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BitCurator: Tools and Techniques for Digital Forensics in Collecting Institutions

May 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This paper introduces the BitCurator Project, which aims to incorporate digital forensics tools and methods into collecting institutions’ workflows. BitCurator is a collaborative effort led by the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland. The project arose from a perceived need in the library/archives community to develop digital forensics tools with interfaces, documentation, and functionality that can support the workflows of collecting institutions. This paper describes current efforts, ongoing work, and implications for future development of forensic-based, analytic software for born-digital materials.

via BitCurator: Tools and Techniques for Digital Forensics in Collecting Institutions.

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Individual typing style gives key to user authentication | phys.org (Niki Widdowson)

May 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Mr. Al Solami, from QUT’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science has developed an algorithmic system to capture and analyse the keystroke dynamics of keyboard users in a single session to enable user authentication throughout a typing session.

“Researchers have known for decades that people have unique typing styles but until now authentication has relied on the typing of the username and password and comparing it with current data.

“So while current computer systems can authorise the user at the start of a session they do not detect whether the current user is still the initial authorised user, a substitute user, or an intruder pretending to be a valid user.

“This makes a system that can continuously check the identity of the user throughout a session necessary. My research has developed such a system called a continuous authentication system (CAS).”

via Individual typing style gives key to user authentication.

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New Jersey Considers e-Discovery Rules for Criminal Cases : Electronic Discovery Law

May 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In April 2009, Chief Justice Rabner of the Supreme Court of New Jersey appointed the Supreme Court Special Committee on Discovery in Criminal and Quasi-Criminal Matters (hereinafter the Committee).  The Committee “was appointed to recommend solutions to a variety of issues that had arisen as the result of the increasing use of electronically stored information in criminal cases.”  After significant investigation, the Committee has recently reported its recommendations, which include both proposed amendments to several rules as well as “non-rule recommendations.”

via New Jersey Considers e-Discovery Rules for Criminal Cases : Electronic Discovery Law.

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Short-selling litigation: An enlightening mistake | The Economist

May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A RARE slip-up by lawyers has helped to shed some rather interesting light on a high-profile legal battle, the details of which some of the largest Wall Street firms have been fighting to keep under wraps. In 2007 Overstock, a Utah-based online retailer, sued a dozen big brokers, alleging that they had caused its share price to fall sharply by helping their clients to engage in “naked” short selling.

In a normal short sale, the shares are borrowed (or at least “located”) with a broker’s help before being sold. In the naked version, there is no attempt to pre-borrow the stock or even check that it exists. This can create “fails to deliver”, where the trade is not settled when it should be because there are not enough actual shares available for delivery. This messes with the laws of supply and demand, allowing shorting to take place beyond the natural limits set by the number of borrowable shares. Regulators have long frowned upon naked shorting. The rules against the practice have been tightened up a number of times over the past seven years.

via Short-selling litigation: An enlightening mistake | The Economist.

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Patent Infringement In 140 Characters Or Less: The Twitter Way – Forbes (Jess Collen)

May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The folks at Twitter think that if you can’t say it in a short phrase, it ain’t worth saying.

It works. Millions of users worldwide can’t be wrong. If Twitter could play a role in the revolutionary Arab Spring, why not in the complex battle zone we call patent litigation.

Twitter has a new internal policy which they call the “Innovator’s Patent Agreement,” and it has attracted quite a bit of attention. The policy is reportedly one that allows the company to sue for infringement only when it is acting in its own defense, or when the inventors themselves give the company the okay to go ahead.

via Patent Infringement In 140 Characters Or Less: The Twitter Way – Forbes.

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Data-Mining in Doctor’s Office Helps Solve Medical Mysteries – Bloomberg (Jordan Robertson)

May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

When hospitals turn to Microsoft Corp., it’s no longer just for the latest office software. Some are asking the technology giant for help in diagnosing their patients.

In one instance, a hospital in Washington, D.C., asked Microsoft to examine its medical records to determine why certain patients were getting sick soon after being discharged. The company crunched the data from MedStar Washington Hospital Center and found something surprising: Patients who stayed in the same room had come down with the same infection.

“There was a bug in the room — people were getting infected,” Scott Charney, vice president of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group, said recently at a security conference. Such infections are often caused by bacteria on medical instruments or furniture.

As hospitals digitize patient records and amass huge amounts of data, many are relying on companies such as Microsoft, SAS Institute Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and Oracle Corp., whose data-mining technologies can help them detect patterns and improve medical care.

via Data-Mining in Doctor’s Office Helps Solve Medical Mysteries – Bloomberg.

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Forensic access to iCloud backups | Net-Security.org

May 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

iPhone users have several options to back up the content of their devices. They can backup information stored in their device such as contacts, pictures, call logs and data into a file on their computer with the help of iTunes. Alternatively, they can backup all that information into cloud storage maintained by Apple.

iCloud allows users to store data from their devices on remote computer servers and share their files between multiple iOS devices. In addition, iCloud can be used as a data synchronization center for email, contacts, organizer events, bookmarks, pictures and other information. Various sources quote the service has as many as 125 million users as of April 2012.

iCloud backups are incremental. When set up to use the iCloud service, iPhones automatically connect to iCloud network and backup their content every time a docked device gets within reach of a Wi-Fi access point. This is to say, iCloud backups represent a fresh, near real-time copy of information stored in iPhone devices, including information about recently made and received calls, sent and received text and email messages, and so on.

Regardless of their location, iPhone backups contain essential information stored in the device. Information stored in iPhone backups includes email, accounts and passwords, call logs and text messages, calendars, appointments, contacts and organizer information. Pictures and Web browsing history including URLs of recently visited sites is also included. Information stored in iPhone backups can be essential for investigations, and is in high demand by forensic customers.

via Forensic access to iCloud backups.

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Facebook Needs to Turn Data Trove Into Investor Gold – NYTimes.com (Somini Sengupta)

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief, has managed to amass more information about more people than anyone else in history.

As Facebook turns to Wall Street in the biggest public offering ever by an Internet company, it faces a new, unenviable test: how to keep growing and enriching its hungry new shareholders.

The answer lies in what Facebook will be able to do — and how quickly — with its crown jewel: its status as an online directory for a good chunk of the human race, with the names, photos, tastes and desires of nearly a billion people.

via Facebook Needs to Turn Data Trove Into Investor Gold – NYTimes.com.

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Hackers target company-owned cellphones | WIVB.com (Joe Arena)

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Your company gives you a phone, but does this mean the device is safe from high-tech raiders?

Just because you might not pay for it, doesn’t mean you have free reign, and the consequences can come back to haunt if you, especially if you went into risky territory.

Computer forensic expert Michael McCartney said, “It happens every day. Every day in our business we’re kind of tossed between an employee doing bad things or an environment in which has been compromised due to internal threats or external threats where it has exposed the organization to tremendous risk.”

Just a year ago, nearly 800 companies, including Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, were all hacked. In today’s world, the threat is far too easy.

The simple act of checking a personal e-mail account or buying flowers for mom on Mother’s Day with mobile work devices can put the company you work for at risk.

via Hackers target company-owned cellphones | WIVB.com.

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A Computer Interface that Takes a Load Off Your Mind – Technology Review (Kate Greene)

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Conversations between people include a lot more than just words. All sorts of visual and aural cues indicate each party’s state of mind and make for a productive interaction.

But a furrowed brow, a gesticulating hand, and a beaming smile are all lost on computers. Now, researchers at MIT and Tufts are experimenting with a way for computers to gain a little insight into our inner world.

Their system, called Brainput, is designed to recognize when a person’s workload is excessive and then automatically modify a computer interface to make it easier. The researchers used a lightweight, portable brain monitoring technology, called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), that determines when a person is multitasking. Analysis of the brain scan data was then fed into a system that adjusted the user’s workload at those times. A computing system with Brainput could, in other words, learn to give you a break.

via A Computer Interface that Takes a Load Off Your Mind – Technology Review.

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