Computer Law Commons^™

Technology Corner: Dating Of Electronic Hardware For Prior Art Investigations, Sellam Ismail

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In many legal matters, specifically patent litigation, determining and authenticating the date of computer hardware or other electronic products or components is often key to establishing the item as legitimate evidence of prior art. Such evidence can be used to buttress claims of technologies available or of events transpiring by or at a particular date.

Applying The Acpo Principles In Public Cloud Forensic Investigations, Harjinder S. Lallie, Lee Pimlott

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The numerous advantages offered by cloud computing has fuelled its growth and has made it one of the most significant of current computing trends. The same advantages have created complex issues for those conducting digital forensic investigations. Digital forensic investigators rely on the ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) or similar guidelines when conducting an investigation, however the guidelines make no reference to some of the issues presented by cloud investigations. This study investigates the impact of cloud computing on ACPO’s core principles and asks whether these principles can still be applied in a cloud investigation and the challenges presented …

An Overview Of The Jumplist Configuration File In Windows 7, Harjinder S. Lallie, Parmjit S. Bains

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The introduction of Jumplists in Windows 7 was an important feature from a forensic examiners viewpoint. Jumplist configuration files can provide the examiner with a wealth of information relating to file access and in particular: dates/times, Volume GUIDs and unique file object IDs relating to those files. Some of the information in the Jumplist could be used to build a more precise timeline relating to system and file usage. In this article, we analyse the structure of a Jumplist configuration file and in particular a record from a Jumplist configuration file and highlight some of the important entries therein.

Pandora’S Email Box? An Exploratory Study Of Web-Based Email Forgery Detection And Validation., Richard Boddington, Grant Boxall, Jeremy Ardley

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Web based email systems may be a source of pristine digital evidence because of the perceived difficulty of client tampering with messages stored inside the email account. We demonstrate that such assumption is wrong in the case of Windows Live Hotmail®1 . Windows Live Mail®1 synchronises message on client-side computers with the Hotmail® server, benefiting users wishing to synchronise their email accounts and personal devices. However, this synchronisation opens an exploit for wrongdoers to tamper with existing email messages and attachments as well as facilitating the insertion of fabricated messages. The exploit process enables persistent storage of tampered and fabricated …

Toward Alignment Between Communities Of Practice And Knowledge-Based Decision Support, Jason Nichols, David Biros, Mark Weiser

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The National Repository of Digital Forensics Information (NRDFI) is a knowledge repository for law enforcement digital forensics investigators (LEDFI). Over six years, the NRDFI has undertaken significant design revisions in order to more closely align the architecture of the system with theory addressing motivation to share knowledge and communication within ego-centric groups and communities of practice. These revisions have been met with minimal change in usage patterns by LEDFI community members, calling into question the applicability of relevant theory when the domain for knowledge sharing activities expands beyond the confines of an individual organization to a community of practice. When …

Implementing The Automated Phases Of The Partially-Automated Digital Triage Process Model, Gary Cantrell, David A. Dampier

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital triage is a pre-digital-forensic phase that sometimes takes place as a way of gathering quick intelligence. Although effort has been undertaken to model the digital forensics process, little has been done to-date to model digital triage. This work discusses the further development of a model that attempts to address digital triage, the Partially-automated Crime Specific Digital Triage Process model. The model itself will be presented along with a description of how its automated functionality was implemented to facilitate model testing.

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Digital Evidence Education In Schools Of Law, Aaron Alva, Barbara Endicott-Popovsky

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

An examination of State of Connecticut v. Julie Amero provides insight into how a general lack of understanding of digital evidence can cause an innocent defendant to be wrongfully convicted. By contrast, the 101-page opinion in Lorraine v. Markel American Insurance Co. provides legal precedence and a detailed consideration for the admission of digital evidence. An analysis of both cases leads the authors to recommend additions to Law School curricula designed to raise the awareness of the legal community to ensure such travesties of justice, as in the Amero case, don’t occur in the future. Work underway at the University …

Column: Factors Affecting Data Decay, Kevin Fairbanks, Simson Garfinkel

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In nuclear physics, the phrase decay rate is used to denote the rate that atoms and other particles spontaneously decompose. Uranium-235 famously decays into a variety of daughter isotopes including Thorium and Neptunium, which themselves decay to others. Decay rates are widely observed and wildly different depending on many factors, both internal and external. U-235 has a half-life of 703,800,000 years, for example, while free neutrons have a half-life of 611 seconds and neutrons in an atomic nucleus are stable.

Technology Corner Automated Data Extraction Using Facebook, Nick V. Flor

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Because of Facebook’s popularity, law enforcement agents often use it as a key source of evidence. But like many user digital trails, there can be a large amount of data to extract for analysis. In this paper, we explore the basics of extracting data programmatically from a user’s Facebook via a Web app. A data extraction app requests data using the Facebook Graph API, and Facebook returns a JSON object containing the data. Before an app can access a user’s Facebook data, the user must log into Facebook and give permission. Thus, this approach is limited to situations where users …

Book Review: Mastering Windows Network Forensics And Investigation, 2/E, John C. Ebert

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The book is available as a paperback and e-book. The e-book versions allow you to preview several chapters at any of a number of online vendors. The e-book prices vary from the same as the soft cover version ($59.99) to about $38.99. Some of the vendor's e-books retain the color illustrations found in the print version, but others produce them in grey scale, so you might want to look out for that. The book is divided into four parts (17 chapters) plus two appendices.

I am compelled to give the book illustrations a highly unfavorable assessment regarding their readability qualities. …

Column: Analysis Of Digital Traces, Fred Cohen

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In part 1 of this series (Cohen, 2011a), Analysis of digital traces is a foundational process by which the examiner, typically using computer software tools, comes to understand and answer basic questions regarding digital traces.

An Australian Perspective On The Challenges For Computer And Network Security For Novice Endusers, Patryk Szewczyk

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

It is common for end-users to have difficulty in using computer or network security appropriately and thus have often been ridiculed when misinterpreting instructions or procedures. This discussion paper details the outcomes of research undertaken over the past six years on why security is overly complex for endusers. The results indicate that multiple issues may render end-users vulnerable to security threats and that there is no single solution to address these problems. Studies on a small group of senior citizens has shown that educational seminars can be beneficial in ensuring that simple security aspects are understood and used appropriately.

Automated Identification And Reconstruction Of Youtube Video Access, Jonathan Patterson, Christopher Hargreaves

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

YouTube is one of the most popular video-sharing websites on the Internet, allowing users to upload, view and share videos with other users all over the world. YouTube contains many different types of videos, from homemade sketches to instructional and educational tutorials, and therefore attracts a wide variety of users with different interests. The majority of YouTube visits are perfectly innocent, but there may be circumstances where YouTube video access is related to a digital investigation, e.g. viewing instructional videos on how to perform potentially unlawful actions or how to make unlawful articles. When a user accesses a YouTube video …

Book Review: System Forensics, Investigation, And Response, Nate Keith

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

I recently expressed an interest to a respected colleague in finding a way to “give back” to the forensic community. He suggested writing a review for a text he recently received and provide feedback to the community. It is my intent to present an objective analysis of System Forensics, Investigation, and Response.

Identifying Trace Evidence From Target-Specific Data Wiping Application Software, Gregory H. Carlton, Gary C. Kessler

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

One area of particular concern for computer forensics examiners involves situations in which someone utilized software applications to destroy evidence. There are products available in the marketplace that are relatively inexpensive and advertised as being able to destroy targeted portions of data stored within a computer system. This study was undertaken to analyze a subset of these tools in order to identify trace evidence, if any, left behind on disk media after executing these applications. We evaluated five Windows 7 compatible software products whose advertised features include the ability for users to wipe targeted files, folders, or evidence of selected …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Technology Corner: A Regular Expression Training App, Nick V. Flor

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Regular expressions enable digital forensic analysts to find information in files. The best way for an analyst to become proficient in writing regular expressions is to practice. This paper presents the code for an app that allows an analyst to practice writing regular expressions.

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Extraction Of Electronic Evidence From Voip: Identification & Analysis Of Digital Speech, David Irwin, Arek Dadej, Jill Slay

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is increasing in popularity as a cost effective and efficient means of making telephone calls via the Internet. However, VoIP may also be an attractive method of communication to criminals as their true identity may be hidden and voice and video communications are encrypted as they are deployed across the Internet. This produces a new set of challenges for forensic analysts compared with traditional wire-tapping of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) infrastructure, which is not applicable to VoIP. Therefore, other methods of recovering electronic evidence from VoIP are required. This research investigates the …

Book Review: Dispute Resolution And E-Discovery, Milton Luoma

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As is apparent from its title, this book tackles two very current and difficult legal issues – electronic discovery and dispute resolution. The authors tie the two legal concepts together in an effort to provide litigants and practitioners a less expensive and less time consuming alternative than is typically the case with traditional litigation and court proceedings. By including electronic discovery in the discussions, the authors recognize the importance and significance of electronic discovery in mediation and arbitration as it is in traditional litigation.

On The Development Of A Digital Forensics Curriculum, Manghui Tu, Dianxiang Xu, Samsuddin Wira, Cristian Balan, Kyle Cronin

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Computer Crime and computer related incidents continue their prevalence and frequency, resulting in losses approaching billions of dollars. To fight against these crimes and frauds, it is urgent to develop digital forensics education programs to train a suitable workforce that can effectively investigate computer crimes and incidents. There is presently no standard to guide the design of digital forensics curriculum for an academic program. In this research, previous work on digital forensics curriculum design and existing education programs are thoroughly investigated. Both digital forensics educators and practitioners were surveyed and results were analyzed to determine the industry and law enforcement …

The Science Of Digital Forensics: Recovery Of Data From Overwritten Areas Of Magnetic Media, Fred Cohen

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The first time I encountered data loss and recovery effects of magnetic memory was as a night and weekend computer operator for the computer science department of Carnegie-Mellon University in the 1973-1974 time frame. Part of my job involved dealing directly with outages and failures associated with magnetic memory components used in what, at the time, were large computer systems. On occasions, portions of magnetic core memory or disk drives would encounter various failure modes and the systems using these devices would have to be reconfigured to operate without the failed components until repair personnel could come in to repair …

Automatic Crash Recovery: Internet Explorer's Black Box, John Moran, Douglas Orr

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

A good portion of today's investigations include, at least in part, an examination of the user's web history. Although it has lost ground over the past several years, Microsoft's Internet Explorer still accounts for a large portion of the web browser market share. Most users are now aware that Internet Explorer will save browsing history, user names, passwords and form history. Consequently some users seek to eliminate these artifacts, leaving behind less evidence for examiners to discover during investigations. However, most users, and probably a good portion of examiners are unaware Automatic Crash Recovery can leave a gold mine of …

Book Review: The Software Ip Detective's Handbook: Measurement, Comparison, And Infringement Detections, Diane Barrett

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Do not the book title fool you into thinking that the book is only for those looking to detect software infringement detection. It is a comprehensive look at software intellectual property. The book covers a wide range of topics and has something to offer for just about everyone from lawyers to programmers.

“Preemptive Suppression” – Judges Claim The Right To Find Digital Evidence Inadmissible Before It Is Even Discovered, Bob Simpson

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Vermont state prosecutors have asked the Vermont Supreme Court to end a state trial judge’s practice of attaching conditions to computer warrants. The Vermont judge’s conditions are drawn from five conditions established in the 2009 decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc. case (CDT II). This is the first time the validity of the “CDT conditions” will be decided by a state court of final jurisdiction in the United States

Ios Mobile Device Forensics: Initial Analysis, Rita M. Barrios, Michael R. Lehrfeld

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The ability to recover forensic artifacts from mobile devices is proving to be an ever-increasing challenge for investigators. Coupling this with the ubiquity of mobile devices and the increasing complexity and processing power they contain results in a reliance on them by suspects. In investigating Apple’s iOS devices -- namely the iPhone and iPad -- an investigator’s challenges are increased due to the closed nature of the platforms. What is left is an extremely powerful and complex mobile tool that is inexpensive, small, and can be used in suspect activities. Little is known about the internal data structures of the …

Forensic Analysis Of Smartphones: The Android Data Extractor Lite (Adel), Felix Freiling, Michael Spreitzenbarth, Sven Schmitt

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Due to the ubiquitous use of smartphones, these devices become an increasingly important source of digital evidence in forensic investigations. Thus, the recovery of digital traces from smartphones often plays an essential role for the examination and clarification of the facts in a case. Although some tools already exist regarding the examination of smartphone data, there is still a strong demand to develop further methods and tools for forensic extraction and analysis of data that is stored on smartphones. In this paper we describe specifications of smartphones running Android. We further introduce a newly developed tool – called ADEL – …

Survey On Cloud Forensics And Critical Criteria For Cloud Forensic Capability: A Preliminary Analysis, Keyun Ruan, Ibrahim Baggili, Joe Carthy, Tahar Kechadi

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this paper we present the current results and analysis of the survey “Cloud forensics and critical criteria for cloud forensic capability” carried out towards digital forensic experts and practitioners. This survey was created in order to gain a better understanding on some of the key questions of the new field - cloud forensics - before further research and development. We aim to understand concepts such as its definition, the most challenging issues, most valuable research directions, and the critical criteria for cloud forensic capability.

Keywords: Cloud Forensics, Cloud Computing, Digital Forensics, Survey, Cloud Forensic Capability

Kindle Forensics: Acquisition & Analysis, Peter Hannay

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The Amazon Kindle eBook reader supports a wide range of capabilities beyond reading books. This functionality includes an inbuilt cellular data connection known as Whispernet. The Kindle provides web browsing, an application framework, eBook delivery and other services over this connection. The historic data left by user interaction with this device may be of forensic interest. Analysis of the Amazon Kindle device has resulted in a method to reliably extract and interpret data from these devices in a forensically complete manner.

Keywords: forensics, digital forensics, kindle, mobile, embedded, ebook, ereader