‘Nuff Said on Imagining a Laptop

The Bow Tie Law blog blogged about a case involving the issue of self-collection (and targeted collection) vs. the complete forensic imaging of a laptop.  In this concise article, many very relevant issues are touched including naming a few targeted collection tools.  This is a great read for attorneys and forensics guys, especially ones who believe that a complete forensic image is the only way.

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Congress Tries To Hide Massive Data Retention Law By Pretending It's An Anti-Child Porn Law

Mark Masnik at the Techdirt blog shares his thoughts on the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.  His article explains the burden imposed on online service providers to maintain records.

Read more...http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110707/04402514995/congress-tries-to-hide-massive-data-retention-law-pretending-its-anti-child-porn-law.shtml

Supreme Court of California holds that warrantless search of text messages is valid.

Filed on 1/3/2011, the Supreme Court of California held that a warrantless search of a cellphone is valid as being incident to a lawful arrest.  While the case did not discuss the type of phone, I began thinking about the type of data stored on my cellphone.  In a broad respect, I imagined an officer searching a smartphone (iPhone or Android-based phone).  What website passwords are stored?  Could a law enforcement officer read emails which had been previously unread by the suspect simply because the had authority to search the phone?  What about applications which may have used GPS-technology to track where the suspect had been?  Facebook? Foursquare? Dropbox?Apparently, Judge Werdegar has similar concerns.  His dissenting opinion, on page 24, expresses great concern over the applicability to such smartphones.  I would not be surprised if a case addresses these issues in the not-too-distant future.

Computer Forensics and Personal Computers in Business Cases

Sharon D. Nelson at Ride The Lightning responds and adds her comments regarding personal computers being brought into business cases.  She is responding to a very thorough discussion of Genworth Fin. Wealth Mgmt. v. McMullan (2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53145 (18-19) (D. Conn. June 1, 2010) at the Bow Tie Law's Blog, in an article titled "How to Get a Judge to Overcome the Guilt of Ordering the Forensic Examination of a Personal Computer." This is becoming more of a hot topic, as more workers I encounter are technologically connected to their workplace.  Both articles are must-reads and should be bookmarked for the archives.