Monday, December 11, 2017

How A Digital Forensic Investigator Finds Kids

By Stephanie Walker


The modern world has some new tools available in the search for missing people. Whether they are runaway teenagers or missing women and children, anyone carrying a cellular telephone or other device can now be tracked. Many new police departments even have a digital forensic investigator as part of their team, and this person can be utilized on-call in the search for those who fail to make it home.

The Global Positioning System, or GPS, is how these investigators are able to track people down. Even if a phone is disabled or turned off, with a Court-Order, the phone and its history can be obtained. If the parents or loved ones have location sharing turned on, then they have probably already been keeping tabs up to the point that the device is disabled.

The potential of this technology to change the way law enforcement finds people became very clear in the late 1990s when former hackers were being utilized in missing persons cases. These hackers were able to take the phone of the missing individual, once found, and bring up messages or forum conversations, even if the owner had deleted the entire history of the device.

At that time GPS did not exist for the average individual, so finding the device was imperative to the investigation. In those days it was easier to delete historical data for good. However, most people were not yet aware of the fact that law enforcement was going after cellular telephones for the messages or other data they could provide, and this ignorance actually assisted them in many investigations.

In the years hence, there have been literally thousands of cellular towers erected and satellites deployed. Now the entire planet is on a high-tech grid that can potentially be watched in real time, whenever necessary. Anyone with any form of Internet device on their possession, in their bodies, or on their clothing can be tracked to within a few feet of their location.

Technology has always eroded privacy, and this fact is becoming more and more apparent. While many warn of inherent dangers in this, the fact remains that it can help to find and even save someone who would not have been saved a few decades ago. It is important, however, that we continue to expect law enforcement to obtain Court Orders before they are allowed to access data records of private citizens.

Debate rages when it comes to what is or is not allowable between private citizens, as much of this technology has become available to everyone. Parents routinely keep tabs on their children. However, controversy remains about whether or not these same parents, if married and/or living together, should be able to keep such tabs on each other.

The argument about electronic spying runs right down the middle between women and men. Women are more eager to know where there partner is, and what they are doing both on and off the Internet. Women are also more willing to be monitored themselves while men seem to wish to keep a window of opportunity open for themselves to get away with infidelity and deceit.




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