Paired stable carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of human enamel for forensic human geolocation: An exploratory study

Stable carbon isotope analysis has proven utility for reconstructing dietary information in humans in past populations. The usefulness of stable carbon for forensic geolocation has been little investigated, largely because of the globalization of the human diet seemingly rendering it inconsequential. This study queried this assumption at a country-wide level on a known sample group. Stable carbon isotope values were obtained from human enamel with known biographical and geographical information to determine whether stable carbon, when paired with stable oxygen isotope values, could differentiate Canadians from non-Canadians. Samples originating outside of Canada were separated into three regions, and a linear discriminant analysis was used to generate discriminant functions that best separate the regions according to the stable carbon and oxygen isotope values. The results revealed two functions, where the first function explained 92.1% and the second 7.9% of the variance. Although some overlap in stable carbon and oxygen values was observed for individuals from both the United States and Canada, differences were observed between those from Canada and other geographical regions. This study demonstrated that pairing the dietary isotope carbon with the geolocator stable oxygen isotope, produced an interesting separation geographically, one that might well be helpful when attempting a geolocation query on unknown human remains.     

计算机取证综述

随着计算机与网络技术的发展,计算机犯罪活动日益增多,从而给国家和人民造成巨大的破坏。计算机犯罪是一种高技术犯罪,其很多证据都以数字形式通过计算机或网络进行存储和传输,不仅难以提取,而且易于篡改、销毁。因此,计算机取证已成为打击计算机犯罪的重要手段。计算机取证（Computer Forensics）作为法学、刑事侦查学和计算机科学的交叉学科,正逐渐成为人们研究和关注的焦点。     

An exploratory comparative analysis of the use of metaphors in writing on the Internet and mobile phones

Scant attention has been paid to the use of figures of speech in describing mobile telephony and how it is used. While there are isolated cases, as yet there is no study of metaphor use across a larger corpus of mobile phone research. This article addresses this gap by developing a preliminary survey, or mapping, of the use of metaphors and other discursive figures and tropes in the available literature on mobile phones. It does this by using metaphors in Internet literature as a springboard for comparative analysis, as a comparable communications medium. Both for their general role as communications technologies and their specific historicized position as “new media”, and with their capacities increasingly overlapping, mobile phones and the Internet form a useful counterpoint. The article summarizes the key findings from earlier work mapping and critiquing the use of metaphor in the critical and popular writing on the Internet. It then compares and contrasts these Internet-based metaphors against those in the mobile literature. The paper concludes with a discussion of the perils and the promise of metaphor use in writing on communications technologies.     

Forming Political Culture and Marketing Strategies in a Central-European Setting

ABSTRACT

Having analyzed the different strategies used in the 1998 and 2002 parliamentary election campaigns with reference to the 1990 and 1994 campaigns, we can conclude that the Hungarian election conventions and culture are still in a state of experimentation and exploration. In contrast with American election traditions, in Hungary, not the individual (with the exception of the Alliance of Young Democrats), but the party image is what counts, though, in this respect, considerable changes could be observed during the last few years. The Hungarian political palette is much too fragmented, and this sets a barrier to the necessary desire for creating a suitable forum for the debate of the party leaders and for the declaration of party politics. At present, the party programme reaches the citizens just in implicit, hidden, often symbolic forms of messages.

While the symbols of the left-wing parties were sketchy, unskillful, too rational, and not giving much space for emotional influence, the right-wing parties gave too large of a dose of different symbols, which were emotional rather than rational. This lack of balance made the campaigns superficial, irrational, sometimes misleading, and abnormal. This feeling of abnormality was strengthened by the fact that the overdose on the part of the right wing was not limited to the campaign period, but the emotional shocking started much earlier. The state of excitement, which was spread in time, actually started in the spring of 1998, and even if there were fluctuations, the general mood of the last four years was characterised by the dug-out hatchet. The political opinion of the Orbán party was clearly expressed by their metaphors. The message of the sentences like 'it is more than change of government, less than change of regime,' 'attacking on the whole field,' 'we change the telephone directories,' etc., was unambiguous: combative four years are coming. During their campaign, 'setting up a record' was realized between the two rounds after the failure in the first round and was still going on showing the election failure, which came about in democratic circumstances (Galló Béla, 2002, 93).

One could hardly judge the effectiveness of agenda building, though some of the crucial social questions appeared as cue words and sentences in the mediated messages of parties (for example, family, health care, education, joining the European Union). Hungarian campaigning, compared to the American presidential election campaign, is colorless and rife with technical and rhetorical errors, and it is a competition without any coherence where the citizen is very often just a means of, but not the goal in, the struggle of the parties.     

Mobile e-Gov

Abstract

The mobile/wireless evolution began with the familiar, but will expand rapidly to new frontiers. Wireless messaging emerged first as an extension of the office environment. Everyone understands e-mail and can translate that concept easily to a mobile, wireless device. But looking further down the road, the real payoff will be mobile, wireless access to and interaction with mission-critical, enterprise-wide applications. So what does this mean for e-government? The answer is twofold. On one hand it means governments will interact with citizens wirelessly. All those people out there with all those wireless devices are also citizens of governments. And, on the other hand, more than any other industry, public sector workforces stand to gain the most from wireless advances.     

The Hierarchy of Case Priority (HiCaP):- A proposed method for case prioritisation in digital forensic laboratories

The need for digital forensic science (DFS) services has grown due to widespread and consistent engagement with technology by members of society. Whilst digital evidence often plays an important role in many inquiries, available investigative resources have failed to keep pace with such demand for them. As a result, the use case prioritisation models for backlog/workload management are of increasing importance to ensure the effective deployment of laboratory resources. This work focuses on the concept of ​​case prioritisation in a digital forensic laboratory setting, following the submission of exhibits for examination, where this workflow is described. The challenges of case management and prioritisation in laboratories are discussed, with both ‘case acceptance’ and ‘case prioritisation’ procedures explained. Finally, the ‘Hierarchy of Case Priority’ (HiCaP) - a transparent, risk-based approach for the prioritisation of cases for examination, is proposed and described using examples.     

PDU结构分析在手机短信检验鉴定中的应用

PDU模式下的短信息编码方式,被GSM手机广泛运用。在实际检验鉴定工作中,涉案手机检验量大幅增加,并且手机检验分析系统无法解析镜像文件的情况时有发生,检验人员只有对PDU有足够的了解,才能对手机取证驾轻就熟。通过对PDU模式结构的实例分析,手工成功恢复出手机短信息,这种分析的方法和经验可以应用于所有GSM手机的短信息取证。     

Structure and application of IconCache.db files for digital forensics

Anti-forensics has developed to prevent digital forensic investigations, thus forensic investigations to prevent anti-forensic behaviors have been studied in various area. In the area of user activity analysis, “IconCache.db” files contain icon cache information related to applications, which can yield meaningful information for digital forensic investigations such as the traces of deleted files. A previous study investigated the general artifacts found in the IconCache.db file. In the present study, further features and structures of the IconCache.db file are described. We also propose methods for analyzing anti-forensic behaviors (e.g., time information related to the deletion of files). Finally, we introduce an analytical tool that was developed based on the file structure of IconCache.db. The tool parses out strings from the IconCache.db to assist an analyst. Therefore, an analyst can more easily analyze the IconCache.db file using the tool.     

A visual approach to interpreting NAND flash memory

The research described in this paper proposes methods for visually interpreting the content of raw NAND flash memory images into higher level visual artefacts of assistance in reverse engineering and interpreting flash storage formats. A novel method of reverse engineering the structure and layout of individual memory locations within NAND flash images, based on injecting a known signal into a test NAND environment is also proposed. Omissions in the current theory of operation of flash, in particular the role of flash memory controllers in transforming the raw NAND are identified, clarifying the cause of variations seen between images taken using pseudo physical and raw physical techniques. The effectiveness of the approach is validated against raw NAND images from YAFFS2 based Android phones, taken via JTAG and chip-off methods.     

Forensic analysis of video file formats

Video file format standards define only a limited number of mandatory features and leave room for interpretation. Design decisions of device manufacturers and software vendors are thus a fruitful resource for forensic video authentication. This paper explores AVI and MP4-like video streams of mobile phones and digital cameras in detail. We use customized parsers to extract all file format structures of videos from overall 19 digital camera models, 14 mobile phone models, and 6 video editing toolboxes. We report considerable differences in the choice of container formats, audio and video compression algorithms, acquisition parameters, and internal file structure. In combination, such characteristics can help to authenticate digital video files in forensic settings by distinguishing between original and post-processed videos, verifying the purported source of a file, or identifying the true acquisition device model or the processing software used for video processing.