U.S. versus AOL
This was a case regarding fraudulent business operations between PurchasePro and AOL. It focused on the overstating revenues that were obtained from the sale of software licenses. Chief executive officers of PurchasePro were accused of several charges including wire-fraud. This means that the crime involved the use of a computer or an equivalent electronics medium. This attaches the computer system as a means to achievement of the offenders’ main goal. Other crimes related to this case and computer use included identity theft and cyber stalking. As such, this case necessitated the use of computer forensics in the determination of the authenticity of the evidence material (Carr, 1994).
A computer forensics officer is one professional that would come in handy in the follow up and collection of evidence regarding this case. This is a specially trained officer on techniques to use in preserving evidence relating to a case such as the one mentioned. In the provision of testimony, such a professional would help to give insight as per the actual occurrences in light of the evidence that is available. This will help the jury or the judge to decide on the right course of action (Rittinghouse and Hancock, 2003).
Similarly, a computer forensic analyst can be present during the prosecution’s testimony. This is a professional who specializes in the critical analysis and recovery of information that may otherwise be predicted as lost due to deletion. Such a professional can help bring to light information that may be used to capture the accused.
A computer forensics analyst ought to have a field kit. This is a special toolbox that has some powder for tracking fingerprints and some hand gloves. On arrival at the digital crime scene, the computer forensic investigator should start by taking photographs of the scene as it is. This helps in reconstruction of the possible events that took place. Furthermore, the investigator should have evidence bags in which he should store any hardware materials found at the scene. This helps ensure there is no alteration of evidence whatsoever (Nissan, 2010).
Details of the computer at the time of collecting the evidence should be noted, and no deletion or changes should be made on any of the computers that contain the digital evidence. The operating system should not be changed. Any data present on external hard drives or even in the data base should be copied to the investigator’s person hard drive. This can then be analyzed for content at a later time (Casey, 2010). The investigator should also create an MD5 that would aid in extracting an exact image of the data. However, protected files (from copying) pose a challenge when it comes to creating an MD5 file.
Through the use of application metadata, the computer forensics analyst can determine the date of creation of various files. This can help to determine the source of a file and hence act as evidence once it is documented. Any volatile data, such as data that is not saved at the time of collecting evidence should be copied into the investigator’s mass storage medium. Internet searches and bookmarks of the user computer can be retrieved from the central computer system or database. The computer forensic analyst should then start to create the chain of custody document. This acts as evidence that no information in the evidence has been altered (Li et.al, 2011).
If these documentation procedures had been taken into account, perhaps the two top executives of AOL might not have been acquitted of all charges. This is because of the increased credibility and admissibility of the digital evidence would have affected the final verdict. However, it still remains vivid that such cases, as this one, are unpredictable even with substantial digital and physical evidence.
In a case on Alejandro Dominguez (1990), the accused was convicted and sentenced on charges of rape and home invasion. The conviction was based on the victim’s identification of the attacker. The process was highly biased and suggestive. The identification of Dominguez did not even align to the victim’s description of the attacker in the report. This case led to a misjudgment and wrongful conviction. This was related to inaccurate forensic analysis of the semen samples.
In Liser versus Smith (2003), Jason Liser was mistakenly arrested for murder of a woman whose ATM card had been used at a bank. This was due to an error between the time on the camera and the actual time. The court relied on this digital evidence resulting in a misjudgment of trial. However, the error was later discovered, and the true offenders caught.
References
Rittinghouse, J. W., & Hancock, B. (2003). Cybersecurity operations handbook. Amsterdam:
Elsevier Digital Press.
Carr, I. (1994). Computers and law. Oxford: Intellect.
Nissan, E. (2010). Computer applications for handling legal evidence, police investigation and
Li, C.-T., & Ho, A. T. S. (2011). New technologies for digital crime and forensics: Devices,
applications, and software. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.
Casey, E. (2010). Digital evidence and computer crime: Forensic science, computers and the
Internet. London: Academic.
