Digital Records Forensics: A New Science and Academic Program for Forensic Readiness

Abstract

This paper introduces the Digital Records Forensics project, a research endeavour located at the University of British Columbia in Canada and aimed at the development of a new science resulting from the integration of digital forensics with diplomatics, archival science, information science and the law of evidence, and of an interdisciplinary graduate degree program, called Digital Records Forensics Studies, directed to professionals working for law enforcement agencies, legal firms, courts, and all kind of institutions and business that require their services. The program anticipates the need for organizations to become "forensically ready," defined by John Tan as "maximizing the ability of an environment to collect credible digital evidence while minimizing the cost of an incident response (Tan, 2001)." The paper argues the need for such a program, describes its nature and content, and proposes ways of delivering it.

Integrating digital forensics into born‐digital workflows: The BitCurator project

“…Previous work has focused on identifying potential uses for digital forensic tools in cultural heritage settings (Garfinkel & Cox, 2009; John, 2009) and grounding digital forensics in contemporary archival theory and best practices (Duranti, 2009; Duranti & Endicott‐Popovsky, 2010; Woods, Lee, & Garfinkel, 2011). Additionally, several grant‐funded projects have focused on or incorporated digital forensics into their research objectives: the British Library's Digital Lives Research Project, for example, identifies digital forensic capture of disk information as a way of ensuring the authenticity of data (John et al, 2009, p.l26); a conference funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources produced Digital Forensics and Born‐Digital Content in Cultural Heritage Collections, a report that directly considered the challenges that born‐digital content poses to collecting institutions (Kirschenbaum, 2010); and recently the AIMS project has developed an inter‐institutional model for stewardship of born digital collections, using and standardizing institutional models of digital forensic capture, stabilization, and provision of access (AIMS Project Group, 2012).…”

Digital Forensic Readiness: An Insight into Governmental and Academic Initiatives

“…This project is aimed at integrating digital forensics with disciplines pertaining to diplomatics, archival science, information science and evidence law to create an interdisciplinary graduate degree program, called Digital Records Forensics Studies. The program anticipates the need for organizations to be able for timely response in the event of an incident [15].…”

“…This problem overlaps to some extent with the modern problem of determining the authenticity of electronic records, as can be used as digital evidence in a court of law [15]. The interdisciplinary research project, as undertaken by members of the University of British Columbia, aims to:…”

“…• allow for the development of education programs forming professionals capable of acquiring, as well as creating, assessing, controlling and maintaining reliable, accurate and authentic records for as long as they are needed [15].…”

Educating for trust

“…Most importantly, in the first stage of stream development, the practical experience would allow digital records forensics students and their professors to assess the value of their education, to identify gaps and to work towards a course and curriculum development that better serves the needs of professionals. At the same time, the students and their programme of education would be visible to professionals, who will appreciate the value of both and generate the demand required by universities to support such programmes (Duranti and Endicott-Popovsky 2010).…”