Examination of Firearms Review: 2007 to 2010 - Interpol

indexes and stores Web pages to allow researchers to access discarded or
since-altered versions. Such a capability may be an asset for the
prosecution also to prove the contents of a particular website a specific
point in time. According to Eltgroth, however, some courts have excluded
evidence obtained via the Wayback Machine, citing both authentication
and hearsay concerns. As a result, parties who rely on the content of a
Web page currently face an unclear evidentiary standard for the admission
of what may serve as the only available record of since vanished content
(51). Once a party removes content from a website, the current case law
fails to provide a clear standard for how to authenticate archived Web
pages offered in lieu of the missing original (52). The skepticism that courts
have displayed with respect to archived Web content appears to result
from a combination of reluctance to attribute archived content to a content
provider and concerns about accuracy and the potential for intermeddling
(53).
Berman states that in order properly to preserve a webpage, it must be
captured at the exact moment in time in which the preservation is desired
(54). It may also require multiple captures to produce a series of
"snapshots," showing how a site changed over time which is especially
useful in instances where the very fact of habitually updating a website, or
the dates and times of the updates, are of evidentiary significance (55).
Once content on a social networking site, blog or wiki has been identified
as relevant, it must be preserved in such a way that it can later be
authenticated for use as evidence in litigation, as well as to show that a
complete preservation was performed (56). Preservation must be done
completely to ensure that all website information including that which
might be contradictory to the stance of a party is captured (57).
4.3 Operating systems
Sommer states that all operating systems, applications and services are in
very wide use and within all are forensic traces that have significant
potential for a very wide range of investigations (58). He states that the
arguments about speed of change in relation to personal computers can be
applied with at least equal force to cellphones, where major manufacturers
release new models with new features and new opportunities for digital
footprints to be created every 3 or 4 months. He states that digital
evidence will have to be at least a year perhaps more behind the ways in
which computers are used by organizations and individuals and criminals.
4.4 Hand held devices including mobile (cell) phones
Marshall describes technical assistants such as smart phones as
“unsleeping witnesses”(59). Stillwagon describes them as portable
microcomputers embedded in public spaces (60). Even though the device
itself may not have played any role in the crime, its very presence at the
crime scene, or use by one of those involved, often leads to it being a
potential source of information or images of evidentiary value (61).
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