We are pleased that our recent conference on Combatting the Commercial Cultivation of Cannabis received a lot of interest and media coverage. Including: BBC News, Channel 4 News, ITV News, Sky Tyne and Wear, The Independent, Financial Times, MSN and Huffington Post.

Following the event a number of groups (e.g. ACPO, National Landlords Association, Revenue Protection Agency) have welcomed the possibility of working with the Centre for Cybercrime and Computer Security; we look forward to developing and delivering appropriate assistance for these organisation.

Around £200m of electricity is being stolen every year to run illegal cannabis farms across the UK. Phil Butler, Co-Director of Newcastle University’s Centre for Cybercrime and Computer Security (CCCS), says this would be enough electricity to provide free energy for every household in Newcastle for a whole year.

Now the Newcastle team are joining forces with key organisations to investigate ways in which cyber technology could be used to crackdown on the commercial cultivation of this class B drug.

“The cultivation of cannabis is happening on an industrial scale but at the moment the police are still very much reliant on intelligence and tip-offs,” explains Mr Butler, a former Detective Inspector with Northumbria Police.

“What we are trying to do is develop technologies that will enable us to take a more proactive approach in the fight against cannabis cultivation.”

CCCS worked with ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) to arrange a joint event on fighting back against the criminals involved in cannabis production. At this event we had two days of presentations from selected individuals and organisations directly involved in combatting this problems and we also announced the results of the 2011/12 UK ACPO police research into the scale of the problem in the UK, and considering the implications for the future.

We heard from colleagues in the Netherlands of their experience with a successful pilot deployment of scratch and sniff cards; other speakers highlighted the public safety dangers of cannabis farms in terms of stolen energy and fire risks etc. Further event details including the full Programme can be found at: http://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/cfc

CCCS participated at the closing event of the Newcastle Science Fest' 2012. Conforming to the event's theme of "Secrets and Lies", we demonstrated our work in surreptitiously obtaining details from Near Field Communication (NFC) credit/debit cards, more commonly known as contactless payment cards. We also presented our work in assisting survivors of domestic violence to hide traces of their attempt to seek help, so that their partners would not find out about it (which could lead to further violence).

Further details of our exhibition can be found here