Latest news with #digitalforensics
CBC
2 days ago
- CBC
CBC News visual investigations: What we do
CBC News' visual investigations team uses open sources of information, digital forensics and traditional journalism techniques to break new stories that resonate with Canadians and shine on the world stage. This is a small sample of what we do and a look at who we are.
CBS News
30-07-2025
- CBS News
How one sheriff's office in Colorado is working to contain lithium battery fires
Behind your locked phone is a lot of information, and if tech is ever tied to a crime, the Boulder County Sheriff's Office can follow a warrant to find that information as evidence. "Computers, laptops, pretty much anything, VR headsets, basically everything in our lives has digital stuff attached to it," said Boulder County Sheriff Sergeant Clay Leak. Leak works at BCSO's Digital Forensics Lab. Part of their work is in an effort to crack dozens of phones in their evidence locker that are all charging, all the time. "We've had a few batteries come in bulging, and that's one of the first concerns is, gosh, what if, you know, what if something happens to this?" Leak explained, "We don't want to burn the building down or destroy any of our evidence." The worry comes from the risk of lithium battery fires. These fires have been reported in news stories in homes and on planes. The fires can happen if the battery powering our everyday tech gets damaged or overheats. The FAA says it's happening on planes every week, and tech company Lithium Fire Guard is working to stop it. Nick Dunbar is the Vice President of Sales for Lithium Fire Guard. The device is designed to surround the affected device and filter out any toxic fumes. There is then an area to pour water into the device to submerge the technology. "We added the fire extinguisher, we added the ax, we added the defibrillator," Dunbar said, "I think that, and not very long, we're going to see this box sitting there." Dunbar says this is the only single-state device to be certified for lithium battery containment. "The batteries create their own oxygen, so you can't snuff these batteries out with a blanket," Dunbar said. While the device was originally sold for aviation, this box is one of the latest purchases by the Boulder County Sheriff's Office. "You can't put a price on being able to, you know, guarantee the safety of my examiners because of the toxic fumes that would come off during a battery fire, and then also the security and safety of the building," Leak said. Right now fire guard says they're selling boxes to any industry that uses tech even beyond aviation and law enforcement. "We've started selling to hotels," Dunbar said. "There was the Chromebook TikTok trend, where students were igniting their own Chromebook. And so we've had schools look at our product." While the current Lithium Fire Guard product aims at containing fires, Dunbar says they plan to release more preventative measures later this year.
Japan Times
29-07-2025
- Japan Times
NPA white paper highlights crimes surrounding social media
The National Police Agency on Tuesday published an annual white paper highlighting trends of crimes involving social media and investigation methods for such offenses. In a special section of the fiscal 2025 report, the NPA noted that the spread of social media has made it easy for tokuryū loosely organized crime groups comprising anonymous members to contact ordinary citizens and commit crimes. In 2024, the number of social media-linked investment and romance fraud cases detected by police around the country exceeded 10,000, with victims defrauded of some ¥127.2 billion in total, according to the report. Social media is also used for recruiting perpetrators of tokuryu groups, as well as drug trafficking and child prostitution. The report outlined investigative methods such as "digital forensics" for extracting data from confiscated items such as smartphones and recovering information contained in broken electronic devices for use as evidence. Also featured are cryptocurrency-tracking techniques and the use of artificial intelligence for cyber patrolling. Pointing to challenges such as strengthening the system for cyber personnel development and addressing encryption technology, the report said police will step up efforts to develop new investigation methods such as officers using fictitious identities to approach crime groups and opening bank accounts under the names of fictitious parties with the aim to have crime groups use them so that the flow of money is monitored.
Forbes
27-07-2025
- Forbes
‘Missing' Epstein Video—Digital Forensics Experts Reveal What Really Happened
The Epstein 'missing video" explained by digital forensics experts. When reports emerged of 'missing minutes' in Jeffrey Epstein's jail surveillance video, the story seemed to suggest something sinister. After all, how could crucial surveillance footage be incomplete during such a significant event? But this case offers a perfect example of why understanding digital forensics is essential in modern litigation, and why the most dramatic explanations aren't always the correct ones. Two former FBI Senior Forensic Examiners, Stacy Eldridge and Becky Passmore, decided to conduct their own analysis when they felt media reports lacked sufficient technical detail. Their findings suggest not a cover-up, but rather the complex reality of how digital video works in the modern surveillance age. However, their analysis also reveals an important limitation: without access to the original raw surveillance files, even expert forensic examiners cannot be completely certain about what occurred. Understanding Work Product vs. Raw Evidence When digital forensic examiners need to share surveillance footage, they rarely share the original files straight from the camera system. Instead, they create what's called a 'work product.' This happens because raw footage often requires specialized and sometimes proprietary software and equipment for viewing. Think of it like the difference between a photographer's original camera files and the edited photos they share publicly. The FBI's released video falls into this category. As Eldridge and Passmore discovered through their analysis, 'This is not a 'raw' file. It's not evidence. It's work product. Something someone would make for easier viewing and sharing.' Understanding this distinction is vital because work products undergo processing that can create timing discrepancies without affecting the underlying evidence. It's the difference between the original surveillance recording and a presentation version designed for public release. However, this also means that definitive conclusions about tampering require access to the original files that the experts did not have. How Modern Digital Forensics Works Digital forensics operates much like traditional detective work, but instead of fingerprints and DNA, experts examine metadata, file structures and digital signatures. Metadata serves as a digital fingerprint that reveals a file's complete history: when it was created, what software processed it, how many times it was saved, and even details about the computer that handled it. Eldridge and Passmore employed the same rigorous techniques used in criminal investigations. Their analysis revealed several important technical details. The video was processed using Adobe Premiere Pro, as evidenced by a project file named 'mcc_4.prproj' and metadata showing it was created from two separate source files. They even found a partial username, 'Mjcole~1,' providing insight into who processed the footage. This level of detail matters because it allows forensic experts to reconstruct how the final video was created and identify what changes may have occurred during processing. However, the experts were careful to note the limitations of their analysis without the original source material. Decoding Three Types of Time Discrepancies The experts identified three distinct issues that created timing discrepancies. Understanding each category helps explain why timing problems don't automatically indicate evidence tampering, while also showing why definitive conclusions require more complete information. The first category involves the acknowledged system reboot. Surveillance systems, like all computers, require periodic maintenance. The jail's system underwent routine maintenance around midnight, creating a 62-second gap in recording. The experts pinpointed this precisely: 'Nightly reboot start timestamp 8/09/2019 11:58:58 last number appeared' and 'nightly reboot end timestamp 8/10/2019 12:00:00 AM first number reappeared.' This gap represents actual missing time, but it's the kind of planned maintenance that occurs in surveillance systems nationwide. The key question isn't whether this gap exists, but whether it occurred naturally or was deliberately timed to coincide with significant events. Without access to system logs and maintenance records, this question cannot be definitively answered. The second category involves edited content from the beginning of the file. The experts found evidence that approximately 3 minutes of content appears to have been removed from the very start of the video file. However, they emphasized an important caveat: 'The 3 minutes not accounted for from the file 2025-05-22 was likely cut from the beginning of the file. This is an assumption based on time calculations based on the metadata we were able to retrieve. This is not definitive as we do not have the original videos that were used to create This finding illustrates both the power and limitations of forensic analysis. The location of missing content matters enormously. Content removed from the beginning of a file often suggests routine editing to focus on relevant timeframes, similar to how a documentary editor might trim unnecessary footage from the start of a scene. Content removed from the middle of a timeline, particularly during critical moments, would raise much more serious questions about tampering. Yet the experts' honest acknowledgment of uncertainty demonstrates scientific integrity. They found patterns suggesting routine editing, but cannot eliminate other possibilities without the original files. The third category involves dropped frames, a concept that requires careful explanation because it's often misunderstood. When video systems encounter processing limitations, whether due to hardware constraints or file compression needs, they employ a technique called frame dropping. Instead of losing entire sections of video, the system removes individual frames scattered throughout the recording. Think of this like removing every 100th word from a novel. You lose some detail, but the story remains coherent and readable. The experts found approximately 12,000 individual frames were dropped during processing out of more than 1.2 million total frames, creating a loss rate of 0.97%. 'Dropped frames account for the missing 6 minutes and 34 seconds we thought we discovered. Loss rate is less than 1%,' the experts concluded. This distinction between dropped frames and missing video segments is necessary for understanding evidence integrity. Dropped frames represent a technical limitation that doesn't compromise the evidentiary value of surveillance footage, while truly missing video content could suggest deliberate tampering. However, distinguishing between routine frame dropping and intentional deletion requires access to the original processing logs and source files. Epstein Video: Why Technical Context Prevents Misinterpretation The Epstein video case demonstrates why technical literacy matters in interpreting digital evidence. Without understanding how video processing works, timing discrepancies can appear suspicious when they're actually routine technical artifacts. Consider how the initial reports interpreted the evidence. WIRED reported '2 minutes and 53 seconds' of missing footage.. However, without the proper forensic context, this was presented as potentially significant missing content rather than normal processing artifacts. As Eldridge and Passmore noted, they were motivated to conduct their analysis after being 'not satisfied with the reporting on the metadata involved in this case.' Their expertise allowed them to distinguish between technical processing effects and actual evidence problems, though they acknowledged the inherent limitations of analyzing processed files rather than original evidence. The confusion stemmed primarily from two factors: the FBI labeling processed video as 'raw footage,' creating expectations that this was unaltered surveillance content, and normal frame dropping during video compression creating timing discrepancies that seemed suspicious without technical context. The Critical Limitation: Why Raw Footage Matters While the expert analysis provides valuable insights, it also highlights a fundamental principle of digital forensics: the most definitive conclusions require access to original, unprocessed evidence. As Eldridge and Passmore honestly acknowledged, their analysis was limited by working with processed files rather than the original surveillance data. This limitation doesn't invalidate their findings, but it does place them in proper scientific context. The experts found no evidence of tampering and identified plausible technical explanations for all timing discrepancies. However, for these conclusions to move from 'highly probable' to 'certain,' forensic examiners would need the FBI to provide the original raw surveillance files for examination. This distinction matters because it demonstrates both the power and the limits of forensic analysis. Expert examination can rule out many conspiracy theories and provide strong evidence for technical explanations, but absolute certainty in digital forensics often requires access to complete evidence chains that may not always be available. Balancing Skepticism with Technical Reality The Epstein video analysis ultimately reveals that the most complex conspiracy theories can often have the simplest explanations. In this instance, timing discrepancies that seemed suspicious were most likely routine technical artifacts created during normal video processing. This doesn't diminish the importance of thorough investigation or the value of healthy skepticism about official accounts. Rather, it demonstrates why proper technical analysis is essential for distinguishing between genuine evidence problems and normal digital processing effects. It also shows why honest scientific analysis includes acknowledging limitations and uncertainties. The case serves as a reminder that in today's world, technical literacy is becoming as important as traditional investigative skills. Understanding how digital systems work helps us ask better questions, interpret evidence more accurately and avoid drawing dramatic conclusions from routine technical processes. It also helps us understand when additional evidence is needed for complete analysis. As Eldridge and Passmore noted, they conducted their analysis because 'We're both former FBI Senior Forensic Examiners and we're here to share the facts.' Their work exemplifies how proper forensic analysis can cut through speculation and provide evidence-based conclusions, while also demonstrating the scientific integrity to acknowledge when complete certainty requires additional evidence.
Yahoo
25-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Centex Technologies Welcomes Former Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp as Strategic Advisor
KILLEEN, Texas, July 25, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Centex Technologies is proud to announce that John Sharp, former Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System, has joined the company as a Strategic Advisor. In this role, Mr. Sharp will support the company's strategic expansion across cybersecurity, digital forensics, artificial intelligence, and managed IT services. With nearly two decades of experience, Centex Technologies provides secure, scalable, and transformative IT solutions for clients across both public and private sectors. The company's expertise includes cybersecurity, IT modernization, cloud infrastructure, application development, digital forensics, and managed services. With teams in five states, Centex Technologies maintains a strong nationwide presence and serves as a trusted partner to federal agencies, state and local governments, higher education institutions, and commercial enterprises. 'We are honored to welcome John Sharp to the Centex Technologies team,' said Abdul Subhani, CEO of Centex Technologies. 'His distinguished record of service, visionary leadership, and deep understanding of state and federal systems make him an ideal strategic partner as we continue to scale our impact and expand our advanced IT solutions nationwide.' Mr. Sharp brings a wealth of experience to Centex Technologies. As Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System from 2011 to 2025, he oversaw one of the nation's largest university systems and championed major initiatives in education, research, and technology. His previous roles in Texas state government including Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Railroad Commissioner, and member of both the Texas House and Senate further cement his reputation as a bold and effective leader. 'After nearly 15 years leading the Texas A&M University System, I'm excited to begin this next chapter with Centex Technologies,' said Sharp. 'Their reputation for innovation, national security work, and commitment to excellence - particularly in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and digital forensics reflects the kind of forward-thinking leadership our country needs. I look forward to helping Centex expand its reach and deepen its impact across both the public and private sectors' ABOUT CENTEX TECHNOLOGIES Founded in 2006, Centex Technologies is an IT consulting firm specializing in cybersecurity, digital forensics, AI integration, and managed IT solutions. The firm is ISO 9001:2015 certified, SBA 8(a) certified, and serves a wide range of clients across the federal government, state agencies, education systems, and commercial sectors through contract vehicles including GSA MAS, SeaPort NxG, TIPS, and Texas DIR and HUB programs. Inquiries about this press release can be sent to: Hailey Hunter, Media Coordinator – press@ A photo accompanying this announcement is available at
