Introduction
Digital forensics is the function of unveiling and interpreting electronic data for use in a court of law. The objective of the process is to preserve any evidence in its most authentic form while performing a structured investigation by collecting, identifying and validating the digital information for the purpose of reconstructing past events (Janssen, 2010-2014).
There are many examiners in the Digital Forensic community who are not cognizant that professional codes of conduct and codes of ethical practices need to be an inherent part of every examination. This is especially important since it is a common practice to only examine the digital media for specific information requested by the investigator (Barbara, 2013).
Ultimately, the examiner is responsible for his or her results. Through education, training, and experience, he or she develops and enhances individual technical knowledge, skills, and abilities. This maturation process needs to involve adherence to an overriding code of professional conduct or a code of ethical practices. Doing so will give guidance and direction to the examiner when confronted with moral, professional, or ethical issues. Rightly or wrongly, morals, codes of professional conduct, conduct, and codes of ethical practices are intertwined. After reviewing the definitions of “code,” “conduct,” “ethics,” and “moral,” it is easy to comprehend why (see Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary). Generally, all codes consist of randomly agreed-upon rules that attempt to define appropriate behavior. This leads to many commonalities between the different codes. As one would expect, many professional forensic organizations have published codes for their members to follow (Barbara, 2013).
Why is Eth...
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...nt a conflict of interest, an ethical standard provides that specialist the guidance he or she needs to work through that situation. Further, standards assist digital forensic organizations. For instance, a certification standard helps certifying organizations demonstrate their value to courts, employers and practitioners interested in sitting for the certification. But none of these standards work unless they are developed jointly by practitioners within the industry. Digital forensics is a unique process - different from many other forensic practices. The natural inclination to treat it similarly to all other forensic sciences hurts practitioners. More importantly, the emerging thought that digital forensic specialists should be licensed without any regard to their ability to complete an examination without demonstrated proficiency is reckless (Specialists, 2014).
Of the most powerful people in the world, the President of the United States of America hits the top of the list. Even though the policy agendas that presidents set as they take office often go unfulfilled, the office of President is still one of the most envied spots to have. But why could this be? It is because the United States is the most powerful nation in the world and with the President as the leader, he is said to have the most power in the world ("Top Ten Most Powerful Countries in the World"). With power comes responsibility and with this position he must govern a country while abiding by the rules.
At least 99 percent of the time, forensic science is reliable and deem accurate. Although four experts that matched Brandon Mayfield’s fingerprint to the fingerprint on a bag at the crime scene, they in fact misidentified the evidence and Spanish police found out that the latent fingerprint actually belong to be an Algerian. This shown that forensic experts and attorneys can definitely be wrong; furthermore, it convey that not all evidence presented in the case is subjected to be infallible and there is a possibility for committed error. Leah Bartos, a UC Berkley graduate student with a Journalism degree, conducted an experiment to understand the process of becoming a certified forensic consultant. She had no prior knowledge in the forensic discipline, but became certified after she passed the open book exam and sent ACFET her bachelor degree, resume, and references. The ACFET exam have a 99 percent pass rate; therefore, it is criticized for creditability of its certified graduate and branded a diploma milling organization for-profit. Attorney can argue the weakness of the forensic evidence presented, hence forensic science call for bad science and can definitely be misuse in our adversarial legal
I really enjoyed the accounting specialization because I feel that I’m very comfortable with numbers and I like solving analytical problems. I also like the social aspect that would come with accounting, like communicating with your colleagues at work about what you discovered or useful information. I think working with financial records of a firm or business would be interesting because you never know what to expect to happen and you have to be quick to adapt to certain situations.
Forensic evidence can provide just outcomes in criminal matters. However, it is not yet an exact science as it can be flawed. It can be misrepresented through the reliability of the evidence, through nonstandard guidelines, and through public perception. Forensic science can be dangerously faulty without focus on the ‘science’ aspect. It can at times be just matching patterns based on an individual’s interpretations. This can lead to a miscarriage of justice and forever alter a person’s life due to a perceived “grey area” (Merritt C, 2010) resulting in a loss of confidence in the reliability of forensic evidence.
The National Academy of Sciences (2009) was highly critical of a broad range of forensic disciplines, such as ballistics, hair and fiber analysis, impression evidence, handwriting analysis, and even fingerprint analysis. The academy concluded that there are problems with standardization, reliability, accuracy and error, and the potential for contextual bias.
One of the major contributions to the successful progression of forensic science is the commencement of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in 1950. The goal of this organization was to bring multi-disciplinary professionals together for the purpose of seeking the continued advancement of science for the benefit of the legal system (American Academy of Forensic Sciences, 2010). In doing so, this organization propelled a unique focus on forensic science for the future of criminal justice.
The collection, custody and preservation of forensic evidence is a vital aspect of evidence integrity, without proper adherence to these procedures, crucial evidence that could potentially have great impact on a court case could be rendered useless. In the case of criminal proceedings, a skilled defence lawyer will look to scrutinise every step taken by forensic practitioners’ involved within the case in regards to the continuity of the evidence, in doing this they attempt to undermine the practitioner’s ability to properly carry out strict evidence collection, protection and preservation procedures and also look to find fault in the techniques they used to carry out these procedures.
National Research Council (U.S.). (2009). Strengthening forensic science in the United States: A path forward. Washington, D.C: National Academies Press.
Technology is constantly changing, and as the capabilities change, so do the issues in Forensic information technology (FIT). FIT is defined as the scientific use or application of information technology (IT) that is used to generate and present digital evidence to be used in courts, legal or other formal proceedings (Volonio). While the use of technology helps get things done faster, it also can present many issues if the proper procedures and tools are not used and followed. An existing issue in FIT is computer forensics, in regards to preserving digital evidence and effectively conducting a computer forensics investigation. Computer forensics can be defined as the who, what, when, and how of digital (electronic) evidence and how techmology is used to preserve, authentic, and analyze the evidence collected (citation 17utah). If obtained evidence is not handled propely, this could jepoeradize its reliability when being admitted into court. It is important to identify the issues, possible solutions, and the type of technology that is used in computer forensics, especially during a computer forensic investigation. This paper will provide an insight to the existing issues in FIT such as computer forensics, with emphasis on preserving digital(electronic) evidence and the issue of effectively aquiring, authenticating, and analyzing retrieved information during a forensic investigation.
This research has helped me gain a clearer understanding of the most important five (5) skills that a forensic accountant needs to possess and evaluate the need for each skill for the varied investigative matters for which they are retained. This together with the case study has presented the importance of forensic accountants in present day business world. I would like to recommend that forensic accountants be engaged by the plaintiff/prosecution, defense, or by the court to educate the judge about fraud-related matters relevant to the matter under dispute; and both private and public organizations hire the services of forensic accountants to avoid loss and fraud. .
There are many different avenues that one could take in the field of accounting. It is a lucrative career with many areas of interest to be followed. I have chosen Forensic Accounting to further review and research. This paper will define forensic accounting, describe what it takes to be a forensic accountant, give some statistics about forensic accounting, and give my feedback on this potential career path.
Digital Evidence is electronic data, materials, objects, property, documents, or records that are presented in court to prove or disprove allegations made against an arrestee. It takes the form of electronic data or information stored in bits and bytes on magnetic media. The examples of devices that can contain digital evidence include; cellular phones or similar all in one devices, pagers, digital voice recorders.
Forensic accounting, forensic accountancy or financial forensics is the specialty practice area of accounting that describes engagements that result from actual or anticipated disputes or litigation. "Forensic" means "suitable for use in a court of law", and it is to that standard and potential outcome that Forensic-Accountants generally have to work. Forensic-Accountants, also referred to as forensic auditors or investigative auditors, often have to give expert evidence at the eventual trial. The integration of accounting, auditing and investigative skills yields the specialty known as Forensic Accounting. Forensic-Accounting encompasses both Litigation-Support and Investigative
Digital evidence is also very possible to cross countries and legal jurisdictions. For this reason, according to [13], the handling of chain of custody for digital evidence is much more difficult than the handling of physical evidence, in general. In contrast to physical evidence, digital evidence is very dependent on the interpretation of its content. Therefore, the integrity of the evidence and the ability of the expert to interpret the evidence will be influential in sorting digital documents available to serve as evidence