Forensics

Forensics
Author: Val McDermid
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2015-07-07
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0802191053

Bestselling author of Broken Ground “offers fascinating glimpses” into the real world of criminal forensics from its beginnings to the modern day (The Boston Globe). The dead can tell us all about themselves: where they came from, how they lived, how they died, and, of course, who killed them. Using the messages left by a corpse, a crime scene, or the faintest of human traces, forensic scientists unlock the mysteries of the past and serve justice. In Forensics, international bestselling crime author Val McDermid guides readers through this field, drawing on interviews with top-level professionals, ground-breaking research, and her own experiences on the scene. Along the way, McDermid discovers how maggots collected from a corpse can help determine one’s time of death; how a DNA trace a millionth the size of a grain of salt can be used to convict a killer; and how a team of young Argentine scientists led by a maverick American anthropologist were able to uncover the victims of a genocide. Prepare to travel to war zones, fire scenes, and autopsy suites as McDermid comes into contact with both extraordinary bravery and wickedness, tracing the history of forensics from its earliest beginnings to the cutting-edge science of the modern day.

Handbook of Digital Forensics and Investigation

Handbook of Digital Forensics and Investigation
Author: Eoghan Casey
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 594
Release: 2009-10-07
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0080921477

Handbook of Digital Forensics and Investigation builds on the success of the Handbook of Computer Crime Investigation, bringing together renowned experts in all areas of digital forensics and investigation to provide the consummate resource for practitioners in the field. It is also designed as an accompanying text to Digital Evidence and Computer Crime. This unique collection details how to conduct digital investigations in both criminal and civil contexts, and how to locate and utilize digital evidence on computers, networks, and embedded systems. Specifically, the Investigative Methodology section of the Handbook provides expert guidance in the three main areas of practice: Forensic Analysis, Electronic Discovery, and Intrusion Investigation. The Technology section is extended and updated to reflect the state of the art in each area of specialization. The main areas of focus in the Technology section are forensic analysis of Windows, Unix, Macintosh, and embedded systems (including cellular telephones and other mobile devices), and investigations involving networks (including enterprise environments and mobile telecommunications technology). This handbook is an essential technical reference and on-the-job guide that IT professionals, forensic practitioners, law enforcement, and attorneys will rely on when confronted with computer related crime and digital evidence of any kind. *Provides methodologies proven in practice for conducting digital investigations of all kinds*Demonstrates how to locate and interpret a wide variety of digital evidence, and how it can be useful in investigations *Presents tools in the context of the investigative process, including EnCase, FTK, ProDiscover, foremost, XACT, Network Miner, Splunk, flow-tools, and many other specialized utilities and analysis platforms*Case examples in every chapter give readers a practical understanding of the technical, logistical, and legal challenges that arise in real investigations

Photo Forensics

Photo Forensics
Author: Hany Farid
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2016-11-04
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0262035340

The first comprehensive and detailed presentation of techniques for authenticating digital images. Photographs have been doctored since photography was invented. Dictators have erased people from photographs and from history. Politicians have manipulated photos for short-term political gain. Altering photographs in the predigital era required time-consuming darkroom work. Today, powerful and low-cost digital technology makes it relatively easy to alter digital images, and the resulting fakes are difficult to detect. The field of photo forensics—pioneered in Hany Farid's lab at Dartmouth College—restores some trust to photography. In this book, Farid describes techniques that can be used to authenticate photos. He provides the intuition and background as well as the mathematical and algorithmic details needed to understand, implement, and utilize a variety of photo forensic techniques. Farid traces the entire imaging pipeline. He begins with the physics and geometry of the interaction of light with the physical world, proceeds through the way light passes through a camera lens, the conversion of light to pixel values in the electronic sensor, the packaging of the pixel values into a digital image file, and the pixel-level artifacts introduced by photo-editing software. Modeling the path of light during image creation reveals physical, geometric, and statistical regularities that are disrupted during the creation of a fake. Various forensic techniques exploit these irregularities to detect traces of tampering. A chapter of case studies examines the authenticity of viral video and famously questionable photographs including “Golden Eagle Snatches Kid” and the Lee Harvey Oswald backyard photo.

File System Forensic Analysis

File System Forensic Analysis
Author: Brian Carrier
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Total Pages: 895
Release: 2005-03-17
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0134439546

The Definitive Guide to File System Analysis: Key Concepts and Hands-on Techniques Most digital evidence is stored within the computer's file system, but understanding how file systems work is one of the most technically challenging concepts for a digital investigator because there exists little documentation. Now, security expert Brian Carrier has written the definitive reference for everyone who wants to understand and be able to testify about how file system analysis is performed. Carrier begins with an overview of investigation and computer foundations and then gives an authoritative, comprehensive, and illustrated overview of contemporary volume and file systems: Crucial information for discovering hidden evidence, recovering deleted data, and validating your tools. Along the way, he describes data structures, analyzes example disk images, provides advanced investigation scenarios, and uses today's most valuable open source file system analysis tools—including tools he personally developed. Coverage includes Preserving the digital crime scene and duplicating hard disks for "dead analysis" Identifying hidden data on a disk's Host Protected Area (HPA) Reading source data: Direct versus BIOS access, dead versus live acquisition, error handling, and more Analyzing DOS, Apple, and GPT partitions; BSD disk labels; and Sun Volume Table of Contents using key concepts, data structures, and specific techniques Analyzing the contents of multiple disk volumes, such as RAID and disk spanning Analyzing FAT, NTFS, Ext2, Ext3, UFS1, and UFS2 file systems using key concepts, data structures, and specific techniques Finding evidence: File metadata, recovery of deleted files, data hiding locations, and more Using The Sleuth Kit (TSK), Autopsy Forensic Browser, and related open source tools When it comes to file system analysis, no other book offers this much detail or expertise. Whether you're a digital forensics specialist, incident response team member, law enforcement officer, corporate security specialist, or auditor, this book will become an indispensable resource for forensic investigations, no matter what analysis tools you use.

Security, Privacy, and Digital Forensics in the Cloud

Security, Privacy, and Digital Forensics in the Cloud
Author: Lei Chen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2019-04-29
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1119053285

In a unique and systematic way, this book discusses the security and privacy aspects of the cloud, and the relevant cloud forensics. Cloud computing is an emerging yet revolutionary technology that has been changing the way people live and work. However, with the continuous growth of cloud computing and related services, security and privacy has become a critical issue. Written by some of the top experts in the field, this book specifically discusses security and privacy of the cloud, as well as the digital forensics of cloud data, applications, and services. The first half of the book enables readers to have a comprehensive understanding and background of cloud security, which will help them through the digital investigation guidance and recommendations found in the second half of the book. Part One of Security, Privacy and Digital Forensics in the Cloud covers cloud infrastructure security; confidentiality of data; access control in cloud IaaS; cloud security and privacy management; hacking and countermeasures; risk management and disaster recovery; auditing and compliance; and security as a service (SaaS). Part Two addresses cloud forensics – model, challenges, and approaches; cyberterrorism in the cloud; digital forensic process and model in the cloud; data acquisition; digital evidence management, presentation, and court preparation; analysis of digital evidence; and forensics as a service (FaaS). Thoroughly covers both security and privacy of cloud and digital forensics Contributions by top researchers from the U.S., the European and other countries, and professionals active in the field of information and network security, digital and computer forensics, and cloud and big data Of interest to those focused upon security and implementation, and incident management Logical, well-structured, and organized to facilitate comprehension Security, Privacy and Digital Forensics in the Cloud is an ideal book for advanced undergraduate and master's-level students in information systems, information technology, computer and network forensics, as well as computer science. It can also serve as a good reference book for security professionals, digital forensics practitioners and cloud service providers.

Android Forensics

Android Forensics
Author: Andrew Hoog
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2011-06-15
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1597496510

"Android Forensics" covers an open source mobile device platform based on the Linux 2.6 kernel and managed by the Open Handset Alliance. This book provides a thorough review of the Android platform including supported hardware devices, the structure of the Android development project, and implementation of core services (wireless communication, data storage, and other low-level functions).

The Science of Murder

The Science of Murder
Author: Carla Valentine
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2022-05-31
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1728251869

Discover the science of forensics through Agatha Christie's novels in the ultimate true crime investigation Agatha Christie is the bestselling novelist of all time, and nearly every story she ever wrote involves one—or, more commonly, several—dead bodies. And the cause of death, the motives behind violent crimes, the clues that inevitably are left behind, and the people who put the pieces together to solve the mystery invite the reader to analyze the evidence and race to find the answer before the detective does. Nearly every step of the way, Christie outlines the nuts and bolts of early 20th-century crime detection, relying on physical evidence to tell the real story behind the facades humans erect to escape detection. Christie wouldn't have talked of "forensics" as it is understood today—most of her work predates the modern developments of forensics science—but in each tale she harnesses the power of human observation, ingenuity, and scientific developments of the era. A fascinating, science-based deep dive, The Science of Murder examines the use of fingerprints, firearms, handwriting, blood spatter analysis, toxicology, and more in Christie's beloved works. What readers are saying: "Highly entertaining with many fascinating snippets of insider information about real life criminal cases. This is a must for Christie fans." "Thoroughly researched and a delight to read!" "A wealth of information and knowledge to help give an insight to the golden age of crime fiction." "Absolutely brilliant book that looks at how Agatha Christie made use of developments in forensic science in her novels and upgraded her understanding over time." "Agatha Christie is one of my favorite authors, unparalleled in her clever plots and twisting tales. She was also a forensic expert, weaving into her novels human observation, ingenuity and genuine science of the era. This book illuminates all of Agatha's incredible knowledge, showing how she stayed at the cutting edge of forensic knowledge, as seen through her much loved characters."

Microbial Forensics

Microbial Forensics
Author: Bruce Budowle
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 753
Release: 2010-10-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0123820073

Microbial Forensics is a rapidly evolving scientific discipline. In the last decade, and particularly due to the anthrax letter attacks in the United States, microbial forensics has become more formalized and has played an increasingly greater role in crime investigations. This has brought renewed interest, development and application of new technologies, and new rules of forensic and policy engagement. It has many applications ranging from biodefense, criminal investigations, providing intelligence information, making society more secure, and helping protect precious resources, particularly human life. A combination of diverse areas is investigated, including the major disciplines of biology, microbiology, medicine, chemistry, physics, statistics, population genetics, and computer science. Microbial Forensics, Second Edition is fully revised and updated and serves as a complete reference of the discipline. It describes the advances, as well as the challenges and opportunities ahead, and will be integral in applying science to help solve future biocrimes. - A collection of microbiology, virology, toxicology and mycology as it relates to forensics, in one reference - New and expanded content to include statistical analysis of forensic data and legal admissibility and the standards of evidence, to name a few - Includes research information and application of that research to crime scene analysis, which will allow practitioners to understand and apply the knowledge to their practice with ease

Little Book of Forensics

Little Book of Forensics
Author: David Owen
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2008-02-12
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0061374202

To take a crime from scene to court may involve several specialized branches of forensic science. Criminalistics specialists look at statistics, splash patterns, fingerprints and distribution of material at the scene; forensic chemistry deals with fires, explosives, glass, paint and soil analysis; toxicology looks at poisons and drug abuse; serology is the science of body fluids including blood, saliva and semen; the documents unit look at fakes and forgeries; and the computer branch investigate hacking and electronically detectable crimes. This case-packed book shows you how each unit works through 50 carefully selected crime studies that describe how scientific methods have been used within the field of criminal investigation across the world.