As Internet criminals continue to conduct crimes under a veil of anonymity, an officer with the Auburn Police Department's detective bureau has undergoing training to collect the evidence that would unmask these culprits.

Patrol officer Tony Oughterson had always dabbled with computers as a hobby outside of work, but the changing criminal environment created an opportunity to expand his roll with the department.

The detectives bureau has been forced to evolve their investigations as they continue to receive at least one new case a week involving child pornography or identity theft.

“There was a need and I had the skills,” said Oughterson, who studied anthropology in college. “It was a perfect fit for me.”

Before Oughterson took the job, Detective Chris McLoughlin said any evidence that needed to be collected from computers involved in identity theft or child pornography crimes had to be sent to the New York State Police crime lab in Albany.

“In the past we would have to wait at least eight months for the findings,” McLoughlin said. “(The state police) are always trying to crank them out as fast as they can but there is such a backlog of evidence that needs to be processed because so many agencies use them. They are handling everything on a statewide level.”

Instead of waiting in line for the crime lab to rebuild deleted files and gather a computer's web traffic information, Oughterson said he could process the evidence in around 40 hours if the investigators could tell him where to look for it.

But maintaining the technological prowess to find online criminals is a daunting task.

“It's a constant state of training because the technology that the criminals use and that we use is always changing,” Oughterson said. “Sometimes it's like playing a game of catch up.”

But the training has allowed Oughterson to reconstruct e-mails, documents, spread sheets, sound files and video files that people thought they had deleted. But even after a file is deleted there is usually enough evidence left behind to reconstruct it.

“The Cayuga Community College crimes go back years,” McLoughlin said, referring to several employees and students who had been arrested for various grand larceny crimes. “(Oughterson) was able to rebuild a 'to do' list with detailed instructions on how to log onto the computer and rip off money. They thought the file was deleted.”

In another case, Oughterson was able to rebuild a pornographic picture of a child that been found on a local man's computer.

After comparing the picture to a list of known and unknown victims in a massive data base, Oughterson was able to identify the victim after he found the police constable who handled the original case in England almost 10 years ago.

“Our department is becoming technologically advanced enough that we can track a picture back 10 years to the original case,” McLoughlin said. “And 10 years later this picture is still circulating around the world.”

In a pending identity theft investigation, a suspect allegedly stole a victim's credit card information and ordered merchandise from an online store and had it delivered to their house, McLoughlin said. The victim thought their anonymity would protect them, but Oughterson said he was able to track the credit card and shipping information to the suspect's house.

“It's out there all the time,” McLoughlin said. “People are using computers to commit crimes from the comfort of their own home. And they think because they are doing it online they are being anonymous. They're not.”

Oughterson attended training seminars hosted by the National White Collar Crime Center to learn the skills necessary for tracking down online criminals. The certified courses are offered free of charge to law enforcement agencies that want to train its staff to gather digital evidence and present it during a trial.

“I take a test at the end of the course to show that I can do the work competently,” Oughterson said. “I have to be able to do the work and then go to court and explain it to a jury so they will understand what it means.”

And with budgets getting thinner, the free cost of attending training seminars has enabled smaller police departments to send officers such as Oughterson.

“Citywide it's crunch time because of the budget,” McLoughlin said. “Free training will be looked on more favorably compared to spending money for it.”

As long as technology advances and criminals continue to rely on the Internet in an attempt to remain anonymous, the Auburn police will have to continue training.

“We are going to stay on top of this as a department and stay as advanced as the criminals,” McLoughlin said. “There are more and more victims if we don't.”

Staff writer Nate Robson can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 248 or nathan.robson@lee.net

Tips for protecting your identity online:

• Don't respond to weird e-mails or give out your personal information.

• You never get money for doing nothing. Anything that promises large monetary earning for little work is a scam.

• Avoid e-mails that announce a prize out of the blue. If you don't remember signing up for the drawing then it's a scam.

• Always know where your credit cards are and keep them secured at all times.

• Always make sure you are on a secure site before giving out personal information or making online purchases.