Abstract
A suitable theory to serve as scientific grounds for a digital forensic science is still elusive. Such a theory needs to satisfy the demands imposed by science and justify the facts derived as evidence using the theory. A number of grounding theories have been proposed. This chapter revisits three prominent theories, those of Gladyshev, Carrier and Cohen, and: (i) determines the requirements they suggest for a digital forensics theory; (ii) analyzes their primary differences; and (iii) assesses them using the norms that exist for science. This enables us to sketch the outlines of a new theory that better reflects the scientific requirements and the intended application of forensic science in a digital context.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bunge, M.: Philosophy of Science: From Problem to Theory, vol. 1. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (1998)
Canter, D., Youngs, D.: Investigative Psychology: Offender Profiling and the Analysis of Criminal Action. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester (2009)
Carrier, B.: A Hypothesis-Based Approach to Digital Forensic Investigations, CERIAS Technical Report 2006–06, Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana (2006)
Cohen, F.: Digital Forensic Evidence Examination. Fred Cohen and Associates, Livermore (2013)
Foucault, M.: Discipline and Punish – The Birth of the Prison. Penguin, London (1991)
French, S.: Science: Key Concepts in Philosophy. Continuum, London (2007)
GE Healthcare Life Science: DNAscan Rapid DNA Analysis System, Data File 29–0327-18 AB. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2014)
Gladyshev, P.: Formalizing Event Reconstruction in Digital Investigations, Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland (2004)
Gratzer, W.: The Undergrowth of Science – Delusion, Self-Deception and Human Frailty. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2000)
Harding, S.: Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives. Cornell University Press, Ithaca (1991)
Inman, K., Rudin, N.: Principles and Practice of Criminalistics: The Profession of Forensice Science. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2001)
Kuhn, T.: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1996)
National Research Council, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward. National Academies Press, Washington, DC (2009)
Oberdan, T.: Moritz schlick. In: Zalta, E. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, Stanford, California (2013). plato.stanford.edu/entries/schlick
Olivier, M.: On metadata context in database forensics. Digital Investigation 5(3–4), 115–123 (2009)
Olivier, M.: On complex crimes and digital forensics. In: Kayem, A., Meinel, C. (eds.) Information Security in Diverse Computing Environments. IGI Global, Hershey, pp. 230–244 (2014)
Olivier, M.: Towards a digital forensic science. In: Venter, H., Loock, M., Coetzee, M., Eloff, M., Flowerday, S. (eds.) Information Security for South Africa. IEEE Press, Danvers (2015)
Oyelami, O., Olivier, M.: Using yin’s approach to case studies as a paradigm for conducting examinations. In: Peterson, G., Shenoi, S. (eds.) DigitalForensics 2015. IAICT, vol. 462, pp. 45–59. Springer, Heidelberg (2015). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-24123-4_3
Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence, Digital and Multimedia Evidence (Digital Forensics) as a Forensic Science Discipline, Version 2.0 (2014)
Tal, E.: Measurement in science. In: Zalta, E. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, Stanford, California (2015). plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/measurement-science
Tewelde, S., Gruner, S., Olivier, M.: Notions of hypothesis in digital forensics. In: Peterson, G., Shenoi, S. (eds.) DigitalForensics 2015. IAICT, vol. 462, pp. 29–43. Springer, Heidelberg (2015). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-24123-4_2
Turvey, B.: Forensic Fraud: Evaluating Law Enforcement and Forensic Science Cultures in the Context of Examiner Misconduct. Academic Press, Waltham (2013)
Wittgenstein, L.: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Routledge, Abingdon (2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Olivier, M. (2016). On a Scientific Theory of Digital Forensics. In: Peterson, G., Shenoi, S. (eds) Advances in Digital Forensics XII. DigitalForensics 2016. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 484. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46279-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46279-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46278-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46279-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)