Pauline Reich is as smart as she looks in black with a string of pearls. A late starter in some respects -- she did not graduate as a lawyer until she was almost 40 -- she's making up for lost time as a pioneer in the field of cybercrime.
Every day, she says, viruses and scams are unleashed on an unsuspecting public. "My own computer is out of order. All I know is it suddenly went haywire."
There is the possibility, of course, of sabotage. Not everyone is happy about the facility she helped open (with the blessing of the university where she teaches) in October last year : Tokyo's Asia-Pacific Cybercrime and Internet Security Research Institute at Waseda University. "There are cybercriminals out there with a lot to lose -- in the Netherlands, Albania and Russia especially but just about everywhere."