I say the City Council should give them the money. There are so many dangers on the Internet...especially for kids...MySpace being one of the biggest culprits. Sites like this don't monitor for content. My youngest child left the computer up one day and I happened on her MySpace account. I was horrified at some of the messages in her inbox. Someone had sent her a graduation picture...but, the gown was open to reveal the guy's nakedness. I immediately contacted MySpace to get her site shut down. I got an email several days later that say they are checking into it. Yeah, right??? I never got another response...even though I pushed it. So, I took matters in my own hands and made her close her account. I applaud the Cary Police for their efforts. So, when this comes before the City Council, I plan to be there...I hope other concerned parents will be as well.

EARTHLINK/ Your comment doesn't show a lot of thought.

I think it would be a good thing for the Cary pd to invest in cyber crime prevention. I would like to see the Cary pd set the standards for other cities. I believe that if we look through the community that Cary serves, we will find many competent volunteers to assist in this effort. I would like to see some focus placed on competent investigation and closure to my sons death before we spend 200k on this new endeavor. We could not even solve this one with all the evidence and the perpetraitor sitting in your own living room. How can you possibly solve a cyber crime?

In reply to Steve, the unfortunate reality of computer forensics is the ease with which information can change, and way that any change compromises the the standard of reasonable doubt.

In investigating a computer system, any action, or even lack of action can compromise information. Systems can be booby trapped - an action that was the right thing to do in one case may destroy all evidence in another, or may so contaminate what evidence that's there that it will never hold up in court.

On top of that, you haven't even gotten into spyware and botnets, which a fair number of computers are infected with - the issue of "someone else was using my computer without my knowledge" can come up rather easily, and proving it, or proving otherwise is no small task.

It more would be interesting to ask though, what tools are needed, and what training is needed - if they are going to spend $230000, they need to be spending it in a way that will help them get convictions.

$230,000?!?!?!?!?

You've got to be kidding me? Give 'em each one computer and about ten hours of instructional time, and I'll teach two people how to track anyone on the internet.