September (2) 2009

I enjoyed the EAFS conference very much. We organized the workshop on Digital Evidence, and it appeared that we had good attendance from experts within different fields. It remains an issue to make a good workshop were people also can do some hands on and it is not a plenary kind of thing. Of course working in smaller groups can solve this issue. I had also some time to relax in Glasgow, and discuss with colleagues on issues in forensic science.

On Friday morning I chaired a session on Digital Evidence, where Peter Sommer was the keynote speaker. He was giving an overview of the rate of change, and the issue that forensic peer reviewed articles can not follow this rate of change. So not all specific methods in digital evidence that are used in court are peer reviewed, since often one has to do research and reverse engineering to find the particular digital traces, and it is used in that specific case. So if someone would like to follow Daubert exactly, it appears that the exact method is not peer reviewed. Of course a general approach of using digital evidence is described however in digital evidence, also in guidelines of ENFSI www.enfsi.eu . A solution might be a peer review of the method during the case by other experts. Another issue is that most forensic scientist are often loaded with casework and do not have time to publish.

It was good to be at this conferences, and although the papers varied in quality, I had good discussions, and I always learn from these conferences, and see the different approaches within different law systems. The good thing that we also have within our working group is that there is a new standard being developed for collecting Digital Evidence, which should be ready in 2012. It is standard http://www.iso27001security.com/html/27037.html ISO 27037 which will be developed now. I think it is very good since very often digital evidence, such as emails and logfiles will cross borders and jurisdictions if cases are on internet.

After that I had a week to recover, and work on some casework and new Research and Development. Last Friday I went to Brussels and talked to several people of the European Commission concerning the developments in forensic IT within Europe. Also I was discussing on the program of WCIT 2010 http://www.wcit2010.com/ which also handles the rate of change, and the issues and solutions around it. The NFI is the organiser of a track within this conference, and we are looking further in this program.

Budgets are currently tighter within most forensic institutes and government agencies, so we always have to consider more efficient ways on processing forensic examination, and maintaining the high quality. It will give new solutions, and approaches, as long as long term investments are continued. Training and education is always necessary on all levels such that the law enforcement knows limitations and possibilities of forensic evidence, and of course it remains important to have good guidelines which are easy to use and easy to understand, such that important forensic evidence will not be destroyed by accident.

September 2009

This month starts with a conference in Wiesbaden, Germany at the BKA of the ENFSI Forensic IT Working group. Really excellent talks, and also ideas for joint European Projects within the EU. It is good that proficiency tests are organized, which is a form of collaborative exercise to check if we all have the same results of a case. Also many developments in the field which is always changing rapidly are discussed. It is important to exchange results of Research and Development, since we would otherwise do the same twice with limited amounts of money. The organization was really excellent by the BKA, and we also visited a wine producer in this area known from the Riesling wine, as was organized as gala dinner in the evening.

The second week if for me the EAFS 2009 in Glasgow. Many forensic scientist will visit this conference, where I am looking forward to speak with many colleagues. I have organized a workshop on the Tuesday and will present two papers on the Friday. The week after that I will be at the NFI, and of course doing casework and looking how things have developed.

September 2009

With last month the DFRWS Digital Forensic Research Workshop in Montreal, I had vacation in Boston and Vermont. Vermont is a beautiful green state. It was at the same period as the hurricane Bill, however I did not have much issues with it. It moved with me to Montreal, and then we went over it to Amsterdam. I worked a day at the institute, and I received an request of a proscecutor to clarify my report since there was some discussion on a sentence in my report. It is always good to get this kind of feedback.



Currently I am in Wiesbaden, Germany, at the ENFSI Forensic IT Working group conference http://www.enfsi.eu/ . I am preparing the general presentations as chairman, and some of the issues that we have. Of course I will shortly discuss about the NAS-report, and implications, and furthermore on some proficiency testings. It is excellently organized, and the city of Wiesbaden, Germany is very nice.



Next week the European Academy of Forensic Science will have their conference in Glasgow. I am currently preparing a workshop, and some papers on defraser (http://www.sourceforge.net/) and prnu compare also open source.



It is an exciting time, and of course I have to care not to get the H1N1 flue in the meantime, since I have moderate asthma, however it is also statistics that are involved in this. Lots of travelling these months, and I hope we will have some good projects also on PRNU, and I am looking forward to organize a proficiency test on this, and propose it in London during a workshop at the Forensic Digital Imaging Workshop. Perhaps we should already ask for some European funding, since the financial situation is getting worse due to cuts in projects and budgets, which is of course also not good for the economy as a whole, however is sometimes necessary (and I hope the right things are selected, which is not easy). When I come back, of course I will spend lots of time on casework and administative work.

August 2009 (2)

This month I suddenly had to go to a court case in Amsterdam to testify. I had to wait from 2 to 6 pm in the court and witnessed a battle of experts. After that I could testify in the evening, and it gave me also strengthened me in the opinion that good validation, and testing different hypothesis is important in forensic science, together with clear interpretation and statistical evaluation in an understandable way for the court is needed. This was also one of the main issues within the NAS report of Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States.

Currently I am at the DFWRS- conference, and just gave a keynote talk on Opportunities and Challenges in Digital and Multimedia Sciences. It is an excellent conference where also the issue of having good validation based on ground thruth databases is discussed, and the issue of using software for analyzing forensic evidence with minimal standards is reproducible and reliable. The issue of the paradox of the zero-skill tools which are most optimal for wide use within police was also discussed. I also discussed our PRNU-tool with the new version where more batch processing is possible. We need also large databases for open source. Also the camera databases would be excellent to have for verification and validity of camera comparison.

August 2009

This week I we have the meeting for the International Computational Forensics Workshop at the Netherlands Forensic Institute , where I am looking forward to. The proceedings have been published by Springer.

As you can see we have good weather in Zandvoort where I live.

Next week I will be at the Digital Forensic Research Workshop (DFWRS) conference where I will give the keynote address. I am preparing the presentation, and of course certainly will address the NAS-report, the need of fast peer review within the area of digital Evidence (where I think the journal Digital Investigation works very rapid, since the articles are prepublished now, as also an article of Wiger and me.

This summer I had some time to work on the backlogs, so I think we can do the cases on time now. Summers are always good for working on backlogs, since the number of cases that arrive are less then during normal periods. And the summer period is excellent for working, since you are not disturbed by phone calls and meetings, due to the fact that most colleagues are on vacation. Some people say that this also might happen if there is a flue pandemic, since we are not allowed to have too many meetings then. Working from home is also good for the number of publications, since this is what one easily can do from home (casework is more difficult), and this might also work on having more peer reviewed articles in the area.

In september I will have the ENFSI forensic IT working group meeting in Wiesbaden, and at the EAFS in Glasgow also give a workshop, a paper, a poster and chair a meeting there. It is always a good venue to meet other forensic scientist, and to keep up with the developments.

Today I also received a phone call of the Netherland cyclist union if I would like to work with them on the situation for cyclist in Zandvoort since I wrote the city of Zandvoort a letter concerning the bike lanes. Of course it is nice to do this, since sometimes volunteer work is also nice to do next to your regular job as a forensic scientist.

July 2009

Just finished some casework for the vacation. It appears that I have more time than originally planned, since I do not have to testify in a case overseas. Sometimes forensic science can be inpredictable in planning. In the meantime I had some work on cases with different opinions of several expert witnesses, and analysing the forensic work behind these.

I am also preparing on the Digital Forensic Research Workshop in Montreal, where I am invited speaker http://www.dfrws.org/. It is an excellent conference with a challenge, and I am looking forward to it. The week before we have our International Workshop of Computational Forensics IWCF09 http://iwcf09.arsforensica.org/ and I received a message from Springer that the conference proceedings have been nearly finished.

In September, I will have the ENFSI Forensic IT working group (where I am a chair of) conference at the Bundes Kriminal Amt in Wiesbaden, Germany http://www.bka.de/kriminalwissenschaften/enfsi/ki_enfsi_index.html. The week after the European Academy of Forensic Sciences, will be held http://www.eafs2009.com/, where I also chair a workshop on Digital Forensics, and have a paper on PRNU http://sourceforge.net/projects/prnucompare/ and a poster on defraser http://sourceforge.net/projects/defraser/.

In the meantime, we have to finish our proposals for the American Academy of Forensic Sciences www.aafs.org , before August 1st, so I have already written some abstracts. Furthermore I am also reviewing some interesting papers and proposals in the mean time, and it seems we have a very interesting year in forensic science.

Also interesting is the work for the WCIT 2010 in Amsterdam, where NFI is doing the cybersecurity and safety track, which is really exciting http://www.wcit2010.com/ and I am also helping with some work on this.

In the meantime, I have to do some new research work, and of course some students and colleagues that work on these projects. 2009 has been a very fruitful year already, and I think it is good to collaborate, and realize that the good collaboration with colleagues and project partners is of most importance to be succesful. Where of course good discussions are as important.

June 2009

Last weeks I had some travelling to Cyprus and Ankara for the FIDIS project and for the ENFSI annual meeting in Ankara. It was organized very well, and also I received the opportunity to give a presentation concerning our working group Forensic IT (which will have a meeting in September in Wiesbaden ). At the meeting most ENFSI-members (directors of Forensic Institutes) where present. The EAFS 2009 meeting in Glasgow was also discussed, where also focus will be on Digital Evidence, and I also have to do some preparation work. It is good to see there is a digital technology track at this conference.



It is also interesting to see the different efforts of forensic registers of practicioners. It appears that the CRFP in the United Kingdom has been ceased, as is also shown on their website http://www.crfp.org.uk/. In the Netherlands we have a law on forensic expertise, so I expect this to be a more solid register, however it is interesting to see the conversion process from the old system to the new system which will start July 1st.



This year is also a good publication year for me, since several papers, and book chapters have been / will be published. Last years we had many students that also did a lot of research work, and this helps also in the development of tools and of course writing articles. The number of cases that I handle is stable, and of course new challenges are given there. Also research of PRNU is now used in the casework for camera comparison. In real casework it does however not always work, since sometimes other patterns are recognized.