Tax evaders beware, taxmen to detect evasion with new device

Mumbai, July 26 (UNI) The taxing time for the taxmen, who conduct search and raids to unearth unscrupulous transactions including money laundering, seems to be over, thanks to a handy device, developed by Pune-based Asian School of Cyber Laws with active technological collaboration with US-based data64 LLC.

The device, cyberStick 64i, which resembles a pen drive, can immediately detect all the password-protected files in a computer of the allged tax evaders as well it can crack the password of an alleged tax evader just at the click of mouse.

''Very soon, we are going to make a presentation of the software that we have stored in this device to the Union Finance Ministry officials,'' said Jimmy S Mate, Manager (technology) of Data64 LLC, while giving a live-demo to the media here today.

The device is very light, fits into a pocket and can be carried by the investigators during the the raid time.

''Technology has greatly assisted tax evaders in concealing information, relating to 'benami' property, black money and money laundering. Use of powerful encryption and other technologies by such offenders makes it very difficult for tax officials to seize information. And this device helps the taxmen retrieve as well as decode all such concealed data,'' he said.

With the forensic software loaded in the device, imported from Germany, cyberStick 64i can perform cyber investigation and cyber forensic actions like data acquisition on a 'live system', recovering deleted information, producing, viewing and sorting file listing, key word and graphic searching, tracing IP addresses and websites, analysing e-mail headers as well as tracking e-mail accounts.

The device runs on a U3 compliant portable USB device, and is equipped with powerful cyber investigation, cyber forensic and password cracking tools.

''Whenever, taxmen go raiding a suspect tax evader, the critical evidence that they generally come across is in the form of electronic data, which is then sent to the foresnic labs in the country for analysis and decoding, an exercise that may take even months. Also, in a number of cases, the evidence cannot be retrieved as certain files and folders are password-protected. However, with the help of this device, such information can be unlocked within seconds,'' Mr Mate added.

UNI