Digital music players pose security risk

A Purdue University expert says the growing use of miniature digital music players poses a security risk because they can store huge quantities of information.

Some palm-sized players can store up to 60 gigabytes of information or the equivalent of 15,000 songs or 25,000 photographs, rivaling the capacity of laptop computers.

"The digital player is not just a cute music machine," said Marcus Rogers, a researcher at Purdue's Center for Education and Research in Information and Security. "It's also a potential criminal tool."

Rogers said digital music players have been used by car-theft and child-pornography rings because of their data storage capabilities.

He said the ability to quickly and easily download vast volumes of information without detection via a small cable also makes these devices a security threat.

Rogers, a former Canadian police officer, said law enforcement has not yet caught up with how advanced technology can be used by criminals.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International