Computer Crime Scene Investigation, Research Paper Example

In criminal justice, crime undergoes scientific procedure in order to solve it. Only when one is hit by computer crime criminals reports the matter do investigations begin.

Evidence Collection

Mary Gold should begin by acquiring knowledge of the crime’s victim and establish the loopholes that led to the vulnerability of the security system. As Brenner (2007) puts it, Victimology as a study of victims, should be used in which Mary should try extracting the reasons why the victims were targets of crime. She may come up with why certain groups of individuals engage in the alleged computer crimes. She should also try to understand whether the criminals work in pornography film as a hobby or professional work and to what extent this crime becomes rated as a serious crime, could it be normal crime or underground crime. She should note that; in the evidence collection, crime is classified as either methodical or organized crime, crimes facilitated by computers or crimes targeted on computers. She should also put a consideration that Pornography could also be investigated as a vehicle for another crime to be committed like child prostitution.

Data Entry and Security

According to Brenner (2007), digital forensics is faced with challenge of tangible evidence. In this case, only copies of pornographic films could be used for data entry records. Digital data could be used for evidence but poses a major challenge for the fact that it can be interfered with or may not be easily retrieved. In this case, Mary ought to use the slightest traces of evidence for data entry to compile evidence.  She should also be aware that tampered evidence will not help to convict a crime. The importance of data entry is to understand how crime is perpetrated, and through the collected evidence, data on the child pornography will be collected and stored for the purposes of presentation before a court of law.

According to Hayes (2009), trace evidence is not as important in computer crime like data unlike the physical crimes that look for this evidence. Mary Gold must be aware that as an investigator, she will have to fill the “singular evidence form”, in which forensic findings are filled systematically.  Every piece of collected evidence is filled in a separate page and later summarized in a Multi evidence form. She can use secret codes to secure digital data. Such data should be preserved away from any interference. Collated data should support evidence to be relied upon for intelligence (Hayes 2009). The main challenge that might face Mary Gold (incase of vague investigations) is to run unknown files and their result.

Preservation of Crime Scene

Once she recognizes the crime scene, that scene should be preserved in a way to avoid any interference of evidence. She must have been commissioned by a magistrate since the crime on pornography is a public crime. A search warrant is therefore important before convening any search on personal property for evidence to be legal in a court of law. In addition to securing the crime scene, people must be moved from the computers and power supply, removal of batteries from laptops and palmtops which are switched off.

Incase the suspected child pornography dealers try to delete the evidence from their computers, Mary should be aware that any deleted information can be recovered using hard line analyzers on diskettes and PC’s of the suspects. Forensics laboratories also use recovery software such as PC Inspector; easy restore utilities, easy recovery professional and acronis recovery expert which Mary ought to have in place before proceeding with the matter. She may also need to use surveillance activities which include video recording on relevant sources of information such as mobile phones.

Evaluation of Witnesses

Gathering of witnesses include the victims of pornographic material that they either freely present to police or is found in their possession. Mary should be aware that these witnesses become accomplices in crime since possession of pornographic material which is illegal. In computer crimes, data recovery specialists protect any evidence from viruses and corruption and therefore act as substantial witness to this crime. Discarded data in the recycle bin can also be recovered and act as witness to the already gathered evidence. Deleted files, encrypted files, password protected files, and hidden files may also be recovered and used as witness on evidence.

Legal Aspect of the Case

According to Brenner (2007), the crime of production of pornographic material is found in the federal statutes of the United States, called Fraud and any related activity in connection to computers becomes a crime as well. In case Mary uses the federal bureau, she should be aware that the bureau undergoes a procedure as follows: It grants a request for any voluntary information pertaining to this crime that are later referred as witnesses, the court issues an order to start investigations, the grand jury grants a subpoena, the court issues a search warrant on suspects. Search warrants build the case against the suspects.

Mary also needs to know that the search must meet legal standards so as not to compromise the acceptability of evidence (Brenner 2007). All illegal material must be in possession of the suspect for him to be proved guilty without reasonable doubt. Devices that store information like diskettes and flash disks should be processed to verify claims of criminality. With the accumulated evidence, Mary Gold can present it to a court of law upon hearing.

Works Cited

Hayes,E. Computer Crime Investigation. Retrieved august 1, 2009 from http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/FBI_investigates_crime.html

Brenner, S. Law in the era of Smart Technology. 1^st ed. Oxford: Oxford Press, 2007.