Convicted by your own computer
January 21, 2010
Charles Tendell of eCSi and Stephen Csajaghy of Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons in Denver. Sit down with Nina Sparano of Fox 31, to discuss how digital evidence has infiltrated today’s modern courts. “What you type text or email can, and will, be used against you in a court of law”
Steve Csajaghy of Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP
“Every email, every text you send or receive, every time you go to a website, those can be searchable and discovered.”
The traces of data are called metadata. It’s the evidence of what you do online that traces your digital history.
“You can recreate what websites a person visits, what exact page he visits, how long he spends on a website,” adds Csajaghy.
Your electronic trail can track your habits and even your personality. When it comes to the law, technology rewrote the book.
“Profiles of how a person uses his computer, how quickly he responds to email, how often he sends texts,” he says. “It’s just really changed how lawyers do their jobs these days.”
Digital investigator, Charles Tendell of ECSI uses digital evidence to track down criminals, tracing their every move.
“We do a lot of reconstruction and a lot of timeline piecing together.”
The evidence he gathers can be used against you in a court of law.
“Your computer you wrote something or you got a picture of something and you hit delete and it’s gone… wrong,” says Tendell.
Charles adds, even the bad guys can know how to get the information from your device and piece it all back together.
“Think about all of the things you put on your computer you don’t want anyone else to see. Now think about where it all is when you delete it then you empty your recycle bin, it’s all still there.”
Investigators use special software to emulate your cell phone or computer and recover deleted information. In once case, evidence was uncovered from destroyed evidence and the criminal was prosecuted in court.
“He stole somebody’s car, the laptop was in the back seat of the car. He set fire to the car. We were able to recover the data of the hard drive and find the emails between him and the victim talking about how they were going to get the insurance money from the vehicle,” Charles says.
Experts say you have to go through great lengths to destroy a hard drive but there are tools out there that can completely wipe out your computer. Charles Tendell’s website has software you can download to wipe your computer. But remember if you wipe your hard drive, you lose everything on it and can never get it back. But a clean slate isn’t always the best idea.
“The absence of evidence 9 times out of 10 is just as bad as the evidence itself,” says Tendell.
Both Tendell and Csajaghy say, before you send any email or text, think about what you are writing before you hit “send.” That message may one day be taken out of context. Years later, that message could land you in court.
tags: eCSI, Electronic Crime Scene Investigations, eDiscovery, Computer forensics, Denver CO, computer, forensics, edd, denver, Colorado, experts, Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP
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