Forensic Aspects of Various Flash Memory Devices

Flash memory devices provide high storage volume with low power consumption and faster read-write operations when compared to HDD. This makes FLASH memory devices to be considered as an efficient storage unit thus bringing huge demand for the usage of FLASH memory devices. One of the major problems faced by forensic investigators is extracting deleted data from flash memory devices, as some of the flash memory devices prevent extraction of deleted data using the standard forensic techniques. This paper focuses on exploring forensic opportunities for various flash-based memory devices. This is done by a thorough study of physics of flash memory, the development of flash transition layers, and the file systems that support these devices. It then conducts forensic experiments on various types of flash-based storage media and summarizes the results of each media. This paper also tries to explore various practices to be applied on flash storage media thus enabling them to retrieve deleted information with the use of standard forensic techniques

A Novel User Oriented Network Forensic Analysis Tool

In the event of a cybercrime, it is necessary to examine the suspect’s digital device(s) in a forensic fashion so that the culprit can be presented in court along with the extracted evidence(s). But, factors such as existence and availability of anti-forensic tools/techniques and increasing replacement of hard disk drives with solid state disks have the ability to eradicate critical evidences and/or ruin their integrity. Therefore, having an alternative source of evidence with a lesser chance of being tampered with can be beneficial for the investigation. The organisational network traffic can fit into this role as it is an independent source of evidence and will contain a copy of all online user activities. Limitations of prevailing network traffic analysis techniques – packet based and flow based – are reflected as certain challenges in the investigation. The enormous volume and increasing encrypted nature of traffic, the dynamic nature of IP addresses of users’ devices, and the difficulty in extracting meaningful information from raw traffic are among those challenges. Furthermore, current network forensic tools, unlike the sophisticated computer forensic tools, are limited in their capability to exhibit functionalities such as collaborative working, visualisation, reporting and extracting meaningful user-level information. These factors increase the complexity of the analysis, and the time and effort required from the investigator. The research goal was set to design a system that can assist in the investigation by minimising the effects of the aforementioned challenges, thereby reducing the cognitive load on the investigator, which, the researcher thinks, can take the investigator one step closer to the culprit. The novelty of this system comes from a newly proposed interaction based analysis approach, which will extract online user activities from raw network metadata. Practicality of the novel interaction-based approach was tested by designing an experimental methodology, which involved an initial phase of the researcher looking to identify unique signatures for activities performed on popular Internet applications (BBC, Dropbox, Facebook, Hotmail, Google Docs, Google Search, Skype, Twitter, Wikipedia, and YouTube) from the researcher’s own network metadata. With signatures obtained, the project moved towards the second phase of the experiment in which a much larger dataset (network traffic collected from 27 users for over 2 months) was analysed. Results showed that it is possible to extract unique signature of online user activities from raw network metadata. However, due to the complexities of the applications, signatures were not found for some activities. The interaction-based approach was able to reduce the data volume by eliminating the noise (machine to machine communication packets) and to find a way around the encryption issue by using only the network metadata. A set of system requirements were generated, based on which a web based, client-server architecture for the proposed system (i.e. the User-Oriented Network Forensic Analysis Tool) was designed. The system functions in a case management premise while minimising the challenges that were identified earlier. The system architecture led to the development of a functional prototype. An evaluation of the system by academic experts from the field acted as a feedback mechanism. While the evaluators were satisfied with the system’s capability to assist in the investigation and meet the requirements, drawbacks such as inability to analyse real-time traffic and meeting the HCI standards were pointed out. The future work of the project will involve automated signature extraction, real-time processing and facilitation of integrated visualisation

Intelligent Circuits and Systems

ICICS-2020 is the third conference initiated by the School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at Lovely Professional University that explored recent innovations of researchers working for the development of smart and green technologies in the fields of Energy, Electronics, Communications, Computers, and Control. ICICS provides innovators to identify new opportunities for the social and economic benefits of society.　 This conference bridges the gap between academics and R&D institutions, social visionaries, and experts from all strata of society to present their ongoing research activities and foster research relations between them. It provides opportunities for the exchange of new ideas, applications, and experiences in the field of smart technologies and finding global partners for future collaboration. The ICICS-2020 was conducted in two broad categories, Intelligent Circuits & Intelligent Systems and Emerging Technologies in Electrical Engineering

Dipterocarps protected by Jering local wisdom in Jering Menduyung Nature Recreational Park, Bangka Island, Indonesia

Apart of the oil palm plantation expansion, the Jering Menduyung Nature Recreational Park has relatively diverse plants. The 3,538 ha park is located at the north west of Bangka Island, Indonesia. The minimum species-area curve was 0.82 ha which is just below Dalil conservation forest that is 1.2 ha, but it is much higher than measurements of several secondary forests in the Island that are 0.2 ha. The plot is inhabited by more than 50 plant species. Of 22 tree species, there are 40 individual poles with the average diameter of 15.3 cm, and 64 individual trees with the average diameter of 48.9 cm. The density of Dipterocarpus grandiflorus (Blanco) Blanco or kruing, is 20.7 individual/ha with the diameter ranges of 12.1 – 212.7 cm or with the average diameter of 69.0 cm. The relatively intact park is supported by the local wisdom of Jering tribe, one of indigenous tribes in the island. People has regulated in cutting trees especially in the cape. The conservation agency designates the park as one of the kruing propagules sources in the province. The growing oil palm plantation and the less adoption of local wisdom among the youth is a challenge to forest conservation in the province where tin mining activities have been the economic driver for decades. More socialization from the conservation agency and the involvement of university students in raising environmental awareness is important to be done