Lesson 4 Page 3
Observe: Computer Forensics
Because paper and pencil are being replaced with digital tools, most crimes leave a digital trace.
• Was a will altered so a relative could receive more money? Scientists can compare information found on multiple hard drives to find the original will.
• Investigators can find deleted files such as deleted government emails.
• Investigators can identify who stole a company's secrets by locating which websites were visited, which files were downloaded, when were files downloaded, and who was the author of the files?
• Investigators can locate criminals, victims, or witnesses to a crime by finding what was said in communications.
Forensic scientists look at the visible and invisible marks on a document for changes, erasures, or page substitutions. They find the hidden changes or track the digital information stored on the memory of a point-of-sale pad. They use tools like Photoshop to verify whether or not a signature is genuine.
Video
Watch the videos What is Cyber Forensics? and M889 - The case of the stolen exams.
Career Connection
If you are interested in detailed work and want to fight crime, document analysis may be the place for you. Document analysis or graphanalysis is the study and analysis of the origin of documents, both digital and handwritten. It can be used in cases of identity theft, forgery, counterfeiting, and fraud.