AFTER 31 years of eluding the police, the B.T.K. serial killer of Wichita, Kan., was tracked down and convicted in 2005 with the help of information left behind on a computer floppy disk. Scott Peterson’s conviction for murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, relied in part on his Internet research about the tides and water currents in the area where her body later turned up.
From prominent murder cases to lowly divorce proceedings, the e-mail messages that people send and the Web sites they view can and will be used in court. The people who unearth this data and make it usable in the courtroom are known as computer forensic specialists. They are the cyber detectives who mine the data that seems to disappear from — but never really leaves —computers and other electronic storage devices.
“People who love computers, who love crime scene investigation, see this as a natural confluence of their skills without having to reach under a dead body,” said Craig D. Ball of Austin, Tex., a former trial lawyer who advises judges and lawyers on the use of electronic evidence.
Computer forensic specialists examine hard drives and other storage areas, ferreting out
information from things like spreadsheets, Word documents, instant messages and e-mail. They look for signs of tampering and for information that users may have tried to delete or hide. For many years, the field was dominated by law enforcement agencies and their employees. But it has expanded recently as consultants have entered the field and as various government agencies, corporations, financial institutions and other businesses have begun hiring their own experts.
By: David York
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