CyberspaceAngel
Cyberspaceangel is an organization that aids victims of Internet harassment and crimes. The group is made up of volunteers from various walks of life, such as police officers, judges and homemakers. They offer their services for free. The group has also formed teams to prevent Internet-related crime through its HomeFront and Software program.
Helping Victims of Internet Harassment and Crimes
Online harassment, cyber stalking and doxing are all real and becoming more common. These activities can cause a great deal of fear, distress, and anxiety in victims as well as disrupt lives and careers.
It is important that law enforcement agencies understand how to respond to these incidents and provide assistance and support to victims. This toolkit was designed to help law-enforcement agencies better address these threats.
Many law enforcement officers have little or no experience dealing with these types of cases. The victims often feel that the police do not take their complaints seriously, or that the officers who answer the calls don’t understand them (e.g. “Just delete your profile and the harassment will end” or “It is just online, nobody can hurt you in person”).
Many also find that their Internet providers fail to understand the nature of this abuse, or provide little helpful response other than telling them to block their attackers – which does nothing when the harassers are easily able to open new accounts. This is why we need organizations such as Cyberspaceangel to help people in these situations. Their new Police Liaison Unit can assist victims and liaise with law enforcement to ensure that they are receiving adequate and timely assistance.
HomeFront and Software Teams
HomeFront is a software that allows home builders to manage their entire build process. From sales and CRM, through estimating, scheduling, purchasing, and warranty, all in one simple-to-use program. It automates information exchange and processes, so that critical notifications and reports in real-time are delivered without delay. This ensures that everyone has access to the most current information so they can make informed decisions. It also eliminates costly mistakes.
Hyphen Homefront offers a fully-integrated residential construction ERP that integrates with leading accounting systems (including Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate, Sage Intacct Construction, Sage 100 Contractor and Xero). It is perfect for custom, semicustom and production builders. Its comprehensive suite includes a CRM module and sales management module which checks different stages of the sales cycle. These include takeoff and estimation, bid management, costing and project management.
Hyphen also offers a cloud-based platform, BuildPro, for plan takeoff and estimating, procurement, collaboration and communication in the construction industry. Builders can choose between hybrid cloud and on-premise deployment options. The optimal team size for a software company is seven members (+/-2), which follows the famous two-pizza rule.
Police Liaison Unit
Police liaison teams can be deployed to spontaneous public order/public security events or to pre-planned events to provide a resource for an effective police response. They can also act as mutual aid when required. They are trained in the tactics outlined in module 6 of the National Police Public Order Training Curriculum.
Community liaison officers play a vital role in strengthening the relationship between the police and the diverse communities. They meet regularly with community groups, civic organisations, houses of religion, and other government agencies to discuss concerns and answers questions. In larger jurisdictions the police department has liaison officers dedicated to different populations, including African American, Asian American and Deaf/Hard of Hearing, LGBTQ and Interfaith, Latino, and School Liaison Officers.
A good example is the LGBT community officer in the Detroit (Michigan) Police Department, who lobbied for the position to ensure the city’s LGBTQ residents have a voice on policy issues and help officers become more familiar with the issues.
A successful Police Liaison Team (PLT) member will be able to facilitate an open discussion between the community and the police in a way that is productive and positive for everyone involved. This requires a lot of empathy, good listening skills, and a strong will to be part of a solution.
Cyber Crime Unit
The unit is composed of Digital Forensic Specialists, who are capable to conduct forensic examinations of computer files, mobile phones and other electronic devices. This unit also conducts educational outreach to schools and civic organizations addressing online safety issues such as internet dating scams, identity theft, financial fraud and how to prevent child sexual exploitation.
Criminals will often encrypt and lock your computer systems and files, and then demand that you pay ransom in order to unlock or decrypt them. The Cyber Crime Unit investigates these types of crimes and helps victims restore their computer files and systems.
In addition to the statewide law enforcement response to cyber intrusions, the Cyber Crime Unit provides expert advice and guidance on emerging technologies to HSI field offices in order to further complex investigations. Investigations involving darknet marketplaces centralized and the illegal use of cryptocurrency are examples.
The forensic examination of digital evidence is becoming more difficult as the number of digital devices for communication and storage of information grows exponentially. C3’s Digital Forensic Unit supports this effort by creating advanced training courses for law enforcement officers statewide and maintaining a state of the art Digital Evidence Laboratory. This lab is open to all local, federal and state law enforcement agencies that need assistance in investigating cases involving electronic evidence. The lab allows investigators to quickly retrieve, examine and securely manage data that is volatile, mobile and susceptible to encryption by any user.