Insecure Wireless and the Terrorist Email

Indian police raided the Mumbai home of an American expatriate after someone used his open wireless network to send an email that took responsibility for a bomb blast that killed at least 42 people... We've often argued that Wi-Fi bandwidth is like air, and the oft-repeated warnings about people leaching off unsecured networks was so much hysteria. This experience goes to show there are down-sides to any share-and-share-alike philosophy.

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Digital Evidence : The Defence, The Prosecution & The Court

Last month we delivered shuffled on over to the Manchester Metropolitan University to deliver an expert lecture to the Northern Circuit.

The Northern Circuit has some absolutely fascinating historical legacies to its name! It is 830 years old - dating back to 1176 when King Henry II sent his judges on Circuit to do justice in his name. The Circuit encompassed the whole of the North of England but was divided in 1876.

I digress... It was an excellent session with some informed debate in the Q&A. The feedback has been fantastic and we must’ve struck a chord with the delegates – we’ve been asked to come back and do a follow-up session in a few months!

Details of the event and copy of the slides (PDF) have been posted to the web.

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Adam Walsh Law

Happy Easter!

I’ve been having an interesting exchange with a Canadian based forensic analyst who contacted me quite out of the blue after reading one of my papers floating around the Internet. He’s brought up the subject of the Adam Walsh Law and the impact that the legislation is having on domestic forensic specialists.

There certainly are very good reasons for not disclosing sensitive electronic evidence exhibits to specialists, however, is this going to help or hinder the course of Justice? I can see both sides of the argument – increased costs and logistical issues vs. security and control over who gains access to the contraband. Then again, quis custodiet custodes ipsos? Personally, I’m in favour of more stringent requirements to limit the specialists working in this field to those with demonstrable depth to their experience and certifiable expertise.

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