Computer Forensics Archives - Page 2 of 17

Gaining Information in a Divorce Illegally

Apps regularly pop up in divorce cases, experts say. Over 80% of U.S. divorce attorneys say they’ve seen a rise in the number of cases using social networking, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) Sometimes it’s not the social networking sites themselves, but how they are accessed to gain information. With that said, let’s remember, there are legal apps that are helpful when you have an aging parent, a teenage child, or apps that allow family members to see every phone’s location. These apps are helpful since everyone is aware they are installed on the phone. But what if there is an app on your phone that does more than show your location? What if the app allows someone else to see [...]

Knowing the Unknown is a Valuable Tool

It isn’t easy to learn the truth and sometimes the truth isn’t easy on us either. , clears the path of misconceptions, intuitions and gossip and focuses on facts. Sometimes the facts do not change the situation, and then there are times the facts create clarity and we see through all the haze and come out of the situation we are currently in better prepared to fight or to just let go. We all want to know the truth; we want to know the facts so we can move on. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t receive calls, an emails or a walk ins from someone lost in their life. They cannot, by themselves, muddle through their situation without assistance from [...]

I’d Like to Phone a Friend

Friends can be a neighbor, a kid you grew up with since grade school, a co-worker, a boss and your spouse. Nobody ever thinks that a private investigator could be a friend, but in many of our cases that we work, in the end, we have acted on the same level as a friendship. We put our Client’s first, we work on their behalf, we do what is right and we stay within the law to make sure anything we find can be used in the court of law. We don’t tell our Clients we are their friends, but we act upon the same basis. by Friends.com. If you look in the dictionary it will tell you that the definition of friendship is a state of being [...]

He didn’t send the emails, but they came from his computer

Computer forensic analysis can range in scope depending on the case. We get cases ranging from clients wanting to find deleted emails, pictures, etc. all the way to malicious software investigations. As with all digital forensics, forensic data recovery is the most common request that we get followed closely by mobile phone spyware detection with social media engineering being the third most common. The key to a successful computer forensics investigation is that a competent computer forensics expert be willing to explore all conceivable possibilities while performing the investigation. I am reminded of a case we had about a year ago where the client had an employee log into his email account from their office computer and download emails that were sent to some of [...]

My Husband is in Love with an Avatar

An avatar is an icon or figure representing a particular person in computer games, Internet forums, etc. and that is exactly how some Client’s relationships end. The computer is a gateway to be whatever you want to be, to represent yourself in a manner you could never do face to face. It’s a make believe world that many people engage upon to express in words what they cannot say. Take for instance our Client who came to to discuss a very personal situation with her husband. They have been married for over 10 years, have two small children and both are employed with good incomes. She is the extrovert in their marriage and he is more of the introvert, never wanting to explore real events [...]

No One is Ever Going to Hear My Conversations, Or are They?

Social Media: There are so many ways to communicate with social media, but if you break it down, your communication is either by word of mouth or the written word (picture). When you verbally communicate, your message is delivered and heard, then responded to or ignored, but you know right then whether your point was taken or rejected. In the written form, usually by e-mail, text, or some form of social media, it is derived from a device, a cell phone, a tablet, a laptop or a tower computer. Your personal information is stored in these devices, and sometimes the cloud…and no matter what you write, text, post somebody somewhere that you don’t even know may have access it. That’s the chance we take when [...]

They Thought They Permanently Deleted Files From Their Computer

Before writing this blog, I did some research on what computer users perceive when they delete a file from their computer. Instructions on how to delete. When you delete a file, it's usually moved to the Recycle Bin so that you can restore the file later if necessary. For information about recovering a file, see Recover files from the Recycle Bin. To permanently remove files from your computer and reclaim any hard disk space they were using, you need to delete the files from the Recycle Bin. You can delete individual files from the Recycle Bin or empty the entire Recycle Bin at once. Open the Recycle Bin by double-clicking the Recycle Binon the desktop. Do one of the following: To permanently delete one file, click it, [...]

Discovery, Depositions and Findings

We had a Client, James who started and built a booming business with his longtime friend, Bill. Bill was outgoing, charismatic while James was more laid back and book smart, while both had the desire and knowledge to start a company. For years, growing up, through high school and college, they knew they wanted to work for themselves, didn’t want to report to a boss, wanted to have choices and full control over their own destiny and livelihood. After graduating with degrees in two different fields, they merged their knowledge and started a much needed consulting business in their hometown, just 30 minutes outside of Indianapolis. Twenty years later, they had talked about selling the business someday to spend more time with their families and [...]

Investments aren’t always Investments

We have all thought “What would have happened….if”, and never gave it a second thought. But in our business, we never wonder “what would have happened” we think “what did happen”. We had a Client whose best friend recommended an unusual investment opportunity to her. She had dabbled in gold dust outside of the US, specifically in Africa with a small Investment Company out of California and had some pretty good returns. She had been bragging about getting a 35% return on her initial investment of $20,000 and then a 20% return on her second investment as well. When she received her second check, she was asked if she knew anybody who would be interested in turning their dollars into gold, and of course she [...]

Is Communication Really Safe

In today’s world, there are so many avenues of communication. We think face to face is the safest, as there are no footprints of the words we speak. We fax because there isn’t a written line of communication, we talk on our cell phones without ever thinking someone else is listening. We email without fear because it’s all done electronically. We text our family, our work, our friends, even businesses private information we think is safe and only that person is receiving it. Once we hang up, hit send or end button we walk away thinking our communication is safe and secure. That safe and secure world is behind us, we are in the 21st century and technology improves every day. The same technology that [...]