Ontology for Complex Mission Scenarios in Forensic Computing

Complex mission scenarios are those in which information changes continuously and quickly or scenarios having large quantities of expensive resources, a large number of norms and rules, or a large number of personnel, for instance crimes in cyberspace, computer forensics, or computer and digital investigation. Organisations participating in such scenarios may have components in different geographic locations: some in the field and others in the office. Enabling coordination between these components in highly unstable environments is a challenging task. Our aim is to investigate the use of ontology with computational agents to support complex mission scenarios in Forensic Computing. This paper presents a logicand set-based model to represent scenarios in the context of a formal organisation. In addition, an outstanding ontology was implemented that describes typical mission activities, their relationships, required resources, and constraints. This ontology is used to map a mission to an organisation. We also present a realistic ontology scheme in forensic computing for the Brazilian Federal Police and a case study in which agents from a formal organisation were deployed in complex mission scenarios. This ontology can be easily extended to other police or military forces, and is an efficient tool for managing people and resources.