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Why Cell Forensics Are Important for Detectives ?

If you are still investigating pay telephones, then you are living in antiquated history. As we enter the next ten years of the twentieth century, a lot of people are using cell telephones - as well as the subjects that we examine.

As mobile telephones have evolved, it does not make much sense any longer to just label the devices "telephones". In fact, the title "mini computer" would be a more suitable title for these powerful little communication telephones. Smartphones like the blackberry and iPhone are particularly powerful sources of investigative evidence.

Widespread view among most - in particular smaller - police departments is that analyzing cell forensics is more technological than they have the time or the people to handle. But this is just not the situation. Take a look out of the country: the UK, and other nearby European nations, are far more advanced than the United States when it comes to extracting forensics information out of mobile phones. This development was not that taxing; it really only took a willingness to recognize that mobile device forensics are valuable for cases. We will discuss the importance of mobile forensics in this article. In another article, we discuss mobile forensics extraction tools.

Though it may seem to be a trivial question if you have any experience with mobile forensics, no doubt several agency police might want a definition for mobile forensics. Here is a good definition:

The removal and analysis of data from cell phones seized by crime analysts.

To acquire these cell phones from targets, they are generally acquired during an arrest or when a hunt warrant is exercised. The way to legally obtain mobile phones for cases is not the point of this editorial - we have to suppose that you are fairly familiar with the essentials of criminal justice. Seek advice from your defense attorney to ensure that you get hold of the smartphones correctly. Remember that the process from start to finish needs to be documented for court.

Cell forensic information includes:

Emails (in the case of smartphones)
Address books
Pictures (occasionally together with geo-information!)
Text messages
Call Detail Records (aka numbers called and numbers calling)

The importance of mobile forensics is rather clear.

They can without difficulty produce the next lead of your analysis, but they also give valuable background for your targets. Who is called most often by your target? Who is receiving his emails? What persons are a part of his core group of co-conspirators?

Simply getting data off of a telephone, however, is not enough. You need a way to analyze the information. It is not uncommon for forensic detectives to rave about the number of files they are able to pull off a particular handset. However, the only point of pulling information from a telephone is to generate leads and the resulting evidence with ANALYSIS.

In another article later in this series, we will hit on some mobile forensics analysis software that turns the data from the extraction devices (like the Cellebrite, Secureview, or XRY) and actually turns it into actionable intelligence automatically.

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