Criminals have at their disposal a variety of technologies for hiding communications and evidence stored on computers from law enforcement. These include encryption, passwords, digital compression, steganography, remote storage, and audit disabling. They can also hide crimes through anonymity tools and techniques such as anonymous remailers, anonymous digital cash, looping, cloned cellular phones, and cellular phone cards. This paper discusses use of these technologies by criminals and terrorists, and how that use has affected investigations and prosecutions. Options available to law enforcement for dealing with the technologies, especially encryption, are also discussed. Numerous case studies are presented for illustration.
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