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Video Games Can Be Used to Fight Crime, and Not Just in 'CSI: The Game'

by Amar Toor on July 28, 2010 at 06:30 AM

Video Game CrimeWhat's the next frontier of investigative crime fighting? If you ask Michael Nesbitt, it may be sitting right in your living room. Nesbitt, a security consultant at Trustwave, is scheduled to give a presentation at the upcoming DEFCON security conference, where he'll explain how any unassuming video game system can, when examined closely, help investigators solve crimes. As Security Watch reports, Nesbitt will focus his attention on the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft's XBox 360 and Sony's Playstation 3 when he takes the stage on August 1st. According to the consultant, though, virtually any popular console could contain valuable information that could lead to the conviction of criminal suspects, or, in some cases, their exoneration.

"For example, if someone is trying to prove that Suspect A was running an attack against a World of Warcraft server, there will be logs to indicate that fact within World of Warcraft," Nesbitt explained. "Or if someone wants to defend themselves, they can say, 'whoa Mr. Investigator... check those logs, I was playing Team Fortress 2 at the time.'" Nesbitt also pointed out that, because many of today's game systems are now synced with home networks, they can contains all kinds of files, pictures or videos. He continued, "And where there's data, there is information that is of interest to a forensics investigator."

Nesbitt's argument, at first glance, seems pretty self-evident. PS3s and Wiis are, among other things, storage devices, so it makes sense that forensic agents could mine them for evidence in the same way they do personal computers. A lot of people, however, still see a game console as a toy -- not a portal into someone's personal life. So, with Nesbitt spreading his word to a larger audience, you'd better take this opportunity to go erase all those pictures of your maimed Warcraft victims, before the feds come a-knockin'. [From: SecurityWatch, via: Kotaku]

Tags: crime, CSI, forensics, personalinformation, police, privacy, ps3, security, top, videogames, warcraft, Wii, Xbox-360

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