It took federal law enforcement officials all of eight days to arrest Gary Dale Hoke, the PairGain Technologies employee who in April put up a bogus Internet announcement that the Tustin-based developer of telecommunications technology was being acquired by an Israeli outfit for $1.35 billion.

The speed and efficiency of Hoke's apprehension amounted to blinding speed in the world of securities fraud, where cases can take years to investigate and prosecute. That Hoke's arrest followed the similarly speedy capture of David Smith, who officials allege was the author of the Melissa computer virus, appeared to indicate that law enforcement finally had turned the corner in the race to equal the technical prowess of computer miscreants.

That now appears to have been premature and wishful thinking. Both Hoke, who is scheduled to be sentenced today in federal court in Los Angeles in the largest case yet of Internet securities fraud, and Smith had left digital trails that made them easy to track, officials said.

In fact, federal law enforcement officials continue to be hobbled by a lack of human and technical resources and growing caseloads that show no signs of easing.

"Definitely law enforcement is getting better, particularly in areas where there are high-tech companies," said Miguel Sanchez, chairman of the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, a coalition of government and private sector organizations. "They're getting better, but there are also all too few of them."

Indeed, as computers have become more pervasive, so has computer crime.

For example, intrusions of corporate computer systems by outsiders are on pace to more than double last year's record, according to the Computer Emergency Response Team, a Pittsburgh-based clearinghouse for computer security violations. Already, 4,398 incidences have been reported this year, compared with 3,734 during all of last year, according to a survey by the FBI and the Computer Security Institute in San Francisco.

Last year, only 47 people were convicted of computer crimes under federal statutes, while 10 others were acquitted, said David Banisar, an editor with Criminal Justice Weekly, who analyzed data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University.

Those numbers deal only with cases that have been reported. The actual number of computer crimes is dramatically higher, experts say, but most companies do not report computer security breaches.