INTRODUCTION
Mobile or Cellular phone – Section 2 (ha) of information technology act, 2000 – “Communication device” means cell phones, personal digital assistance or combination of both or any other device used to communicate, send or transmit any text, video, audio or image.
Computer crime or cyber crime – information technology act, 2000 – Computer means any electronic, magnetic, optical or other high-speed data processing device or system which performs logical, arithmetic, and memory functions by manipulations of electronic, magnetic or optical impulses and includes all input output, processing, storage, computer software or communication facilities which are connected or related to the computer in computer system or computer network.
The primary goal of mobile phone / computer crime investigation
To recover information (both and covert), that is pertinent to an investigation and prosecution of the criminal activity being investigated.
Investigators need to obtain copies of relevant computer record, without in any way altering the contents of the computer upon which those records are stored.
Information gained from computer/mobile phone memory files:
- Personal History,
- Medical Information,
- Corporate Espionage,
- Emails,
- Link,
- Criminal Conspiracy,
- SMS/MMS,
- Threatening Calls,
- Audio Files,
- Video Files, Etc.
Sources:
- ACPO (2009) Practice Guide for Computer-Based Electronic Evidence, (2009), http://www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/Data/ACPO%20Guidelines%20v18.pdf
- Hylton, H, (2007) What Your Cell Knows About You, Time Magazine, August 15th 2007, http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1653267,00.html?xid=rss-health
- Gratzer,V., Naccache, D., Znaty, D (2006) Law Enforcement, Forensics and Mobile Communications. PerCom Workshop, Pisa – Italy, 13-17 March 2006, pp: 256-260
- Jansen, W., Ayers, R. (2007) Guidelines on Cell Phone Forensics, National Institute of Standards and Technology special publication 800-101, May 2007, http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-101/SP800-101.pdf
- Jansen, W, Delaitre, A, Moenner, L. (2008) Overcoming Impediments to Cell Phone Forensics, Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences,, pp: 483-483, ISBN: 978-0-7695-3075-8
- Harrill, D. C, Mislan, R. P. (2007) A Small Scale Digital Device Forensics ontology, Small Scale Digital Device Forensics journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, , June 2007
- Inta Forensics, (2009) Mobile Phone Forensics, http://www.intaforensics.com/pdf/mobile-phone-forensics.pdf
- McCarthy, P. (2005) Forensic Analysis of Mobile Phones http://esm.cis.unisa.edu.au/new_esml/resources/publications/forensic%20analysis%20of%20mobile%20phones.pdf,
- McCarthy, P. and Slay, J. (2006) Mobile phones: admissibility of current forensic procedures for acquiring data. In Proceedings of the Second IFIP WG 11.9 International Conference on Digital Forensics, 2006.
