Preservation Of Digital Evidence

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In the wake of a moment, there are times when officers jobs require them to seize computers that will be used as evidence so therefore the officers must follow the proper procedures and protocols when confiscating computers for the evidence needed for criminal cases and to prevent any screw ups.
“Digital evidence can be described as anything that has electronic data, materials, objects, property, and documents that can be presented in court in order to prove or disapprove allegations that were made against someone who’s been arrested.”(Knetzger&Muraski, 2008). “Digital evidence can also take the form of any electronic data or information which is stored as bits and bytes that’s on a magnetic media.”(Knetzger&Muraski, 2008), and this can be
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When preserving digital evidence extreme caution and care must be used in the collection of that evidence.(Knetzger&Muraski,2008). The most concern for investigators “is the preservation of all the data that’s on the hard disk drive or other computer media because it must remain in the same pristine, unaltered state that it was found in.”(Knetzger&Muraski,2008). The second issue is the physical fragility of the evidence and the investigators need to make sure that the evidence doesn’t get wet, stepped or frozen and this applies to any type of digital evidence like CD’s USB thumb drives or any other type of magnetic media because these things can be fragile and at times wiped out so extreme caution needs to be used in order to prevent any harm or changes to the digital evidence.(Knetzger&Muraski,2008). The third issue is that digital evidence can be very easily lost just by turning the device off or powering it down and extreme caution should be used. Investigators need to preserve any open items when the computer is turned on because data is written to the RAM in which it carries temporary files in order to prevent any manipulating the controls. The fourth issue would be to never allow the suspect near the computer in fears that they could erase or try to destroy files on the computer. According to the textbook it states that the following be done in order to prevent any issues and they are as such: “do no harm to the digital evidence and preserve it in a pristine state, protect digital evidence from physical harm, magnetic fields and so forth and keep the suspect well away from the computer or any other potential