ProCAVE: Privacy-preserving collection and authenticity validation of online evidence

Abstract

It is an undisputable fact that nowadays many different types of crime are conducted by utilizing some type of electronic device - communication. To address this new situation, modern forensics tools evolved, becoming sophisticated enough to handle almost all kinds of digital content. However, surprisingly enough, collecting and validating the authenticity of online content remains, until now, a problem to resolve. The common practice is to capture (screen-shot) or save a web page, the authenticity of which is usually validated in a judicial process by an expert's testimony. In this paper, we introduce ProCAVE , a simple software architecture with a set of accompanying procedures, and we argue that their combined use can deliver evidence from online sources in the court, in a sound and privacy-preserving manner. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.