December 19, 2012

Cyber cop says Newtown shooter’s footprints are in virtual ‘cloud’

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A professor and law enforcement
investigator who is also among the nation’s top cyberforensics researchers says
Adam Lanza’s smashed hard drive is not a dead end – the Newtown, Conn.,
killer’s communication is invariably rampant online.

Purdue University’s Marcus Rogers is head of Purdue Cyber
Forensics Center and trains police investigators around the world. He says
obsessed gamers like Lanza live their imaginary and real lives in virtual
spaces much like the rest of us use Facebook and Twitter.

“A record of what he has been playing, saying and
reading is out there,” Rogers says. “You just need to know where and
how to look, be willing to turn over lots of stones, and have a little
luck.”

Rogers, also an expert in criminal pathology, said Lanza
wanted the world to finally know who he was and got our attention with an
unimaginably heinous act. He is keeping the spotlight on himself by slowing the
search into his motives.

“If Lanza really wanted to hide his tracks, he
wouldn’t have used a hammer to attempt to destroy his computer,” Rogers
says. “That entire hard drive would be sleeping with the fish.”

Rogers says researchers in the United Kingdom are
extracting information from the most distressed hard drives using sophisticated
technology developed by the KGB. But even if Lanza shredded his hard drive into
confetti, Rogers said Lanza’s digital footprints are in the third-party servers
that record all of our online discourse, including email.

Rogers is a fellow at the Center for Education and
Research in Information Assurance and Security doing research focused on
psychological profiling, applied cyberforensics and cyberterrorism. He has been
featured in an array of national publications on these topics.

Writer: Jim
Schenke, 765-237-7296, jschenke@purdue.edu

Source: Marcus Rogers, rogersmk@purdue.edu

Note to
Journalists: Marcus Rogers is available in person and via phone, Skype,
Vyvx and satellite uplink. For more information, please contact Jim Schenke,
Purdue News Service, at 765-237-7296, jschenke@purdue,edu