Investigators can download their images to a computer and then work their magic, but their originals are, well, original.

Thanks to Philip Golan, who provided this information on the Investigative Databases Group on LinkedIn.

A couple of new updates:

1. We are now offering Background Due Diligence services. This is an audit type service that is consent based. It’s purpose is to reduce the risks of new relationships and transactions by identifying red-flags in an individual’s or corporation’s background.

The standard background research audit would encompass what we have learned are our client’s key concerns but the service can be customized to include areas which are unique to each client’s needs. The client then has an opportunity to either accept the risk, attempt to mitigate the risk, or exit the transaction or relationship all together.

Please contact us if you have any questions on this service.

2. Speaking of contacting us, Evince Services has moved and expanded. Our offices are now located in Westboro in Ottawa. Our other contact information remains the same.

3. Algonquin College will be hosting another Internet Investigations course this Fall and I am honoured to have been invited back to teach again this term. Some minor changes will be happening for this term with a little more focus on chain of custody and other issues. For those prospective students that are interested in the program please keep an eye on the link above for when the program will become available for enrollment.

As you can see there is a lot going on, but all very positive. Please drop us a line if you have any questions.

When police identify that there is a rise in a particular kind of crime within an area where a given offender lives who has a similar M.O. they pay more attention to that offender, especially if they have signed an undertaking relating to their parole conditions.

The article does refer to the consideration of police harassment and the Superintendent in the article does indicate that he is ultimately accountable for the members of his detachment to ensure that they operate within acceptable bounds. I agree with this approach and have had excellent experiences working with the RCMP in BC. They have been ethical and very professional.

That being said I would also suggest that over time the program be reviewed as a part of an assessment of the force, possibly by the Ministry of Public Safety and the Solicitor General in BC, simply to prove that officers are acting appropriately.

For those civilians interested in this kind of work there are various courses available two examples include at Algonquin College here in Ottawa, and at BCIT in British Columbia.

I first saw this article on the Analysts’ Corner.

“OPEN(re)SOURCES is a collection of current information gathered from across the Web. Resources include information relevant National Security Intelligence found in Open Source reports, analyses, briefings, articles, etc. Topics regularly cover terrorism (both domestic and foreign), Cybersecurity, Political and Military Analyses, Environmental Issues/Impacts and Analytic Methods and techniques. Items will be posted every Thursday. While the blog posts reflect a date range, resources within those posts may be older than the indicated range; the range purely reflects the time period in which I found the resources.”

I discovered it via Analysts Corner, also a great resource.

I would suggest that the framework provided in this document, augmented with some of the more recent developments in the legal and academic communities dealing with this field (such as protection of the identities of third-parties who are captured or referenced in on-line evidence that are not parties to the “offence”, developments in the law with respect to evidence obtained from social networking sites and Web 2.0 platforms, privacy concerns in different jurisdictions internationally (admittedly as a Canadian I always like to see Canadian content included) etc.) would be very valuable….any takers?

Also, can we solve the debate once and for all? Is it “Internet Forensic Investigations” or “Forensic Internet Investigations”? My vote is for the later.

On Friday I received my regular email from Rob Holmes, PI’s Knockoff Report which is a collection of news stories relating to intellectual property fraud and counterfeiting. By reviewing this report and the reports produced by the International Chamber of Commerce’s BASCAP initiative you can get a pretty good sense of trends in counterfeiting and piracy globally.

Friday’s edition of the Knockoff Report included a story relating to an investigation conducted by Holmes and his colleagues as opposed to investigations conducted by other people or policing agencies. The story was about how Activision Blizzard’s Modern Warfare 2 was comprimised prior to its official release date. Holmes and his colleagues Kris Buckner, Eric Rosaler and Jason Holmes were alerted to the incident by Activision Blizzard and their investigation began with a posting on Craigslist which led to a brand protection purchase, back to a chat room for another issue and eventually that led to some arrests.

I don’t want to spoil the story so I recommend that folks read it for themselves.

Students: In session we talk about how Internet investigations and physical investigations must compliment and support each other, this is a perfect example of how that works. Nice work gents.

The truth is that I didn’t really have a great answer, but I’m starting finding some sources that have provided some very good insight. The first place I would suggest any reader to stop is an article on the Virtual Economy Research Network called “Community dynamics that create demand for virtual goods: case Habbo” written by Vili Lehdonvirta. After that, download the article called “Virtual Consumerism: Case Habbo Hotel” written by Mr. Lehdonvirta, Terhi-Anna Wilska, and Mikael Johnson. This is a pre-print version of the article and it is expected to be in the journal Information, Communication & Society vol. 12 no. 7.

The article is good because well, the article is just good. But the article is also very good because of the numerous sources cited. If you want to continue digging on the subject, there are sources there

My proposed solution is to use a speech to text software to transcribe the audio portion of the video (or the podcast…obviously) to text.

Hopefully this will allow me to provide my clients with text to accompany the video or audio recording. I can also take portions of the transcript and use it in my reports/briefs, etc. Furthermore where certain keywords are of interest I can do keyword searches on them.

I’m expecting some hiccups. The software’s ability to do the transcription is going to depend on the audio quality. If I’m spending a lot of time doing corrections on the transcript then it kind of defeats at least part of the purpose.

If the community has any better ideas, I’m certainly open to them. Please post or send me a note offline.

The six “test” questions are simple but important considerations for any corporation that does business with Government, anywhere. I would encourage you to give this one page article a read. Further resources on the subject can be found on the Centre’s website as well as the website for Transparency International which provides ratings on corruption levels in various countries.

According to Global TV and other sources three men have raised the ire of both Government authorities and animal rights groups for pulling over to the side of the road in some unknown area in Saskatchewan or Alberta and shooting at ducklings in a pond. They posted the video on YouTube and it is alleged to have had over 20,000 downloads.

According to the article the birds are said to be protected by the Migratory Birds Protection Act and therefore the offenders are wanted by both Provincial Authorities and Environment Canada. There is a reward offered for information that leads to the individual’s capture.