Crime & Clues

Even if you think the iPhone is an overpriced and buggy paperweight and the iPad just a larger version of the iPod, there is no denying the incredible popularity of both devices. Consumers have gone mad over both, with Apple selling 1.7 million new iPhone 4.0 units in the first three weeks of its release and the iPad selling three million in just eighty days.

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“The Office of the Attorney General’s Fugitive and Cyber Crimes units have made more than 2,000 arrests,” Texas Attorney General Abbott said. “Thanks to the hard work and perseverance of these dedicated peace officers, 2,000 criminals were taken off the streets and held accountable for their unlawful conduct. We are grateful to the local, state, and federal law enforcement officials from around the state who helped make this milestone possible and continue to work with us to protect Texas families.”

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In a process similar to that used in ballistics Microsoft’s senior forensics manager, Donal Keating, uses the abrasions and grooves on a counterfeit software disk to match it to other fakes. He'll then try to trace the counterfeit disc to the factory and the crime syndicate that produced it.

Microsoft employs 75 investigators, lawyers, and analysts—many with experience in narcotics and Mafia cases—in nine crime labs around the world to combat counterfeiting.

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As part of a multi-year upgrade to its public safety information technology infrastructure, the City of Carlsbad, California, is implementing a browser based software to integrate physical and digital evidence management in a single user interface.

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ArcSight, Inc., provider of enterprise threat and risk management solutions, and the Ponemon Institute announced the results of a benchmark study that quantifies the economic impact of cyber crime. The First Annual Cost of Cyber Crime Study was sponsored by ArcSight, independently conducted by the Ponemon Institute and designed to provide awareness around the level of investment and resources needed to prevent or mitigate the devastating consequences of a cyber attack.

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Agile announces that they have successfully brought F-Response to the Android platform powered by ARM processors.

F-Response enables virtually any e-Discovery, data recovery, or forensics tool to be used over an IP network. It works by creating a network connection between the live subject machine and the examiner’s machine via raw (all sectors), physical, read-only access to the drives on the subject machine. Examiners can now conduct analysis of a subject computer over an IP network using their tools of choice.

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Yes, it’s true, gang members use the same powerful social mediums to communicate with one another just as we do.

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Child pornographers will soon have a harder time escaping prosecution thanks to a new technology that can reliably link digital images to the camera with which they were taken, in much the same way that tell-tale scratches are used by forensic examiners to link bullets to the gun that fired them.

From: Binghamton University

When it comes to digital forensics, investigators’ caseloads are growing rapidly, as are the data loads they must sort through. At the same time, resources are becoming more stretched and timelines shorter, making larger investigations more difficult. It is increasingly important to be able to identify the extent of infractions early in a case to cease unnecessary prosecutions before they consume significant resources and to encourage earlier settlements of cases worth pursuing by regulatory and law enforcement authorities.

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A computer forensics team working with Buena Vista University in Iowa, discovered evidence of unauthorized access to a database of thousands of records which may include names, social security numbers, and driver's license numbers for 93,000 BVU students, parents, faculty and staff, alumni, and some donor records dating back to 1987.

There is currently no evidence that the information has been used or transferred. The incident has now been referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota.

Source: Buena Vista University