CISS 400 Bethesda University of California DEA Digital Forensics Questions

I’m working on a operating systems question and need an explanation and answer to help me learn.

Question 1

You are teaming up with a colleague, Joan, to investigate a money-laundering ring. One of the suspects was particularly “free” with spending money on a lavish lifestyle and took pictures to show friends and family how much fun he was having.

Lucky for you, you have his work laptop and Joan has his home laptop. You breeze through your forensic captures, but Joan is struggling. There are fragments that she suspects are images and there are several files that have odd extensions. These could be images, but her current tools do not seem to work on these extensions.

How do you explain the process of capturing data from fragments to Joan? What can she do to determine if the odd extensions are graphic files and how does she capture them if they are images? Avoid quoting the text directly. Instead, synthesize the information in your own words.

Question 2

Cyber bullying is a growing concern, which is why you’re excited to get this pro-bono case:

Several students are claiming they received bullying messages from a popular high school football player. The athlete is adamant that he never sent any bullying messages to these students. In an attempt to prove their point, the bullied students produce printed copies of the messages. They certainly look legitimate.

Describe how you would go about conducting an investigation to determine if these were sent by the football player. Include some discussion on how you would corroborate what you learn using social media investigation.