Forensic Science and Technology Commons^™

The Determination Of G1 And G7 Ballistic Coefficients Of .22lr Caliber Ammunition In Gypsum Board Through Doppler Radar Acquisition, Jose A. Colon Jr.

Student Theses

In this experiment, a method of calculating ballistic coefficients of .22LR (long rifle) caliber ammunition was developed using Doppler radar to track the pre-impact and post-impact velocities of projectiles passing through gypsum board. The method demonstrated has distinct advantages in accuracy and flexibility over conventional chronograph projectile tracking that forensic firearm experts should consider when determining the optimal method to obtain a ballistic coefficient (BC). G1 and G7 ballistic coefficients were determined for three .22LR ammunition brands with respective muzzle velocities of approximately 1050ft/s (320m/s), 1230ft/s (375m/s), and 1640ft/s (500m/s) fired from a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic carbine using an Infinition …

Proposal For The Development And Addition Of A Cybersecurity Assessment Section Into Technology Involving Global Public Health, Stanley Mierzwa, Saumya Ramarao, Jung Ah Yun, Bok Gyo Jeong

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

This paper discusses and proposes the inclusion of a cyber or security risk assessment section during the course of public health initiatives involving the use of information and communication computer technology. Over the last decade, many public health research efforts have included information technologies such as Mobile Health (mHealth), Electronic Health (eHealth), Telehealth, and Digital Health to assist with unmet global development health needs. This paper provides a background on the lack of documentation on cybersecurity risks or vulnerability assessments in global public health areas. This study suggests existing frameworks and policies be adopted for public health. We also propose …

Book Review: Computer Capers: Tales Of Electronic Thievery, Embezzlement, And Fraud. By Thomas Whiteside, Brian Nussbaum

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

No abstract provided.

Toward Mitigating, Minimizing, And Preventing Cybercrimes And Cybersecurity Risks, Claire Seungeun Lee

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

Cybercrime and cybersecurity are emerging fields of research, shaped by technological developments. Scholars in these interconnected fields have studied different types of cybercrimes as well as victimization and offending. Increasingly, some of these scholars have focused on the ways in which cybercrimes can be mitigated, minimized, and even prevented. However, such strategies are often difficult to achieve in reality due to the human and technical factors surrounding cybercrimes. In this issue of the International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence and Cybercrime, three papers adequately address such challenges using college student samples and nationally representative samples, as well as a framework through …

Cyber-Situational Crime Prevention And The Breadth Of Cybercrimes Among Higher Education Institutions, Sinchul Back, Jennifer Laprade

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

Academic institutions house enormous amounts of critical information from social security numbers of students to proprietary research data. Thus, maintaining up to date cybersecurity practices to protect academic institutions’ information and facilities against cyber-perpetrators has become a top priority. The purpose of this study is to assess common cybersecurity measures through a situational crime prevention (SCP) theoretical framework. Using a national data set of academic institutions in the United States, this study investigates the link between common cybersecurity measures, crime prevention activities, and cybercrimes. By focusing on the conceptualization of cybersecurity measures as SCP techniques, this study also offers the …

The Effects Of Self-Control On The Cyber Victim-Offender Overlap, Brooke Nodeland

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

Increasingly, the overlap between victims and offenders has received empirical attention with regard to traditional forms of deviance. More recently, the growth of cyber offending has led to a need to examine whether traditional criminological theories can be used to explain these crimes in the same manner as traditional offenses. However, limited attention has been given to victim-offender overlap in cyber-offending. The current study uses a sample of American college students to examine the influence of self-control on cyber offending, cyber victimization, and the cyber victim-offender overlap. The results indicate that low self-control significantly predicts participation in cyber offending as …

Towards Increasing Trust In Expert Evidence Derived From Malware Forensic Tools, Ian M. Kennedy, Blaine Price, Arosha Bandara

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Following a series of high profile miscarriages of justice in the UK linked to questionable expert evidence, the post of the Forensic Science Regulator was created in 2008. The main objective of this role is to improve the standard of practitioner competences and forensic procedures. One of the key strategies deployed to achieve this is the push to incorporate a greater level of scientific conduct in the various fields of forensic practice. Currently there is no statutory requirement for practitioners to become accredited to continue working with the Criminal Justice System of England and Wales. However, the Forensic Science Regulator …

Measuring The Resilience Of Criminogenic Ecosystems To Global Disruption: A Case-Study Of Covid-19 In China, Hervé Borrion, Justin Kurland, Nick Tilley, Peng Chen

Faculty Publications

Copyright: © 2020 Borrion et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This paper uses resilience as a lens through which to analyse disasters and other major threats to patterns of criminal behaviour. A set of indicators and mathematical models are introduced that aim to quantitatively describe changes in crime levels in comparison to what could otherwise be expected, and what might be expected by way of adaptation and subsequent resumption of …

Memory Foreshadow: Memory Forensics Of Hardware Cryptocurrency Wallets – A Tool And Visualization Framework, Tyler Thomas, Mathew Piscitelli, Ilya Shavrov, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

We present Memory FORESHADOW: Memory FOREnSics of HArDware cryptOcurrency Wallets. To the best of our knowledge, this is the primary account of cryptocurrency hardware wallet client memory forensics. Our exploratory analysis revealed forensically relevant data in memory including transaction history, extended public keys, passphrases, and unique device identifiers. Data extracted with FORESHADOW can be used to associate a hardware wallet with a computer and allow an observer to deanonymize all past and future transactions due to hierarchical deterministic wallet address derivation. Additionally, our novel visualization framework enabled us to measure both the persistence and integrity of artifacts produced by the …

Exploring The Learning Efficacy Of Digital Forensics Concepts And Bagging & Tagging Of Digital Devices In Immersive Virtual Reality, Courtney Hassenfeldt, Jillian Jacques, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

This work presents the first account of evaluating learning inside a VR experience created to teach Digital Forensics (DF) concepts, and a hands-on laboratory exercise in Bagging & Tagging a crime scene with digital devices. First, we designed and developed an immersive VR experience which included a lecture and a lab. Next, we tested it with (n = 57) participants in a controlled experiment where they were randomly assigned to a VR group or a physical group. Both groups were subjected to the same lecture and lab, but one was in VR and the other was in the real world. …

Effects Of Microwave Radiation On The Digestion Of Proteins Involved In Body Fluid Identification, Aaron J. Fox

Student Theses

Body fluid identification plays an important role in understanding how the events during a crime may have taken place. The presence of a body fluid may help identify an individual who committed a crime, while the type of body fluid present may help investigators determine how a crime occurred. Current body fluid identification techniques are not always conclusive and may only suggest the presence of a body fluid type. A protocol developed by the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) established a method that confirms body fluid type through mass spectrometry. To identify marker proteins in …

Performance Of A Dna And Protein Co-Extraction With Trypsin In Comparison To Two Proteinase K Based Dna Extraction Methods, Dinura A. Gunatilake

Student Theses

Effective DNA extraction methods are important for forensic applications. The main goal of this experiment was to determine if a newly developed trypsin based protein/DNA co-extraction method applied to contact traces would yield comparable results to a commercial Proteinase K method (QIAamp DNA Investigator Kit) and a Chelex extraction method with Tween 20 used in forensic laboratories. This was tested on 20 sets of sebaceous fingerprints on glass slides.

The results of this study demonstrate the trypsin co-extraction method yielded the highest amount of DNA. In the first comparison, the mean total DNA yields for the trypsin-co extraction method and …

The Law And Policy Of Client-Side Scanning (Originally Published By Lawfare), Paul Rosenzweig

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Impact Energy And Glass Fracture Via .177 Caliber Steel Bbs, Jocenel Beach

Student Theses

Fractured glass is often found at shooting scenes and can provide useful information for crime scene reconstruction. Mechanical glass fracture from a projectile impact can result in different types of fracture patterns. The degree of fracture depends on several factors including: type of glass, the thickness of the glass, curvature (if any), distance from the muzzle, contact angle, and type of projectile. Correlating impact energy to the degree of glass fracture can provide useful information regarding the muzzle-to-target distance for a particular firearm/ammunition combination. This research focuses on the projectile impact velocity of .177 steel BBs shot from a pneumatic …

Further Evaluation Of A Dry Vacuuming Technique For Recovery Of Dna From Handwritten Documents, Christian Hopkins

Student Theses

A previously developed, non-destructive, homemade vacuum method for collecting biological material from handwritten documents had promising DNA results for white copy paper, preserved indented writing, and latent prints. Prior to casework implementation, additional validation experiments are warranted and here the method was tested for different paper substrates. This work describes testing of notebook paper, bank deposit slips, magazine pages, and manila envelopes. The quantity of recovered DNA varied from donor to donor, but the mean quantities showed a trend that can be explained by the different sizes and surface properties of the tested paper types. The rougher paper type, like …

Computed Tomography In Medicolegal Death Investigation: A Critical Review, Trenton Eames

University Honors Theses

The use of computed tomography (CT) scanning in medicolegal death investigations has increased in frequency in recent years. It can be used by investigators to help identify a victim, find a cause of death, or otherwise reveal legally relevant case details. This meta-analysis aimed to examine the research surrounding the use of CT scanning in medicolegal death investigation, focusing in particular on researchers’ scrutiny of the accuracy and precision of this technique within forensic contexts. Thirty-nine research papers were reviewed, with specific attributes and findings examined together in an effort to contextualize CT scanning in medicolegal death investigations. CT scanning …

The 23: Racial And Other Demographic Differences In The Assignment Of Risk Factors For Individuals Found Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity In Virginia, Dominique Raquel Blanchette

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) acquittees uniquely walk the line of involvement in both the criminal justice and mental health systems, both of which have literature indicating the presence of underlying racial biases related to practices and outcomes. The current study examined 366 forensic charts from an inpatient psychiatric hospital in Virginia to examine potential differences in the number of risk factors assigned for NGRI acquittees based on a variety of demographic variables. Information about demographic characteristics, psychiatric history, and criminal history was recorded and analyzed. It was hypothesized that younger age, male gender, a psychotic diagnosis, violent …

Developing A Maceration Method For Isolation Of Dna From Cancellous Bones, Bryan Bernal

Student Theses

Prior to isolating DNA, it is necessary to remove any biological materials that may be present on commingled remains. Manual maceration of the outer surface is time-consuming. This study will address this issue by developing a simple method for processing bone samples prior to DNA isolation. A liquid-based technique was applied to macerate bone fragments by incubating bone fragments in an enzyme solution, removing potential contaminants, followed by a bone tissue disruption. Swine (Sus scrofa) bones were used to simulate human bones. Microscopic analysis suggested this method was effective for surface material removal. The methods effect on the …

The Application Of A Simple Tissue-Disruption Method To Dna Extraction For Species Identification, Jordana R. Fox

Student Theses

The TissueLyser II was used to disrupt animal bones and plant tissue without dry ice or liquid nitrogen for species identification. Bone fragments of fresh swine (Sus scrofa) ribs were used. A 521bp fragment of the cyt b locus was analyzed, and the BLASTn results confirmed that the origin of all the samples was swine (E-value = 0.0). Bone fragments of bovine, chicken, duck, fish, sheep, and swine were also used to test the procedure. An approximately 600bp fragment of the COI locus was analyzed, and the BLASTn results confirmed the origin of all the samples (E-value = …

Archaeology Or Crime Scene? Teeth Micro And Macro Structure Analysis As Dating Variable, Jessica A. Vincenty

Student Theses

Simple methods to aid in the determination of forensic or archaeologic relevancy of skeletonized remains have been researched since the 1950s. With advances in microscopic imaging techniques and machine learning computer data analysis methods the relevancy of decontextualized, comingled remains has room for improvement. This thesis is a study done to pioneer a new approach to analyzing dental skeletal remains to determine forensic relevancy.

Archaeological dental samples collected from the ancient city of Ur in modern day southern Iraq in addition to modern dental extractions were processed for scanning electron microscopy imaging. Archaeological and modern samples displayed different surface and …