Computer networking (office environment)

acelticdream · May 11, 2012

Actually, in my story, it's the police department ... where all the computer are networked. I am going to assume they are on a network until I get confirmation from my local police and sheriff on how it's actually done.

So, based on a wonderful suggestion in another thread, one way the killer can send a "I'm gonna/will kill again" message is via a networked computer. Since it's the modern age, I wanted to do something other than sending the note on a paper (the classic way).

The killer slips a file into the shared file folder. The user at another computer (in my case, the lead detective), sees a popup on his screen alerting him to the fact there is a new file in the shared folder for him. The file would contain pictures, text, etc. No virus, malware, etc.

Assumptions:

1) There is a way to have a shared file folder on your computer where only you see the files. Meaning, I receive a file from a co-worker into my shared file folder. It's meant for only me. Another co-worker can't go into his shared file folder and see the file also. Does it work that way?

Basically, I don't want the whole department to be able to view the file just because it's in the shared file folder. I'm guessing there can be sub-folders within the shared file folder ... one folder for each computer/user ... perhaps even password protected? I figure file sharing would be faster for a department to send files to each other than emailing. *shrugs*

2) Regardless of the correct answer to the above assumption ... can the file be traced back to which computer it was sent from (the desk Sgt's computer, the Captain's computer, Detective Smith's computer, etc) ?

3) Lastly, assuming I can't make the above work for my needs - what are the chances a computer network such as that of a major police department being hacked so that an outside user could place files on a detective's computer without the use of e-mail and the like?

Do you have any other suggestions or ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Kerosene · May 11, 2012

There is a shared hard drive through networks.
I'm not too sure about police station networks, but the might have them.

I can't think of anyway that the file would just pop up.

You could have the computer in sleep mode, the MC wakes it up and files are right before him.
He can search and find the root and find it in the network drive.

Other than that, it could be through email. You can alert through emails and send content also.
If you want this shared, have it sent from the police department (generic) email address to itself.

rainsmom · May 11, 2012

Unlikely they'd use shared folders for this. They'd use SharePoint or other content managment system. You can easily set permissions so the folder/site can be used by only certain people. Individuals could have their own sites, but I haven't seen that done. In my company departments have sites and projects have sites. The benefit to using SharePoint is that everything is backed up on the server, not living on an individual's machine.

Now, what I have seen is that individuals have personal folders on their department site. It's not so much so people can give them files, but so they can back up their own work (and so their manager can find things without having to bug them).

We rarely email files, because that eats mailbox bandwidth. Instead we email links to SharePoint locations. I have no idea, though, whether any of this would be in place in the office of a law enforcement agency. Unless this is a large city, law enforcement isn't known for its tech savviness. (I'm sure there are exceptions.)

Snick · May 11, 2012

I be;ieve that shared folders can be viewed by anyone with appropriate permissions, so administrators would be able to view them There should be metainformation with each file that would show how it got there. The metafile can be overwritten, but I think that the alteration would be apparent.

Craking through the firewall and ino the network might be a better idea, unless you want one of the cops to get nailed. Most firewalls are porous. There are processes that go to and from through them all the time. There are ways to avoid most of the porousity, but that usually creates new holes.

Have them run the network on Windows Server, and a decent hacker could get in within seconds.

FalconMage · May 11, 2012

I've not seen this used in police departments, and I've only seen two, so that's hardly extensive.

Still... thin clients. Citrix, and other options. The computer itself is a "dumb" terminal that boots onto the network and operates a user interface (Windows-like or other) that is actually running on a server. Or virtual desktops.

If not properly administered, it could be fairly easy to add files.

Of course, the virus that set back Iran's nuclear program was inserted into that network by a rogue USB drive.

Drop the drive outside the police station, let someone pick it up, they insert, and voila, infected PC, maybe the whole network. How creepy would it be if the pictures popped up on every system in the squad room at once? Most antivirus will catch this now, but organizations are NOTORIOUS for failing to keep antivirus (and Windows itself) up to date.

acelticdream · May 11, 2012

Thank you to you all for contributing. I'll have to re-read some of your posts due to the techie jargon and do some research, but I got the overall gist of it all.

It certainly did give me food for thought and know I will have to stew on this a bit more. It wasn't imperative that I use this method, but I wanted to stir up the mix as the killer will be sending many notes throughout the book and didn't want to use the same method over and over again. I wanted to throw the detective off from time to time. "Are we looking at a writer, a computer genius, or a court jester? WTF?!" hehehe

I would ask my Dad, retired since 1994, what their department used, but since computer technology has changed dramatically since, it would be a moot point. So, it's back to calling my town's sheriff again. =) It's nice to live a small town ... sheriffs and mayors are so accessible.

Ergodic Mage · May 11, 2012

Google Docs. Posts or PMs on forums or chan sites.

kuwisdelu · May 11, 2012

rainsmom said:
Unlikely they'd use shared folders for this. They'd use SharePoint or other content managment system. You can easily set permissions so the folder/site can be used by only certain people. Individuals could have their own sites, but I haven't seen that done. In my company departments have sites and projects have sites. The benefit to using SharePoint is that everything is backed up on the server, not living on an individual's machine.

Well, it could just be a shared folder living on a server...

Deleted member 42 · May 11, 2012

acelticdream said:
So, based on a wonderful suggestion in another thread, one way the killer can send a "I'm gonna/will kill again" message is via a networked computer. Since it's the modern age, I wanted to do something other than sending the note on a paper (the classic way).

I'd suggest that sending a text message to an ostensibly "private" cellphone would be more reasonable.

If a killer can infiltrate a network to the point you're suggesting, why woudn't he wipe the data ?

acelticdream said:
Regardless of the correct answer to the above assumption ... can the file be traced back to which computer it was sent from (the desk Sgt's computer, the Captain's computer, Detective Smith's computer, etc) ?

Depending on the nature of the file (i.e. what application was used to create and read it) yes, there is likely to be data in the file that indicates the name of the drive and the path it was on when last saved. Other information may also be deliberately written to the file. There may be recursive data about previous saves as well as other data that is not specifically part of the file but which travels with it.

acelticdream · May 11, 2012

Thank you for the additional ideas. This thread is very helpful! =)

While I was going for the shock value of the killer being able to "some how" put something on a cop's computer from within the building (network) ... cause it would show just how daring, full of himself, etc the killer is ....... I guess doing the same thing on the detective's private/personal cell phone could also work. Although, I have seen the cellphone aspect done a LOT over the last few years, but not so much the computer.

The computer theory was that the killer would walk into the station ... sit at any one computer (seemingly as if he belonged there), pop in a flash drive, put the file somewhere that would be accessed only by the one detective, and then slip out of the station. The detective would get some sort of alert that there's a new file for him to view, as if by someone in the station (another department sending him stuff, whatever) ... but it ends up being the file from the killer that has pics and text. I'm think it could be something as simple as a pic of the current victim with text layered on via a program such as Photoshop.

Which would, as a reader, be more suspenseful to see the detective react to: a) receiving a message from the killer via the police station's computers; or b) receiving a message from the killer via the detective's personal cell phone?

Deleted member 42 · May 11, 2012

acelticdream said:
The computer theory was that the killer would walk into the station ... sit at any one computer (seemingly as if he belonged there), pop in a flash drive, put the file somewhere that would be accessed only by the one detective, and then slip out of the station.

I can't imagine any dept. being that casual about someone walking in, unless the killer is one of the local cops.

Also: I can't imagine even the most incompetent tech not having workstations lock after a few minutes of not being used; in other words, someone would have to log in.

acelticdream · May 11, 2012

Gah! You're right! See ... good thing I posted here. Worked through those points that went right over my short head! =)

Thank you!

jclarkdawe · May 11, 2012

Now if I wanted to send a message via computer to a police officer, rather then using the computers in the station (which are going to require a whole lot of effort to get to), I'd think about hacking into the computer in the police cruiser. Possibilities include waiting until it goes into a shop for repairs, taking your chances while the officer is out of the car, or figuring out how to get onto the transmission stream between the computer and the police station.

Police stations use lots of locks to keep people who don't belong out of areas where they shouldn't be. And you have an escort whenever you get through the locks.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Chasing the Horizon · May 11, 2012

jclarkdawe said:
Police stations use lots of locks to keep people who don't belong out of areas where they shouldn't be. And you have an escort whenever you get through the locks.

This does sound right, and is probably true for many police stations, but I used to clean the township building where the police station for a nearby township was located and there was no security whatsoever. When the station was empty due to the one or two officers on duty being out on patrol (which was a lot of the time), there was only a single ordinary locked door to keep people out. There wasn't even a basic alarm.

Cleaning the police station was part of my job and in the event there was someone there (which there often wasn't--I had a copy of the key to that one locked door) they most certainly didn't escort me anywhere. The computer terminals were in one room and the officers were supposed to log out when they left the terminal. Usually they remembered. On several occasions they didn't. On those occasions anyone could've gone in and accessed their database and network (I resisted temptation

).

This was a very small rural township with such a low crime rate that they had file boxes being stored in their holding cell. I'm sure there would be a few more hurdles to getting access in a larger police station. But not all police stations are Fort Knox.

acelticdream · May 12, 2012

Yup, I live in a very small rural county and our town police station is practically wide open and empty LOL. The sheriff's office is located in the jail/court building, so that is a different story, but definitely not Fort Knox either.

I can't go with the police cruiser idea (although a neat one) because these are homicide detectives who typically don't use cruisers, but their own vehicles.

Hmmmm, I could go with the killer sending a message to the lead detective's HOME computer ...

I'll ponder more on this while I do housework later on today (it's 4am right now).

Again, thank you guys and gals!

shaldna · May 12, 2012

acelticdream said:
Actually, in my story, it's the police department ... where all the computer are networked. I am going to assume they are on a network until I get confirmation from my local police and sheriff on how it's actually done.

If it's any sort of legal/governmental system then the comps will be on some sort of network. What you will usually have is a shared online drive - where anyone can save, access or update files and information.

There will possibly also be a generic email address which users have access too - our generic at work auto forward emails to my own address.

So, based on a wonderful suggestion in another thread, one way the killer can send a "I'm gonna/will kill again" message is via a networked computer. Since it's the modern age, I wanted to do something other than sending the note on a paper (the classic way).

Access to networked drives is locked down to the users. File updates etc are not normally sent to users.

The killer slips a file into the shared file folder. The user at another computer (in my case, the lead detective), sees a popup on his screen alerting him to the fact there is a new file in the shared folder for him. The file would contain pictures, text, etc. No virus, malware, etc.

I've never seen this happen, and I work a lot with shared drives and folders and networked computers.

1) There is a way to have a shared file folder on your computer where only you see the files. Meaning, I receive a file from a co-worker into my shared file folder. It's meant for only me. Another co-worker can't go into his shared file folder and see the file also. Does it work that way?

You can have a personal folder which is locked down to you - password protected, encrypted etc.

Although, one thing to note is that while all the computers will be networked with shared drives, each computer should have it's own hardrive - so long as that hasn't been disabled - where the user can save their own personal files etc.

At work (I work in government) we frequently lock files down - you should look at file systems such as TRIM, which allow you to lock down files, share them, create personal folders etc.

Basically, I don't want the whole department to be able to view the file just because it's in the shared file folder. I'm guessing there can be sub-folders within the shared file folder ... one folder for each computer/user ... perhaps even password protected? I figure file sharing would be faster for a department to send files to each other than emailing. *shrugs*

There are always hidden files/folders, ones that are password protected or locked down for this very reason.

2) Regardless of the correct answer to the above assumption ... can the file be traced back to which computer it was sent from (the desk Sgt's computer, the Captain's computer, Detective Smith's computer, etc) ?

Eventually.

3) Lastly, assuming I can't make the above work for my needs - what are the chances a computer network such as that of a major police department being hacked so that an outside user could place files on a detective's computer without the use of e-mail and the like?

As someone who works in government I can tell you that it's very, very, very slim. The computer systems are firewalled and protected up to the hilt. They have anti-virus software that would make your eyes water, and, in addition, they will have a couple of guys on an extortionate salary who's sole job is to protect the network.

acelticdream · May 12, 2012

shaldna,

Thanks so much for your responses.

I'm guessing my idea was a little over the top for just receiving a message from the killer. I didn't want to make the concept of the killer being able to access protected systems to take up pages and pages of the book, but only to throw the cops off their stride a tad and show just how ballsy and arrogant the killer can be.

More and more, based on everyone's ideas, I'm moving away from the computer idea and going for the detective's personal cell phone. While, like I mentioned previously, the cell phone angle has been used many times in film, tv and books ... I guess it'll give the same impact that I'm going for - an insight into the killer ... not just what the killer sends to the detective (although that's obviously very important also).

Computer networking (office environment)

acelticdream

Just me ... dreaming and writing.

Kerosene

Your Pixie Queen

rainsmom

Feeling like an old timer

Snick

FalconMage

acelticdream

Just me ... dreaming and writing.

Ergodic Mage

Neophyte Writer

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

Deleted member 42

acelticdream

Just me ... dreaming and writing.

Deleted member 42

acelticdream

Just me ... dreaming and writing.

jclarkdawe

Feeling lucky, Query?

Chasing the Horizon

Blowing in the Wind

acelticdream

Just me ... dreaming and writing.

shaldna

The cake is a lie. But still cake.

acelticdream

Just me ... dreaming and writing.