Question

Digital Forensics, Describe in your own language, at least 200 words for each question

1/Explain the Fourth Amendment and its impact on Digital Forensics

2/Define the Electronic Communication Privacy Act

3/Describe email protocols.

Answer 1

Fourth Amendment and its impact on Digital Forensics

In the United States of America, the fourth amendment basically determines the lawfulness of the search along with the Electronics Communication Privacy act. The amendment describes the notion that the every man’s home is his castle which is secured from unreasonable searches as well as seizures of the property by the government. This amendment usually applies to the government searches which can be conducted by the law enforcement officers.

The fourth amendment rule is the one where the investigator executes a warrant and is able to look into any places listed in the warrant where the evidence might be conceivably be concealed. Generally, the investigator was more precluded from looking into any of the location mentioned in the warrant and can’t check for any other location they want to seize. Mostly the investigator will check for the electronics evidence and that can be stored anywhere. This results in that the investigator will have to look everywhere in search of the digital evidence. Hence, the Fourth Amendment mostly protects the people not the location or places. So, this is how the impact of the Digital forensics is linked and merged with the Fourth Amendment.

Electronic Communication Privacy Act

The Electronics Communications Privacy Act as well as the Stored Wire Electronics Communications Act are together refereed as the Electronics Communications Privacy Act. The Electronics Communications Privacy Act addresses the interception of the conversations using the hard telephone lines, but this did not apply to the interception of the computer and any other digital as well as electronics communication. The Electronics Communications Privacy Act is updated to keep the pace with the evolution of emerging technologies as well as methods which includes the easing restrictions on the law enforcement access to store the communication in some of the cases.

The Electronics Communications Privacy Act basically protects the oral, wire and other electronics communications that are being made or are in transit and when they are being stored on the computers. The Electronics Communications Privacy Act even applies to the emails, data stored electronically and telephonic conversations. Moreover, the Electronics Communications Privacy Act prohibits the intentional or attempted interceptions, disclosure and use of any other person to intercept their electronic conversations. Even it prohibits the user to obtain illegally obtain the communication and data over the electronics media. Even it protects the privacy of the contents of the files stored by service providers.

email protocols

The e-mail system comprises of the various software as well as hardware components which includes the sender and receiver’s information as well as server components and services installed in that infrastructure. The email protocols that helped in the digital forensics investigation are the SMTP, IMAP, POP, etc. the existing protocol such as the Kerberos, OTPs and other method such as the encryption helps in protecting the emails from outsiders and intruders. Mostly the SMTP protocol helps in sending the mail from the senders to the receiver’s account. The sending exchange server performs a lookup for the exchange records of the receiving server. Since the sending server will establish an SMTP connection the mailbox of the receiver to the local mailbox on the client machine is performed by the POP3 and the IMAP protocols. These protocols are actually helps the forensics investigator to collect or gather the evidence from the sender’s or receiver’s mail box. This actually help in accumulating and create a record for the investigator to look for the evidence. Moreover, the email protocols are even help in securing transfer of mails from one client to another and thus eliminates the chance of man in the middle attacks.