A Dutch National Police investigator who led the country’s child anti-exploitation unit told a jury on Thursday afternoon (June 16) about a live forensic search he conducted at Aydin Coban’s alleged vacation pad — shortly after Coban was arrested in 2014.
Marten Busstra took the stand at BC Supreme Court in New Westminster to talk about the devices he located in the Oisterwijk bungalow that Coban was allegedly leasing, as well as evidence he found on a desktop computer and laptop that were still turned on.
Busstra said he wanted to get into the active devices to collect and store any information such as the temporary memory (RAM) before they were removed from the home by police.
Busstra told Madam Justice Martha Devlin and the 12-person jury how he checked the programs, applications and networks, as well as possible encryptions, that were already running on the two devices.
He also examined the external connections like the keyboard, mouse and cables — one of which ran into the next bedroom, but had been disconnected in the centre.
In the second bedroom, Busstra testified, he found more cables, a USB hub, a wifi connector and an antenna.
On the laptop in that room, he saw the device was running on a free operating system called LINUX and, in the background, was the name “back I track,” which Busstra said is “crafted to be used by hackers to test flaws in networks.”
On that laptop, Busstra said, he also opened the Terminal program to see the historical commands.
There, he testified, he found the user had been monitoring a wireless network from the neighbourhood. He also found a USB stick in the laptop with a manual on how to get into a wifi network.
In her opening address last week, lead prosecutor Louise Kenworthy said Crown Counsel will prove that Coban used his neighbour’s wifi system and created 22 fake online profiles as part of a “persistent campaign of online sextortion” against Port Coquitlam student Amanda Todd.
Coban has pleaded not guilty to
- extortion
- importing and distributing child pornography
- possession of child pornography
- communicating with the intent to lure a child
- criminal harassment
None of the allegations is proven in court.
The trial continues.
