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iPhones are little, pocket-sized supercomputers. With power and capabilities unimaginable just a few years ago, they can be seen everywhere and with every kind of person's face buried in one. They hold music and videos, photographs and games, communications and the...

We're all computer users now and by virtue of the fact that we write, we're all content creators as well. But what happens when you don't like the created content and decide to dump it - or accidently close something without saving it? Is it necessarily gone? The...

Law around the subject of electronically stored information (ESI) is ever-evolving. In a lawsuit, it's treated just like paper documents. If you shred or burn the paper evidence, you're in trouble – and if you're caught deleting or wiping electronic evidence, you're...

Burgess Consulting recovered all of the data from this laptop When the library of Pine Grove Elementary School was gutted from an intense fire, this laptop was discovered in the ashes. The hard drive contained all of the insurance information needed to pay for...

Drama. Drama is the touchstone for reporting. We have to look well around this particular stone in order to catch a realistic impression of the virtual. We have to look around it even to understand what CyberWar is or how it is defined. When talking about cyberwar,...

Several news articles have referred to Russian surveillance at the just-concluded Sochi Olympics as "Prism on Steroids." Surely they jest. Prism, the NSA's widely cast surveillance net, is practically the definition of (cybersurveillance) steroids. One big difference...

On the morning of May 21, something happened. Suspicion fell first on kids playing with matches. But a Fire Department investigation soon revealed that it was faulty wiring in the walls that started the fire. The temporary building that permanently housed the Pine...

Backup, backup, backups! If there's one thing I've learned in 30 years and close to 20,000 data recoveries, it's that everybody doesn't back up their data sometimes. Nobody backs up their data all of the time, most people never back up their data, and hardly anyone...

I was taking a small midday break from my computer forensics lab to enjoy a few minutes of a sunny 75 degree June day in my Santa Barbara County office when I got the call from a Tino Zatara, Boston lawyer. He was sweating and it wasn't just because Boston was having...

It was a balmy summer day in Marin County, back near the beginning of my computer forensics career. Back in the day - before we called it that - I had testified as an expert witness only a few times. My feet weren't flat yet, my shoes not yet gummy.Y2K was just...