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Digital archiving & compliance

Within eGovernment, trust in electronic stored information (ESI) is a necessity. In the last decades, most organizations underwent substantial reorganization. The integration of structured data in relational databases has improved documentation of business transactions and increased data quality. That integration has improved accountability as well. Almost 90% of the information that organizations manage is unstructured (e.g., e-mail, documents, multimedia files, etc.). Those files cannot be integrated into a traditional database in an easy way. Like structured data, unstructured ESI in organizations can be denoted as records, when it is meant to be (and used as) evidence for organizational policies, decisions, products, actions and transactions. Stakeholders in eGovernment, like citizens, governments and courts, are making increasing demands for the trustworthiness of this ESI for privacy, evidential and transparency reasons. A theoretical analysis of literature of information, organization and archival science illustrates that for delivering evidence, reconstruction of the past is essential, even in this age of information overload. We want to analyse how Digital Archiving and eDiscovery contribute to the realization of trusted ESI, to the reconstruction of the past and to delivering evidence. Digital Archiving ensures (by implementing and managing the ‘information value chain’) that: [1] ESI can be trusted, that it meets the necessary three dimensions of information: quality, context and relevance, and that [2] trusted ESI meets the remaining fourth dimension of information: survival, so that it is preserved for as long as is necessary (even indefinitely) to comply to privacy, accountability and transparency regulations. EDiscovery is any process (or series of processes) in which (trusted) ESI is sought, located, secured and searched with the intent of using it as evidence in a civil or criminal legal case. A difference between the two mechanisms is that Digital Archiving is implemented ex ante and eDiscovery ex post legal proceedings. The combination of both mechanisms ensures that organizations have a documented understanding of [1] the processing of policies, decisions, products, actions and transactions within (inter-) organizational processes; [2] the way organizations account for those policies, decisions, products, actions and transactions within their business processes; and [3] the reconstruction of policies, decisions, products, actions and transactions from business processes over time. This understanding is extremely important for the realization of eGovernment, for which reconstruction of the past is an essential functionality. Both mechanisms are illustrated with references to practical examples.

Forensics en fashion

UFORIA

With the current growth of data in digital investigations, one solution for forensic investigators is to visualise the data for the detection of suspicious activity. However, this process can be complex and difficult to achieve, as there few tools available that are simple and can handle a wide variety of data types. This paper describes the development of a flexible platform, capable of visualising many different types of related data. The platform's back and front end can efficiently deal with large datasets, and supporta wide range of MIME types that can be easily extended. The paper also describes the development of the visualisation front end, which offers flexible, easily understandable visualisations of many different kinds of data and data relationships.

Forensics and fashion

Digitale sporen in smartphones. Een kennismaking met <i>pattern-of-life forensics</i>

Mensen laten in het dagelijks leven steeds meer digitale sporen achter in computers, tablets en smartphones die waardevol kunnen zijn voor de opsporing en voor de bewijsvoering in strafzaken. Naast sporen die we bewust achterlaten, zoals berichten, foto’s en video’s, laten onze handelingen ook allerlei sporen na waarvan we ons veelal niet bewust zijn. Tezamen bieden al deze sporen een kijkje in het dagelijks activiteitenpatroon van een gebruiker. Het digitaal forensisch onderzoek dat zich hierop richt, wordt aangeduid als pattern-of-life forensics. Dit onderzoek is een waardevolle aanvulling voor het toetsen en opstellen van scenario’s, maar tegelijkertijd is het ook een complex onderzoeksgebied vanwege de snelle ontwikkelingen in hardware en software.In dit artikel geven we een aantal voorbeelden van pattern-of-life forensics aan de hand van rechterlijke uitspraken, experimenten die zijn uitgevoerd met smartphones en onderzoek dat is gepubliceerd in de literatuur. In het bijzonder hebben we ons daarbij gericht op het aantonen of een handeling met voorbedachte raad is verricht, op het aantonen van eigenaarschap van een smartphone en op de betrouwbaarheid van digitale sporen als die worden betwist. Juist het dagelijkse patroon van activiteiten dat door middel van pattern-of-life forensics wordt vastgesteld, kan bij uitstek vergeleken worden met observaties uit andere bronnen zoals beveiligingscamera’s, andere inbeslaggenomen bewijsstukken en/of getuigenverklaringen.

Use of Lateral Flow Assays in Forensics

Already for some decades lateral flow assays (LFAs) are ‘common use’ devices in our daily life. Also, for forensic use LFAs are developed, such as for the analysis of illicit drugs and DNA, but also for the detection of explosives and body fluid identification. Despite their advantages, including ease-of-use, LFAs are not yet frequently applied at a crime scene. This review describes (academic) developments of LFAs for forensic applications, focusing on biological and chemical applications, whereby the main advantages and disadvantages of LFAs for the different forensic applications are summarized. Additionally, a critical review is provided, discussing why LFAs are not frequently applied within the forensic field and highlighting the steps that are needed to bring LFAs to the forensic market.