Visualisation of device datasets to assist digital forensic investigation

The increasing use of digital devices in our everyday lives, and their ever-increasing storage capacities places digital forensics investigatory resources under significant pressure. The workload for investigators is increasing, and the time required to analyse the datasets is not decreasing to compensate. This research looks at the potential for utilising information visualisation techniques to increase investigative efficiency with a view to decreasing the overall time taken to investigate a case, while still maintaining a high level of accuracy. It is envisaged that this may have the potential to lead to a reduced backlog of cases for law enforcement agencies, and expedited processing of criminal cases involving digital evidenc

Investigating visualisation techniques for rapid triage of digital forensic evidence

This study investigates the feasibility of a tool that allows digital forensics (DF) investigators to efficiently triage device datasets during the collection phase of an investigation. This tool utilises data visualisation techniques to display images found in near real-time to the end user. Findings indicate that participants were able to accurately identify contraband material whilst using this tool, however, classification accuracy dropped slightly with larger datasets. Combined with participant feedback, the results show that the proposed triage method is indeed feasible, and this tool provides a solid foundation for the continuation of further work

Insight:an application of information visualisation techniques to digital forensics investigations

As digital devices are becoming ever more ubiquitous in our day to day lives, more of our personal information and behavioural patterns are recorded on these devices. The volume of data held on these devices is substantial, and people investigating these datasets are facing growing backlog as a result. This is worsened by the fact that many software tools used in this area are text based and do not lend themselves to rapid processing by humans.This body of work looks at several case studies in which these datasets were visualised in attempt to expedite processing by humans. A number of different 2D and 3D visualisation methods were trialled, and the results from these case studies fed into the design of a final tool which was tested with the assistance of a group of individuals studying Digital Forensics.The results of this research show some encouraging results which indicate visualisation may assist analysis in some aspects, and indicates useful paths for future work

Sentiment analysis of text with lossless mining

Social networks are becoming more and more real with their power to influence public opinions, election outcomes, or the creation of an artificial surge in demand or supply. The continuous stream of information is valuable, but it comes with a big data problem. The question is how to mine social text at a large scale and execute machine learning algorithms to create predictive models or historical views of previous trends. This paper introduces a cyber dictionary for every user, which contains only words used in tweets - as a case study. Then, it mines all the known and unknown words by their frequency, which provides the analytic capability to run a multi-level classifier

A secure lightweight authentication mechanism for IoT devices in generic domain

The Internet of Things prompt deployment enhances the security concerns of these systems in recent years. The enormous exchange of sensory information between devices raises the necessity for a secure authentication scheme for Internet of Things devices. Despite many proposed schemes, providing authenticated and secure communication for Internet of Things devices is still an open issue. This research addresses challenges pertaining to the Internet of Things authentication, verification, and communication, and proposes a new secure lightweight mechanism for Internet of Things devices in the generic domain. The proposed authentication method utilizes environmental variables obtained by sensors to allow the system to identify genuine devices and reject anomalous connections

Chief officer misconduct in policing: an exploratory study

Key findings This study has examined cases of alleged misconduct involving chief police officers and staff. The aim was to describe the nature of cases that have come to light, examine the perceived pathways that led to misconduct, and suggest ways of mitigating the risks of misconduct. The study is based on interviews with key stakeholders and with investigating officers in chief officer misconduct cases since April 2008. These cases involved only a small minority of chief officers over the time-period in question. What sorts of cases have come to light since 2008? Cases involving chief officer misconduct fell into two broad categories: those associated with professional decision-making, and those related to interpersonal conduct. Cases involving professional decision-making included: abuses of due process and other forms of misrepresentation; suppression of information and dishonesty; abuses of force procedures relating to recruitment and procurement; material/financial misconduct; and other forms of professional misjudgement. Cases involving interpersonal conduct included: bullying; expressions of racist or sexist prejudice; and sexual misconduct. In around a third of cases, no misconduct was found, reflecting levels of chief officer exposure to scrutiny, vexatious or unfounded allegations, and the collective responsibility they carry for their police force. What are the routes into misconduct? The ‘ethical climate’ of a police force is a key determinant of chief officer misconduct. Ethical climate is shaped by leadership styles, the organisational ethos, training and selection procedures, styles of performance management, and wider social norms. Behaviour is shaped by individual vulnerabilities, including absence of ethical or emotional support, lack of challenge, exposure to corrupting influences, and cognitive failures in decision-making. In a number of cases those involved in misconduct believed that their role as leaders excepted themselves from organisational rules and regulations; this cognitive failure explains why, in several cases, those involved refused to accept that they had done anything wrong. How can the risks of chief officer misconduct be mitigated? Ethical standards will improve with greater openness of debate on police ethics. Publication of the Code of Ethics (College of Policing 2014a) may help achieve this. There are differences between forces, and regulatory and oversight bodies about ethical standards and the thresholds between acceptable conduct, misconduct and gross misconduct, and how they are investigated. A key task is in creating a greater consensus on these issues, which requires open debate. Police organisational responses should be commensurate with proportionality and public interest; both of which have implications for the costs involved. Chief officers need to recognise the specific risks of cognitive failure that organisational leaders face, and the temptations of excepting themselves from rules and norms. It is important to encourage an organisational ethos in which leaders can be challenged, and in which leaders are given the right sort of support when faced with ethical challenges. There needs to be more recognition of the impact of selection and training processes, and of performance management systems, on the ethical climate of police organisations. It was clear that across chief officer ranks as a whole the appetite is very much for change. Indeed, it was clear that the very change interviewees spoke of had already started to embed itself among many chief officer teams around the country

A system for determining Li-ion cell cooling coefficients

Current battery data sheets focus on battery energy and power density, neglecting thermal performance. This leads to reduced system level efficiency since cells with poor thermal performance require larger, heavier cooling systems to maintain cell temperatures in a suitable range. To address this a new metric, the Cell Cooling Coefficient (CCC), has been developed and it’s use as a tool for appropriate cell selection has been demonstrated. It also allows the pack designer to calculate which cooling direction method is most suitable by comparing CCC values for tab and surface cooling. The metric is the ratio between the heat rejected from the cell and the temperature difference between the hottest and coolest point. It therefore has units WK−1 and allows a pack designer to easily calculate the required amount of cooling power for the cell given a maximum acceptable temperature rise. In this paper we describe a system and method for the accurate determination of the CCC with the aim of facilitating wider adoption of the metric. The system is able to reliably quantify the surface and tab cooling CCC of any pouch cell

Novel Methods for Measuring the Thermal Diffusivity and the Thermal Conductivity of a Lithium-Ion Battery

Thermal conductivity is a fundamental parameter in every battery pack model. It allows for the calculation of internal temperature gradients which affect cell safety and cell degradation. The accuracy of the measurement for thermal conductivity is directly proportional to the accuracy of any thermal calculation. Currently the battery industry uses archaic methods for measuring this property which have errors up to 50 %. This includes the constituent material approach, the Searle’s bar method, laser/Xeon flash and the transient plane source method. In this paper we detail three novel methods for measuring both the thermal conductivity and the thermal diffusivity to within 5.6 %. These have been specifically designed for bodies like lithium-ion batteries which are encased in a thermally conductive material. The novelty in these methods comes from maintaining a symmetrical thermal boundary condition about the middle of the cell. By using symmetric boundary conditions, the thermal pathway around the cell casing can be significantly reduced, leading to improved measurement accuracy. These novel methods represent the future for thermal characterisation of lithium-ion batteries. Continuing to use flawed measurement methods will only diminish the performance of battery packs and slow the rate of decarbonisation in the transport sector