When I first began trying cases, digital evidence wasn’t even part of the case. It simply didn’t exist in the courtroom. At most, you might see a phone bill or a stray email, but the real drama played out through eyewitnesses, physical evidence, and confessions.
Years ago, I stood in a Colorado courtroom, arguing for the admissibility of a method I had developed to estimate vehicle speed using dashcam footage. The case was heartbreaking. A father riding a homemade motorcycle had been struck and killed by an impaired driver traveling at 105 mph. The only available evidence? The dashcam video from the offender’s own vehicle.
Over 60% of online traffic flows through mobile browsers—making them a critical source of evidence for forensic examiners.
It can be hard to set aside time from your busy schedule for training and skill development. You know it’s incredibly beneficial to your career and your investigations, but you also want to make sure that you’re getting maximum impact for your time.
Chat and messaging data now sit at the center of many internal investigations, HR matters, and eDiscovery workflows. Whether the source is Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, iMessage, or any other modern communication platform, the volume and density of conversations can quickly overwhelm reviewers if it isn’t presented in a clean, structured way.
As we wrap up season 3 of Mobile Unpacked, let’s take a look at our biggest artifact ‘wish list’ in investigations and how they can be our own holiday presents in our cases. In this episode we’ll explore the core components of 12 of our favorite artifacts that deserve their own time in the spotlight.
Modern digital investigations need to move fast. Analysts are often forced to collect too much, too little, or the wrong data simply because forensic tools don’t give them enough control. Overcollection slows analysis. Under collection increases risk.
The same impulse that kept me running cases late into the evening as a digital forensics examiner is the one that now drives me to help agencies articulate their needs, justify investments in automation, and demonstrate the outcomes that funding can unlock.
While artificial intelligence may be at the cutting edge of digital forensics, humans are still responsible for the creation of AI enabled tools.
Video evidence can come from DVR, dashcam, doorbells, mobile, and more.
