ICTs in the Contemporary World seminar

Evidence in the Digital Domain

Peter Sommer
ISIG, LSE

Tuesday 17 February, 2009
3.00 - 5.00 p.m.

venue NAB LG.09

One of the more important features of ICT is output. What do we have to do to make it robust enough to withstand legal scrutiny? ICTs may be called upon to prove a transaction has occurred, that a document or record has originated from a particular place at a particular time and has not been subsequently altered, to prove an identity and link that to a real person. Hard computer science coupled with appropriate protocols has some answers: error detection/correction, cryptographic hashes, public key infrastructures, software testing, product and system certification, EDP Audit, the procedures of forensic computing. But scientific proof upon which technical evidence depends is very different from legal proof – scientists aim for universal explanations while the courts aim to resolve a dispute or convict some-one of a crime. In the final analysis a court can treat expert evidence as simply one factor in reaching a decision and can disregard a scientific finding altogether. How then can we design ICTs to meet this challenge and give greater assurance that ICT output is legally reliable? Which of current research strands – into trust, requirements engineering, legal comparative and procedural research, jury research – assist us? Or is there an altogether simpler idea: the Multiple Witness Corroboration Model?

Peter Sommer is a Visiting Professor in the Information Systems and Innovation Group in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics and also a Visiting Reader, Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology, Open University. He is one of the world’s pioneers of digital evidence / computer forensics and has acted as an expert in many important criminal and civil court proceedings.

If you are a visitor from outside LSE, please send a confirmation to Frances White. You will need to sign in at the reception desk of the New Academic Building. Please note places will be available on a first-come-first-serve basis - registration is not required.

For any further queries regarding this seminar or to request information about future events please contact Frances White, Research Coordinator

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