Towards the Design of a Forensic Tool for Mobile Data Visualization

Abstract

The growing popularity and use of mobile devices over the past decade has provided law enforcement agencies with new types of evidence to aid them in solving crimes. These devices can store a great deal of data that can be instrumental in digital investigations. Equally important is the acquisition and analysis of this data, which can be used to connect individuals or organizations to an incident or crime involving cell phone communication. Data obtain from cell phones and SIM cards are useful and meaningful because it can help investigators connect individuals who may have been collaborating or cooperating about a criminal activity; for instance, in the scenario of drug trafficking and/or terrorism events. In situations such as these where the data is not standalone, the visualization of this information is of high importance. Law enforcement officials must be able to not only collect data from cell phones but also understand the big picture; in other words, to determine how the data is connected and correlated to better draw conclusions about crimes and other topics of forensic interest. A good data visualization tool would allow them to make connections they otherwise might not have seen. While there exist many forensic tools for mobile phone data collection, the current software available to transform this information into a meaningful presentation is limited. To this effect, this research aims at addressing the need to create a mobile forensic tool that involves semantic data analysis to provide real-time data visualization information.