New Software Being Developed to Profile Criminals Online

Just as authorities use profiling to guard against criminals at ports and borders, researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo are developing software that can generate highly personalized profiles of network users by analyzing the sequences of commands entered at each computer terminal. The system -- a prototype is likely to be ready for intensive testing this summer -- could provide a high-grade layer of protection for military installations and government agencies as well as banking or other commercial networks that require especially tight monitoring.