Posts Tagged ‘forensics’

What You Need to Identify about Forensics Science

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

More commonly known as forensics, forensics science consists of a wide range of applications related to the legal system both for civil and crime actions. Over the last years, life-based documentaries and television crime series have made forensics science a part of popular culture. Such materials depict the way a forensic investigation is conducted at the crime scene for instance. Thus, according to the laws and methodology of forensics science, experts gather all the information that is to be used in a court of law for the conviction of a criminal.

Forensics science has a very long tradition in the history of mankind, as it seems to have been practiced by the Romans for example. Chinese and European records do confirm such evidence. In the early 18th century, there were even treatises of forensic medicine and police medicine in support of the investigations for criminal acts, particularly violent deaths. This is how medical experts were able to detect the presence of arsenic in corpses, thus, getting a proof of poisoning. Such steps in police diagnosis contributed to the development of the forensics science as we know it today.

The sub-divisions or applications that are presently belonging to the wider domain of forensics science include toxicology, criminalistics, forensic geology, forensic anthropology, applied science and so on. As we can see from such examples, forensics serves for more than the act of justice alone. There are certain subdivisions that serve well for archaeological, ethnological and geographical purposes. Forensic anthropology identifies human remains, and enables the study of past cultures and historical contexts as they appear on site.

Controversies have also existed over the years, mainly related to some aspects of forensics science that are not considered scientifically valid. For the moment, forensic dentistry can no longer convince whether the bite marks belong to one person, without any shade of a doubt. Many convicts were released in the US, in 1999, precisely because the dental evidence that was used for their conviction could have been wrong. Several other controversies fire up spirits, but like all the other domains, forensics science has made progresses and improved over the years.

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Essential Realities about Data Forensics

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

With the ever increasing importance of computers and digital media for both personal and corporate users, the number of crimes involving electronic data is now higher than ever. Thus, data forensics has become a distinct sub-division of forensic science consisting of technical expertise, the finding of electronic evidence, digital investigations and even data recovery. Data forensics is right to use in judicial cases that involve sexual harassment, intellectual property theft, discrimination, breach of contract and so on. Therefore, it is not that difficult to understand why data forensics is so important in the legal system.

A normal type of computer investigation cannot detect or extract bits of information remained after deletion. Data forensics will normally examine files that are hidden, deleted or even discarded, as well as fragments or file left-overs. Although there are lots of challenges when trying to recover data or to identify the criminal process, this search for the needle in the haystack is pretty successful. What is the relevance of such evidence for legal cases? Well, practice has already proved it that even the course of a trial could be changed by the retrieval of deleted e-mail messages for instance.

The challenges that data forensics expert have to face are enormous. The applications do have far-reaching applications, but it takes hours to extract digital evidence and make it stable. Sometimes the necessary information is buried deep in the corporate electronic system, or sometimes, even if it is physically identifiable it is difficult to separate and analyze extensively, off line. This is also the reason why a duplication procedure is used to protect the information during the extraction process. Great caution, strict standards and lots of skills are needed for each of these steps and only real pros can succeed.

A data forensics expert should be contacted immediately, once a breach in the security system or a criminal act against electronic media is detected. This will reduce the costs of data collection and will make info recovery more likely. Moreover, it is false to assume that data forensics only applies to computer hard drives as the main systems that can store information; there are cases of criminal action involving, USB devices, CDs, DVDs and even voice mail systems. Even photocopy machines include hard drives and the scanned or copied documents can be afterwards retrieved from them.

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Significant Realities about Forensics Investigation

Friday, March 5th, 2010

The world of justice seems to be shaped by forensics investigation procedures, and popular culture has integrated many character figures from TV crime series that depict great forensics skills. There is an impressive number of tasks that a forensics investigation is capable of covering today: from autopsy techniques and forensic anthropology to DNA fingerprinting, computer facial reconstructions, toxicology and lots of others. Science constantly proves to be the best way to fight crime and support the legal system. Investigators are in charge of the procedures, and they are the once to bear the responsibility.

There are methods, features, science experiments and interviews that increase the variety of a forensics investigation models even further. Starting from the crime scene, forensics investigation passes to crime procedures, lab tests and the rest. Although people get the impression that a forensics investigation revolves around the laboratory all the time, this is not necessarily true particularly since experts cannot neglect what the crime scene has to provide in terms of information. The court evidence may be compromised if the crime scene is not analyzed correctly, therefore all forensic skills work in the direction of identifying evidence no matter how small.

The peculiarity of a forensics investigation further depends on the type of crime that the authorities are dealing with. The steps of a data analysis for instance will be different than those of a robbery. Thus, for computer forensics the investigator has to be prepared with the adequate equipment before starting data collection. Once all the details have been identified, there follows the collection of data, the examination, the analysis and the reporting. The procedures and measures vary for each of the steps involved although they eventually converge into one single viable point: finding the criminal.

Different experts will take part to the forensics investigation depending on the kind of analysis is required. In fact, all the results of such criminal analysis are a sum of several people’s contribution, because several forensic departments go through the evidence or investigate different aspects of the criminal act. Most of the cases relying on forensics investigation receive a solution and the act of justice can continue, but there are also cases when no charges can be formulated against suspects because of lack of evidence. There are hundreds maybe thousands of such cases in the archives of police departments all over the world.

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Facts about Forensics Analysis

Friday, March 5th, 2010

The specificity of a forensic analysis depends on the domain or field of the criminal investigation. Thus, between homicide and corporate date theft, the procedure will vary a lot. There are however some general common grounds that are encountered with both procedures. First of all, finding evidence that can be accepted in a court of law is not enough. Before getting to court, a criminal investigator has to make sure that he/she extracts and preserves evidence, preventing decay or damage that would make it unusable. Furthermore, the forensic analysis actually starts when the crime scene has been thoroughly searched by the forensic experts.

The laboratory forensic analysis can reveal a whole range of traces and evidences that cannot be identifiable on the spot and with regular means. Thus, fingerprint matching, facial portraits from DNA prints, analysis of minerals, textiles, germs and bacteria as well as other elements collected on the crime scene get investigated one by one for confirmation or discarding as relevant or irrelevant for criminal prosecution. In case victims are involved in the forensic analysis, medical exams and checks will be performed by people who are qualified to identify anything with relevance for the case.

It is the popular belief that a forensic analysis necessarily involves manslaughter or other very tragic crime but forensic analysis serves for a very large number of investigations. Where there is a work accident, a fire, a case of identity or data theft, situations of financial fraud and so on, a good forensic analysis could reveal the culprit, and even help to reducing loss and recovering data. The criminal justice picture we tend to attribute to a regular forensic analysis results from the impact that police TV series such as CSI have on popular culture.

Moreover, information on how a forensic analysis is conducted is plentiful in Discovery documentaries in the forensic crime investigations. This sensationalism of violence is an international trend, it affects people from all over the world and it has to be kept under control in order not to harm young minds. Nobody should interfere with forensic investigation because without knowing it one could destroy or ruin evidence and affect the very course of a trial. Professionals know what they have to do, so we should let them to. A forensic analysis is not amateur detective work but something a lot more complex from the scientific point of view.

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Data Forensics

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Forensics is an ever evolving science with a lot of possibilities acquire deeper knowledge about by different forensics programs or forensics classes.
With the ever increasing importance of computers and digital media for both personal and corporate users, the number of crimes involving electronic data is now higher than ever. Thus, only data forensics experts can search computers for electronic evidence, make digital investigations, recover lost data and provide technical expertise. To count only a few of the judicial cases for which data forensics is useful, we ought to mention breach of contract, intellectual property theft, discrimination, sexual harassment and so on. Therefore, it was not difficult for data forensics to become a legal necessity in the context of the computers’ ubiquity.

A normal type of computer investigation cannot detect or extract bits of information remained after deletion. File left-overs, deleted files, hidden and discarded files are searched and analyzed as part of the data forensics analysis. Although there are lots of challenges when trying to recover data or to identify the criminal process, experts in this fields have more than once been successful at finding the needle in the haystack. What relevance does such evidence have for legal cases? Well, it has been proved by practice that the recovery of a deleted e-mail message can change the course of a trial.

Data forensics constantly needs to face apparently unsurmountable challenges. The applications are indeed far-reaching, but it takes hours to extract digital evidence and make it stable. Sometimes the extractor has difficulties in getting to the information that is buried too deep in the electronic system, or too exposed to destruction. Moreover, for a successful data collection, data forensics has to protect the extracted elements by duplication so that  the information is preserved and not altered and spoiled during the process. Great caution, strict standards and lots of skills are required for each of these steps and only real pros can succeed.

A data forensics expert should be contacted immediately, once a breach in the security system or a criminal act against electronic media is detected. This will enable the appropriate and cost-limited data collection in the best conditions possible. Moreover, it is false to assume that data forensics only applies to computer hard drives as the main systems that can store information; there are cases of criminal action involving, USB devices, CDs, DVDs and even voice mail systems. Even photocopy machines include hard drives and the scanned or copied documents can be afterwards retrieved from them.