DARKMARK

who in turn alerted the US Attorney's Office in San Jose, California. And because the fraud involved eBay, the Attorney's Office called up one particular investigator: Greg Crabb of the US Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), who at the time was based in San Francisco.

There are three main American law-enforcement agencies that claim authority in cases of cybercrime: the FBI (because its job is to stop crime); the Secret Service (because its brief includes protection of the US currency and credit-card fraud); and the USPIS (because its job is to monitor any illegal activity related to the federal mail service). The last-named became involved in the cyber game primarily because scams perpetrated through eBay and similar services often involve sending goods by post (whether illegally purchased or as part of a money-laundering scam).

Over the past fifteen years the USPIS has built up a dedicated team that investigates high-tech crime, and Greg Crabb was so successful that he eventually moved from San Francisco to head up its Global Cyber Investigations unit, out of a large anonymous building in Wash- ington DC's large anonymous complex called the Federal Center (remember to strike it off your 'must do' list when visiting the US capital).

Crabb's Teutonic looks and slightly gravelly drawl are simultaneously attractive and intimidating. He qualified as a chartered accountant and it is hard to dispel the feeling that if he were to have a look at your finances, it would not take him long to turn up evidence of major wrongdoing, even if you are squeaky clean. This quality confers a real professional advantage on Crabb, as the ability to study long lists of numbers, short messages and seemingly incomprehensible data is a sine qua non for a good cybercop. The job may sound exciting, but like so much to do with computing, most of the work is grindingly tedious.

Once detailed to the Autodesk case, Crabb traced the fraud by checking where customers of the counterfeit programs were sending their money. It turned out they would make payments into bank accounts belonging to fifteen 'mules', US citizens dotted around the country. Money-laundering and scams depend upon these (largely) unwitting characters, who respond to advertisements offering good returns on work carried out from your home computer. Successful candidates are then required to place their bank accounts at the disposal of their new employer. In the Autodesk case, the mules would receive