CRIME fighters have long used technology to track down their suspects. In Sherlock Holmes鈥檚 era it was the humble magnifying glass. Today, detectives hunting down computer-literate crooks are turning increasingly to DIBS 鈥� the Disk Image Backup System.
DIBS lets officers copy the entire contents of a computer鈥檚 hard disc without triggering any traps or logic bombs that would otherwise destroy potentially incriminating evidence. It was originally developed by Leicester-based computer consultant Jim Bates as a way to copy the contents of a hard disc to search for viruses. Simply searching the disc could trigger a virus, he says, and examining all the files does not work. 鈥淎 lot of viruses do not lurk in normal file space,鈥� says Bates.
DIBS consists of a computer 鈥渂oot鈥� disc 鈥� which carries a set of programs for running the computer in a way that avoids programs installed on the hard disc 鈥� and a device that stores data on a series of optical memory cartridges. To record the contents of a PC鈥檚 disc, a police officer inserts the boot disc in the PC鈥檚 floppy drive and switches on. A program on the boot disc then copies all the data from the PC鈥檚 hard disc onto the optical storage device. The copy can then be searched using a second computer without fear that the original data will be destroyed.
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DIBS is drafted in when the police search the home of a suspect and find a PC. It has already been used in a number of cases, including an inquiry into a couple in the Midlands who are alleged to have run a pornographic bulletin board.
Before DIBS arrived on the crime scene, a force鈥檚 information technology department would print a list of files on a seized machine and pass it back to the investigating officers, who then had to say which files they wanted to see. This was time-consuming and sometimes triggered logic bombs.
Now that he has made the system 鈥減lod proof鈥�, Bates says that officers can scan the contents of a hard disc in 30 minutes. He says that DIBS is now being used by half the police forces in Britain. 鈥淚t is an extremely useful piece of equipment,鈥� says a spokesman for the Computer Crime Unit at Scotland Yard. Using DIBS, he says, 鈥渨e have got plans of crimes that are going to be committed鈥�.