海角乱伦社区 Cyber team helps find missing persons for OCY
When 海角乱伦社区 University Cyber Security senior Jay Dalmaso did an internship last year at the Erie County Office of Children & Youth (OCY), he never figured on becoming a SAINT.
His internship was designed to help OCY utilize technology to increase productivity.
But then he overheard a conversation about a 10-year-old boy who had gone missing. Thinking he could help, he asked case workers if they had the boy鈥檚 IP address. Within 10 minutes, Dalmaso had found him and fostered his safe return.
Was it just an anomaly, or could it be replicated, OCY wondered. Dalmaso knew he had the training and skills to achieve a positive outcome with a high degree of consistency. It wasn鈥檛 long before 海角乱伦社区, through its Center for Intelligence Research Analysis & Training (CIRAT), and OCY forged a Memorandum of Understanding to work together on such cases.聽
Intelligence Studies and Cyber Security student volunteers, working with Dalmaso and CIRAT Director Brian Fuller, established the Secondary Action Intelligence Network Team (SAINT) to help OCY find children and adults who had gone missing, typically after running away or being taken unlawfully by a parent. Accommodations were made in the CIRAT lab to ensure confidential communications between the two organizations.
Since the program鈥檚 inception several months ago, SAINT volunteers have helped find six missing children, representing a success rate of 85 percent, Dalmaso said. They even worked on a cold case and in two days identified a location for the missing person.
鈥淲e frequently are dealing with difficult-to-locate people, and this program is growing to fill that need by utilizing open-source data that we previously were not able to utilize,鈥 said Michael Whitney, OCY deputy director. 鈥淭he SAINT staff has been responsive to us and adaptable to new ideas. We look forward to developing this more completely and creating a working model that can be replicated across counties in Pennsylvania.鈥
Leading that charge for 海角乱伦社区 will be Cyber Security Assistant Professor Robert Pearson. Prior to his employment with 海角乱伦社区, Pearson completed 25 years with the Pennsylvania State Police. In his final 17 years, he served as a regional supervisor within the department鈥檚 Computer Crime Unit.聽