Forensics Team Beats Professionals In Challenge

A team of SHSU computer science students will be headed to St. Louis, Mo., this week for the DC3 Cyber Crime Conference, where they will be recognized in front of more than 2,000 cyber crime professionals for their first place finish in the annual Defense Cyber Crime Center Digital Forensics Challenge.

Alumnus Kyle Frankenfield, who graduated in the summer, and sophomores Tom Daubner and Tom Dewing worked on the challenge from May to November, and the results will be officially announced during the conference.

More than 126 teams from 36 states and 14 countries participated in this year’s challenge, which draws teams from academic, government, commercial and military sectors to compete in solving the most complex encryption, data recovery, image analysis and steganographic problems, according to computer science chair Peter Cooper.

“The students involved in this team have produced a superb performance. They beat out professional and military teams, and not by a short margin either,” Cooper said. “With 126 teams competing, only 11 were able to solve even part of one of the challenges.

“Our team was able to provide complete solutions to four of the problems and a partial solution to at least one other,” he said. “Our nearest rival (an Air Force team) only completed one of the challenges.”

The challenge, which provides an opportunity to extend knowledge, skills and techniques in a search for innovative solutions to forensics problems, required the team to develop new hardware and software tools and generate innovative new techniques.

“I am extremely proud of our students,” said team leader and digital forensics instructor David Collins. "Thomas Dewing, Thomas Daubner and Kyle Frankenfield demonstrated great tenacity and ingenuity during the challenge.”

—END—

SHSU Media Contact: Jennifer Gauntt
Jan. 11, 2008
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu.