Toward Defining the Intersection of Forensics and Information Technology

Information technology has become infused with many aspects of everyday life. Naturally, aspects of information technology have become more common in both civil and criminal law. However, the people called upon to address these technological issues are typically versed exclusively in either law or technology. The authors contend that a new discipline is emerging from the intersection of forensics and information technology. They argue for a formalization of the process by which this discipline evolves and a broadening of the definitions currently in place. A case study is presented to illustrate the shortcomings of current, narrowly defined terms and the need for individuals with broader expertise. The authors conclude by proposing some of these areas of expertise.

[1]  Warren G. Kruse,et al.  Computer Forensics: Incident Response Essentials , 2001 .

[2]  P. H. Lindsay Human Information Processing , 1977 .

[3]  Stephen G. MacDonell,et al.  IDENTIFIED (Integrated Dictionary-based Extraction of Non-language-dependent Token Information for Forensic Identification, Examination, and Discrimination): a dictionary-based system for extracting source code metrics for software forensics , 1998, Proceedings. 1998 International Conference Software Engineering: Education and Practice (Cat. No.98EX220).

[4]  Seamus O. Ciardhuáin,et al.  An Extended Model of Cybercrime Investigations , 2004, Int. J. Digit. EVid..

[5]  Robert Slade Software Forensics : Collecting Evidence from the Scene of a Digital Crime , 2004 .

[6]  Lee Garber,et al.  Computer Forensics: High-Tech Law Enforcement , 2001, Computer.

[7]  Michael A. Caloyannides Computer Forensics and Privacy , 2001 .

[8]  Peter Stephenson Application Of Formal Methods To Root Cause Analysis of Digital Incidents , 2004, Int. J. Digit. EVid..

[9]  Peter Stephenson Modeling of Post-Incident Root Cause Analysis , 2003, Int. J. Digit. EVid..

[10]  Stephen G. MacDonell,et al.  Forensics : : old methods for a new science , 2004 .

[11]  Eugene H. Spafford,et al.  Software forensics: Can we track code to its authors? , 1993, Comput. Secur..

[12]  Mark Pollitt,et al.  Computer Forensics Education , 2003, IEEE Secur. Priv..

[13]  Tamas Abraham,et al.  Investigative profiling with computer forensic log data and association rules , 2002, 2002 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, 2002. Proceedings..

[14]  Anne H. Soukhanov,et al.  The american heritage dictionary of the english language , 1992 .

[15]  Darren Dalcher Forensic ECBS: the way forward , 2001, Proceedings. Eighth Annual IEEE International Conference and Workshop On the Engineering of Computer-Based Systems-ECBS 2001.