High-Tech Device Helps Martinez Police Track Down Child Pornography And Other Internet Crimes

The Internet, according to Sgt. Dave Mathers, head of the Electronics Crime Unit of the Martinez Police Department, is the “wild, wild west.” Criminals are no longer using guns and masks to rob banks – instead, they use computers and wireless Internet connections.

To combat this new wave of criminal and crime, police need good old-fashioned vigilance and footwork, but they also need high-tech tools to level the playing field.

To that end, Martinez is one of the few cities in the country right now using a new device that allows police to track wifi signals, and thereby track criminal activity making use of those signals. It’s called an AirCheck, and it’s state of the art.

Mathers uses the device primarily to track down people downloading child pornography from the Internet. But he’s quick to point out that police aren’t going into the field and pointing the device anywhere. In order to get to the point where the AirCheck is used, police need to show probable cause and a search warrant needs to be issued.

"Combating the growing threat of child pornography on the Internet is a nationwide priority," said Mathers at a recent Electronics Crime conference. "AirCheck is a simple, elegant, and easy to use tool that aids in locating suspects on wireless networks. The tool easily verifies wireless network settings, providing us with more confidence that we've identified the suspect's location. Using this information, we can eliminate more variables while focusing on the suspect downloading the illegal content."

Mathers is the primary electronic crimes officer in the department, pointing out his background in technology. “I was trained as a computer engineer,” he said.

“Recognizing that the Internet is the wild, wild west, we need the expertise to do investigations that lead us to the new frontier,” Mathers said. “We need a device that can give you eyes into this wireless world. The AirCheck device allows you to seek and better understand where a particular wifi signal is coming from.”

The device has been used so far on 10 different occasions in the six months the department has used the device, Mathers said. One of those cases was tracking a suspect who was downloading child pornography. However, the suspect left town before police could make an arrest, he said.

“These are the types of tools police officers need,” he said. “It takes a lot of what I used to have to do manually and puts it into an elegant package.”