Explainable digital forensics AI: Towards mitigating distrust in AI-based digital forensics analysis using interpretable models

The present level of skepticism expressed by courts, legal practitioners, and the general public over Artificial Intelligence (AI) based digital evidence extraction techniques has been observed, and understandably so. Concerns have been raised about closed-box AI models’ transparency and their suitability for use in digital evidence mining. While AI models are firmly rooted in mathematical, statistical, and computational theories, the argument has centered on their explainability and understandability, particularly in terms of how they arrive at certain conclusions. This paper examines the issues with closed-box models; the goals; and methods of explainability/interpretability. Most importantly, recommendations for interpretable AI-based digital forensics (DF) investigation are proposed

Beyond the Witness: Bringing a Process Perspective

For centuries, the foundation of the Anglo-American trial has been the witness.\u27 Witnesses report on their personal observations, provide opinions of character, offer scientific explanations, and in the case of parties, narrate their own story. Indeed, even for documentary and other physical evidence, witnesses often provide the conduit through which such evidence reaches the factfinder. Documentary or physical evidence rarely stands on its own. The law of evidence has thus unsurprisingly focused on-or perhaps obsessed over-witnesses. The hearsay rule and the Confrontation Clause demand that declarants be available witnesses at trial so that they may be subject to cross-examination.\u27 Expert evidence rules emphasize an expert witness\u27s qualifications, bases, and methods.\u27 Even the framework for admitting photographs-evidence that is often self-explanatory-is witnesscentric. Trial practice commonly treats photographs as demonstrative evidence, reducing them to a mere illustration of the vouching witness\u27s testimony. Our contention is that this witness-centered perspective is antiquated and counterproductive. It is a deeply limited and ultimately distortive lens through which the legal system views the evidence available in the modem world

Georgia Public Fire Investigators’ Behavioral Approach to Fire Scene Investigation

Wrongful prosecutions for the crime of arson are occurring. An identified cause of this problem is the investigation processes used by public fire investigators. The purpose of this general qualitative study was to identify the targeted behaviors that influence public fire investigators when conducting fire scene investigation. Street-level bureaucracy theory indicates public fire investigators are street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). The intent of this study was to identify behavioral interventions that can be implemented to aid public fire investigators in their approach to fire scene investigation. Semistructured interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of 10 public fire investigators in a metropolitan area in the state of Georgia to collect data. Inductive reasoning was used to code theoretical domains framework constructs, resulting in emergent themes that produced behaviors identified in the COM-B model. Predominant themes of the COM-B model were cross referenced with the behavior change wheel for suggested behavioral interventions, thus answering the research question. By targeting these identified behaviors, policy writers and implementers can identify and develop new policy interventions, resulting in a social change mechanism for fire scene investigation to help eliminate wrongful prosecution

The Advanced Framework for Evaluating Remote Agents (AFERA): A Framework for Digital Forensic Practitioners

Digital forensics experts need a dependable method for evaluating evidence-gathering tools. Limited research and resources challenge this process and the lack of multi-endpoint data validation hinders reliability in distributed digital forensics. A framework was designed to evaluate distributed agent-based forensic tools while enabling practitioners to self-evaluate and demonstrate evidence reliability as required by the courts. Grounded in Design Science, the framework features guidelines, data, criteria, and checklists. Expert review enhances its quality and practicality

The Cultivation Effects of Serial and Mass Murder on Homicide Investigators

Research has indicated over the course of decades that media has an effect on the perception of crime and criminality. Since Gerbner’s inception of the cultivation theory, the effects of mass media have been studied and validated, causing viewers to be influenced in their perception of crime and criminality to believe it is more severe than it really is, more prevalent than it really is, and there are more instances of serial and mass murder than there really are. Within true crime presentations representations, the personality, modus operandi, motivations, and descriptions of serial and mass murderers is presented outside of known facts and, at least partially, fictionalized and indicate that the perception of serial and mass murder by viewers of true crime media is skewed. There is a distinct gap in the research as applied to the effects of true crime media on specific populations. The research questions addressed in this study centered around determining the misconceptions in a type of true crime media regarding serial and mass murderers and assessed a population of 41 homicide investigators and the cultivation effect on their approach to investigations through a series of surveys. The surveys were developed from the narrative analysis of media and the results were analyzed in regard to media misinformation. The proliferation of misinformation is of vital social significance, and the results of the study show that there is an effect on the perception of serial and mass murder due to true crime media wherein law enforcement professionals largely believe in the myths and stereotypes reinforced by the media presentations. Findings of this study may be used by law enforcement administration to better educate professionals and the public as to the effect that true crime media could have on homicide investigation