Lab Activity, Week Four

This weeks lab activity was to share what kind of resources we have found to aid us in our research, and also to utilize a service that the library has to offer.  I had previously used the 'Ask a librarian' chat, and got very helpful advice. 

My goal this week is to have some interview questions prepared for my interviewee, and I was having trouble thinking of interview questions so I decided to see if I could get some advice from 'Ask a librarian' again.  At first, I was not getting the information I was looking for, and didn't think that I  was going to get it, but after some back and forth with the librarian, she pointed me to some good links that focused more on the legal aspects of using digital forensics.  With the information that she pointed me to, I now have a different take on the issue and should be able to better form some good questions.  If you are interested, I posted a transcript of our conversation below:

Chat Transcript: I am doing a research project on digital forensics and have a prosecuting attorney that has agreed to let me interview him.  The only problem is, I am having a heck of a time trying to form questions to ask him.  Do you have any tips or advice for coming up with good interview questions?

[Librarian 10:39:06]: Librarian 'Linda (24/7 Librarian)' has joined the session.
[Librarian 10:39:26]: Hi, I’m Linda, a librarian helping to answer questions for your library.  I am reading your question now to see how I can help you.
[Librarian 10:39:55]: Which class is this an assignment for?
[Mishell 10:40:33]: IS390 Reading and research
[Mishell 10:40:49]: Based on the tech industry
[Librarian 10:44:46]: What I'd suggest is doing an article search (or catalog search for a book) on this topic to find out what are the most current techniques and the pros and cons; also the current legal issues involved in the field.
[Librarian 10:45:02]: Let me check the list of online databases you have access to.
[Mishell 10:46:46]: Thank you.
[Librarian 10:48:51]: I don't see a guide for IS390.
[Librarian 10:49:30]: http://libguides.olympic.edu/c.php?g=448818
[Mishell 10:49:33]: It is a fairly new class at Olympic College.
[Librarian 10:49:47]: The guide for IS415 may be helpful?
[Librarian 10:52:19]: While you're looking there, let me search the catalog for digital forensics.
[Mishell 10:53:53]: I actually have a lot of resources for digital forensics.  My problem is I don't know what are good interview questions and how to form good interview questions.
[Librarian 10:54:59]: Within the resources you already have, do you see any trends in the legal field that you can convert to interview questions?
[Mishell 10:56:31]: privacy concerns are a big one
[Mishell 10:57:40]: how evidence is handled is another
[Librarian 10:59:07]: Let me back up - the attorney you are going to interview specializes in forensics?
[Mishell 10:59:55]: No, he is a prosecuting attorney for the city.
[Mishell 11:00:39]: But has had to use digital forensic evidence when he tries cases
[Librarian 11:01:58]: I see.
[Librarian 11:02:04]: http://what-when-how.com/forensic-sciences/legal-aspects-of-forensic-science/
[Librarian 11:02:50]: I know you said you already have several resources, but I wonder if the page I just sent may be helpful in that it focuses on the legal areas/issues within forensic evidence.
[Mishell 11:03:06]: Thank you.  That will be a good jumping off point.
[Librarian 11:03:06]: I wonder if you could take those as topics to ask questions about?
[Mishell 11:03:40]: Yes,  this is just what I needed.
[Librarian 11:03:48]: Oh, great!
[Mishell 11:04:38]: Thank you.
[Librarian 11:04:38]: Sometimes it takes some back and forth to get a good search formulated.
[Librarian 11:04:55]: Thank your for your patience with all my questions.
[Mishell 11:05:24]: Patron ended chat session.
[Librarian 11:06:15]: Here's another page that might be of interest:  http://www.academia.edu/6242713/Internet_Forensics_Legal_and_Technical_Issues
[Librarian 11:06:31]: it discusses internet forensics and legal matters.
[Librarian 11:06:42]: Bye now, and good luck!

Progress Report, Week Four

My progress in my research is coming along as expected.  I got a little behind last week due to personal obligations, but am mostly back on track.  I have a lot of good sources that I have found and am now working on reading and researching the information.  I have an outline for my paper, and am adding information to it and expanding on it as I go.

My goal this week is to have the 5 - 10 interview questions prepared.  I am finding it hard to come up with good questions so far as I am still researching and learning about social networking forensics.  I want to be sure that the questions that I ask are good questions that will give me some new insight about the challenges of social networking forensics.

My goal for next week is to continue on with my research.  I would like to have a pretty solid outline done and all of my research laid out so that I can start writing my paper within the next couple of weeks.

Journal Entry, Week Three

Journal Prompt: List at least 3 resources that you considered but rejected for your project? Why did you choose to not use them?

 1.

https://www.sba-research.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/socialForensics_preprint.pdf

This link from SBA-research.org, had a lot of great information on social networking forensics, and I was sad to have to let it go.  The reason that I decided to toss this information is that upon a little digging, I found that SBA Research is a research company out of Vienna, Austria.  While there was a lot of great information in this article, I want to keep my research focused to challenges in social networking forensics in the United States.  The challenges that we face here in the states are likely different than challenges faced in other countries.  I want to make sure that the research that I do is relevant to the laws and challenges here.  

2. 

 http://csis.pace.edu/~ctappert/srd2009/a4.pdf 

This is an article that was published by Pace University and focuses on forensics tools used for social media.  While this article appears to have a lot of information, the article is from 2009, and with how fast technology changes, a lot of it may be outdated.  While I will take some leads from this article to find out what tools and practices may still be in use, it will only be used as a jumping off point and not a main source.

3.  

 http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2012/12/social-media-and-changing-role-investigators

This last one is actually an article that I didn't think I would use because it is from an online magazine, but ended up using.  At first glance I wasn't sure it was going to provide much information, but reading further into it, it has a lot of great information pertaining to social media, data collecting and privacy laws.  I looked into the magazine and it appears to be a legitimate magazine aimed at professionals in any forensics field.  The author of this particular article, Benjamin Wright, is a teacher at SANS Institute, and teaches the law of data security and investigations.  While checking out the legitimacy of this website, I also found some recent news stories that are perfect examples of cases that rely on social networking forensics such as these articles posted on the site yesterday (GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING):

 http://www.forensicmag.com/news/2016/04/how-child-predator-was-caught-tiny-clue-photo-he-posted-online

and 

  http://www.forensicmag.com/articles/2016/04/teen-girl-accused-live-streaming-friends-rape-social-media

 This Forensicmag.com also offers a whole section of their website dedicated to digital forensics with the most up-to-date information on digital forensics, privacy, hacking, cyberattacks, data protection and much more.  I am excited to dig through this website although I will have to try to not get too lost in all of the information.

 http://www.forensicmag.com/topics/digital-forensics

Progress Report, Week Three

The progress of my research paper is going good so far.  I addressed my detailed plan on how I was going to use my time in order to have a rough draft by week 9 in the Lab Activity, Week Three, so I won't go into it here.  Right now, I am working on developing some research questions that I would like to ask the attorney that I am interviewing.  I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask, but my goal is to have 5 to 10 questions that I can ask him to aid in my research.  My goal is to have these done by the next week.  These questions should develop organically during researching and reading.  Having that done, and having some more research done are my main goals for the upcoming week.  Now that I have some new search terms from the "Ask the Librarian" service, I will be able to find some good information.

Lab Activity, Week Three

In this week's group lab the discussion was focused on defining our research methods/schedules and discussing search terms and methods that have worked well for us.  I will start out by first discussing the latter.


As far as searching for information, search terms that work well on the Google machine don't always work as well when searching academic databases.  On Google, while I can use broad or narrow search terms and yield plenty of results, the challenge then becomes determining whether or not the source is a good source or not.  When searching in the library databases, I found that coming up with search results that were relevant was much more difficult.  To aid in my searches, I used the "Ask a librarian" service to determine how to yield better search results.  One tip that the librarian gave me was to use "computer forensics" (with the quotes) AND "social media" (with quotes) to glue the terms together.  The librarian also taught me a new term in which I had not heard before which is "cybersluething."

When it comes to the schedule I plan to keep for my research, it will look similar to the standard plan that is laid out in the syllabus only instead of having weeks 3 - 4 for searching, weeks 4 - 5 for reading and evaluating, and weeks 6 - 8 for outlining and drafting, I will be using weeks 3 - 8 for all of the above.  My process is more of a continual process of researching, reading, evaluating, outlining and drafting.

Journal Entry, Week Two

Journal prompt: What new avenues or angles of research have you discovered while searching for information on your topic?


"And the biggest challenge isn't the processing of evidence. Data is data, they (providers) just copy and paste what they have on file.

It's the interpretation of it once received by law enforcement (needing an expert to testify in court) and overcoming the pushback from the providers over privacy concerns that are the hardest hurdles (the Apple iPhone saga that was in the news recently).

Just some food for thought as you develop questions. (R. Davy, personal communication, April 15, 2016)"

            The above quote came from an email from a prosecuting attorney who has agreed to speak with me on what he has experienced to be challenging when using social networking forensics as evidence to prosecute a crime.  I had emailed him stating, "It will be interesting to hear your point of view since not having evidence processed correctly can be detrimental when it comes to using it as evidence."  His reply back to me made me realize that what I believed to have been one of the biggest challenges of using social networking forensics as evidence to prosecute (or defend against) a crime, may have been a misconception.  I had not really considered what it would take to find an expert to testify in court or what challenges might arise in how the data is interpreted.  

            Another angle that Davy (2016) mentions is that pushback from providers over privacy concerns.  While I had previously considered how privacy laws concerning the individual or defendant might cause some challenges to collecting evidence and using it as evidence, I was more focused on an individual’s rights than on a company’s obligation to protect its customers data. 

            This email correspondence has definitely given me more “food for thought” as I move forward in my research.  I will definitely be looking into more of the challenges that arise during prosecution phases when using social networking forensics, and will be giving more considerations to what obligations an organization has to protecting its customers and what obligations it has to release personal information and data to the government for use in prosecuting crimes.