bugtraq - Help put a stop to incompetent computer forensics

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Message-ID: <42F943C1.1040406@science.org>
Date: Tue, 09 Aug 2005 14:01:05 -1000
From: Jason Coombs <jasonc@...ence.org>
To: Full-Disclosure <full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk>, 
	bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Help put a stop to incompetent computer forensics

"An experienced computer forensics person could tell you whether it was 
because of [a Trojan virus] or not." -- Marcus Lawson.

This quote and article citation below concerning "computer forensics" is 
typical of the opinion of "computer forensics" professionals. We know 
it's a big fat lie told by self-important people who don't know anything 
about information security and have never written software in their 
lives, but I'm asking anyone who reads this, who has ideas about how to 
put a stop to this "computer forensics" absurdity where people who don't 
know how software is written and don't understand infosec are allowed to 
be the voice of "computer forensics" expertise in court, to please 
contact me.

In addition, anyone who has any information about computer forensics 
professional Marcus Lawson please contact me immediately.

The fact that malware authors aren't cooperating with the computer 
forensics industry by making sure that it's easy to distinguish between 
the actions of malware and the actions of a human computer user, 
combined with uninformed expert opinions like those shown below, is 
resulting in innocent people being put behind bars, and people like 
Marcus Lawson who think they know what they're doing but clearly do not 
are helping to get innocent people convicted by spewing nonsense.

This undermines the ability of the criminal court system to convict 
those who are truly guilty, and keep them convicted on appeal.

Somehow we need to fix this broken system and insist that all computer 
forensics be performed with the help of a competent information security 
professional, at the very least.

Any other suggestions?

Sincerely,

Jason Coombs
jasonc@...ence.org

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/12/ctv.trojan/

Though it raises new and important issues, say industry sources, the 
Trojan Horse problem won't likely mint a new defense strategy: It's just 
a riff on the standard "not me" defense.

"There are a lot of child porn defendants who say, well, somebody else 
might have done it," said the EFF's Tien.  "But it doesn't fare very 
well, for obvious reasons."

In the end, experienced computer forensics investigators should be able 
to tell whether the computer's owner, or a Trojan Horse, spawned the 
material in question.

"You wouldn't want to just throw that out there as your defense," said 
Marcus Lawson, a computer forensic analyst who testified in the trial of 
convicted child rapist and murderer David Westerfield. "An experienced 
computer forensics person could tell you whether it was because of [a 
Trojan virus] or not."
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