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Computer forensics is simply the application of computer investigation and analysis techniques in the interests of determining potential legal evidence. Evidence might be sought in a wide range of computer crime or misuse, including but not limited to theft of trade secrets, theft of or destruction of intellectual property, and fraud. Computer specialists can draw on an array of methods for discovering data that resides in a computer system, or recovering deleted, encrypted, or damaged file information. Any or all of this information may help during discovery, depositions, or actual litigation.
Computers are vital equipment for the business world. Each employee has a personal computer and many professionals are unable to do their jobs without computers. Consequently the empoyees do no longer produce documents in the conventional form. Moreover it is not only the documents that ae carried to the electronic environment. The researches show that employees prefer to communicate via e-mail even with the next door colleagues. The mail traffic within a corporate body varies from daily chats to important contractual negotiations.
The above defined situation have or will have some very significant consequences on legal proceedings. Firstly, much of the evidence has been carried to the electronic environment. Secondly there is an exceeding amount of data which needs to be classified. Finally, the accuracy of the data needs to be verified.
If we think about a business contract to be concluded between two giant corporations, it clear that prior to the contract there will be enormous mail traffic between the departments and probably there will be hundreds of pages of draft. Besides, the companies will also communicate their offers to each other via e-mail. It may be assumed that this electronic documentation is partly preserved as considered of significance and partly deleted. Notwithstanding whether the contract is ultimately concluded, in the event of any dispute arising out of this relation, it is not clear to what extend those electronic documentation can be treated as evidence or whether those files that are deleted are gone forever. What will be the cost for each party?
It has not been so long tat such legal matters are before the foreign courts (especially US judicial system) and accordingly computer forensics is a stage of development to coupe with these legal issues. The questions are way too much to address them all however, the issue has a decisive role within the proceedings since it is directly related with the proof of facts. In the USA there are many companies offering professional expertise services in computer forensics.
Although the above issues are not fully before the Turkish courts, the print outs of e-mail messages are amongst the documents submitted to the courts. This shows that our courts will inevitably receive more queries pertaining these issues.
http://www.computerforensics.net/forensics.htm
http://www.developer.com/java/data/article.php/3308361
http://www.cybersecurityinstitute.biz/forensics.htm
Links
DOAR Electronic Evidence
http://www.doar.com/litigation/electronic/index.asp
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/digitaldiscovery
Digital Discovery Cle Library
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/digitaldiscovery/library/index.asp
Applied Discovery
http://www.applieddiscovery.com/lawLibrary/articles.asp
Willy Ancey
http://www.willyancey.com/electronic_evidence.htm
Ken Withers
http://www.kenwithers.com
David Hricik
http://www.hricik.com/business.html
Computer Forensics, Inc.
http://www.forensics.com/html/resource_center.html
Susan E. Giddin
http://www.info-law.com/articles.html
Computer Forensics Expert Witness Network
http://www.computerforensics.net
New Technologies, Inc. (Computer Forensics for Civil Litigation)
http://www.dataforensics.com
Ronald B. Standler
http://www.rbs2.com/
Cyber Security Institute
http://www.cybersecurityinstitute.biz/documents.htm
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