Criminal organizations use countermeasures to avoid surveillance and capture. The digitally connected world we are living provides an ease to capture information on a person, place or business. The allowance of data capture across various platforms causes criminal organizations to get creative and find ways to further mask their intentions and actions – remember they are not confined by resources and laws. Anonymous mail servers, encrypted VPNs, bulletproof hosting and other digital obfuscation techniques allow these organizations to continue illegal activities throughout the United States. If you are interested in expanding your digital investigation knowledge and increasing your awareness about how criminals are using the Internet and the Deep Web to further their operations, this course is for you.

The purpose of this course is to provide basic information for investigators on how the Internet infrastructure works, techniques to discover website information (e.g., domain servers and registrations), open source search techniques for social media platforms, and an introduction to the Deep Web. Throughout the course, participates will be asked to use these techniques to identify additional information for hypothetical scenarios related to drugs, fraud, identity theft, and other crimes.