Online Acquisition of Digital Forensic Evidence

Scanlon, Mark; Kechadi, M-Tahar

Publication Date:  September 2009

Publication Name:  Proceedings of International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime (ICDF2C 2009)

Abstract:   Providing the ability to any law enforcement officer to remotely transfer an image from any suspect computer directly to a forensic laboratory for analysis, can only help to greatly reduce the time wasted by forensic investigators in conducting on-site collection of computer equipment. RAFT (Remote Acquisition Forensic Tool) is a system designed to facilitate forensic investigators by remotely gathering digital evidence. This is achieved through the implementation of a secure, verifiable client/server imaging architecture. The RAFT system is designed to be relatively easy to use, requiring minimal technical knowledge on behalf of the user. One of the key focuses of RAFT is to ensure that the evidence it gathers remotely is court admissible. This is achieved by ensuring that the image taken using RAFT is verified to be identical to the original evidence on a suspect computer.

Download Paper:

Download Paper as PDF

BibTeX Entry:


      @incollection{scanlon2010online,
title="{Online Acquisition of Digital Forensic Evidence}",
author={Scanlon, Mark and Kechadi, M-Tahar},
booktitle="{Proceedings of International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime (ICDF2C 2009)}",
pages="122-131",
month=09,
year=2009,
address={Albany, New York, USA},
publisher={Springer},
abstract="Providing the ability to any law enforcement officer to remotely transfer an image from any suspect computer directly to a forensic laboratory for analysis, can only help to greatly reduce the time wasted by forensic investigators in conducting on-site collection of computer equipment. RAFT (Remote Acquisition Forensic Tool) is a system designed to facilitate forensic investigators by remotely gathering digital evidence. This is achieved through the implementation of a secure, verifiable client/server imaging architecture. The RAFT system is designed to be relatively easy to use, requiring minimal technical knowledge on behalf of the user. One of the key focuses of RAFT is to ensure that the evidence it gathers remotely is court admissible. This is achieved by ensuring that the image taken using RAFT is verified to be identical to the original evidence on a suspect computer."
}