject was recognized as a highlight at an Interpol conference in Johannesburg in November 2008.

The RCMP and the Canadian Teachers Federation have created a joint initiative to help deal with the problem of cyberbullying. The press release provides information on what resources are available to RCMP school liaison officers (called Youth Officers) that attend schools.

The press release also provides a link to www.deal.org which is a website hosted by the RCMP but where the content is provided by Canadian Youth. Deal.org has a flash game intended to educate young people on types of cyberbullying and what to do when they suspect it is happening.