Talk:Digital forensics/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:34, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I am going to comment on this as I read through. Please respond line by line and I will strike issues as they are resolved.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I am not a computer science or information systems specialist. Netiher am I a law enformcement or legal studies expert. Thus, I am a typical untrained reader of this subject. On initial review the second paragraph of the WP:LEAD is a bit abstract to me. I will reconsider this comment after reading the entire article.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

• A: Ok, I rejigged that paragraph. Moved the part you refer to down to the   bottom of the 4th para (now 3rd paragraph) and expanded it slightly. Does it make more sense in that context? --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 09:53, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

History

• "the Florida Computer Crimes Act legislated" is ungrammatical. A law does not legislate. The law was passed to regulate against . . .--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  •  Done reworded --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 11:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
    • "the 1978 Florida Computer Crimes Act which included legislation protecting against the unauthorized modification or deletion of data on a computer system" is still wrong. Better as "the 1978 Florida Computer Crimes Act which included legislation for the unauthorized modification or deletion of data on a computer system"--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Hmm, when I checked this morning it was using "for" as you suggest :D but on reflection that is factually inaccurate, so I changed it to "the 1978 Florida Computer Crimes Act which included legislation against the unauthorized modification or deletion of data on a computer system" is that what you meant? --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
        • I seem to have copied the sentence twice and modidfied the wrong one.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:43, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
• "laws were brougt in" should be laws were passed.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  •  Done fixed as suggested --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 11:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
• "Canada being the first" Is an ambiguous referent. It refers back to the prior sentence, which does not refer to coutnries as subjects. X Canadian Law was the first or Canada was the first country.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  • A: reworded, might need more work though --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 11:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
    • It is still ungrammatical. Just make it two sentences.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Well, the grammar seemed fine (might be a British idiom again). But I did as you suggested :) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
        • Can we now have an inline citation immediately following "Canada was the first country to pass legislation in 1983."?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
          •  Done --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 16:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
• Link cyberspace--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  • It is within a quote, WP:MOSQUOTE discourages linking in it. I could do a "See Also" link? --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 09:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
    • See also is O.K.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
• The contrast in this sentence is not clear: "Digital forensics evolved, during this time, from a number of ad-hoc tools and techniques rather than from the scientific community (in contrast to other forensic sciences)." It compares things to a group of people.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  •  Done Ok, reworded to In the 90s the science of digital forensics grew out of ad-hoc tools and techniques developed by practitioners. This is in contrast to other forensics disciplines, which grew out of work by the scientific community. - this hopefully makes it clearer --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 15:08, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
• 90s should be 1990s, I believe.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Good point, I need to have a proper re-read of WP:MOSDATE again ;) tweaked that whole paragraph to make the wording flow better & corrected dates --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
    • You missed the Investigative tools subsection.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:49, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
      •  Done --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 16:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Investigative tools

• It seems like specialist should be specialised.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  •  Done specialist is a legit modifier, but it may be a British idiom. Changed to specialised. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 11:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
• Why are all the software tools in the Investigative tools section not linked. If they are notable, they should exist shouldn't they?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:17, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
  • A: notability does not cover article content, they are significant tools (within the context of this article), but establishing notability for an article is generally a problem for these tools (for example EnCase is by far the de-facto standard Computer Forensics tool, it is the only one guaranteed to stand in court w/o problems, but as you can see the article is very light). As it is: I hope to fill in come of the links when I have the top level articles to GA standard. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 09:44, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback so far. I'm moving house this week, but will get through this as fast as I can. I gave feedback on your last point - and will make article modifications for the other points later :) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 09:44, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Uses

• "For example personal documents", "For example the Internet" and "for example by changing the computer clock" should have a comma after for example.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
  •  Done --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
    • e.g., is just latin for for example and should also be followed by a comma.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:18, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
      •  Done --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 09:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
• "During the investigation into the Soham murders" should be preceded by for example.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
  •  Done --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
    • It should also be followed by a comma.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:21, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
      •  Done --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 09:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
• Is artefacts spelled correctly?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
  •  Done Looks like it's one of those words where there is no strong preference either way. I switched it to the US spelling --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Digital evidence

• US v. Bonallo could use a proper legal citation and maybe {{ussc}} (or similar) template.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Need more help on this one, I cannot find a template that works (I could manually format it I suppose). {{ussc}} didn't work because this is an appeals court ruling. Let me look into it --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Look around at Category:Law citation templates.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
      •  Done {{cite court}} worked. --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 13:30, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
        • I am looking for a more complete citation with number like 432 2nd App, 324 or something like that appended to the current citation. I thought a template might encourage proper full citation.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:23, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
        • Actually, I am looking at some articles I have been involved in and see that Saxbe fix does not always include the full citation. Neither John Marshall Harlan nor John Marshall Harlan II does. I guess I will view this as resolved.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:34, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
          • According to Case citation#Lower federal courts what is there is a correct citation for a published opinion from this court, there are no other details that could be added to the best of my knowledge (I have court, year, reporter, volume, opinion - I'm not sure there is anything else :)) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 09:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
• This paragraph needs to be expanded: "Many of the sub-branches of digital forensics have their own specific guidelines for handling and investigating evidence."--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
  •  Done Expanded with some examples --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Forensic Process

• Needs a paragraph on stage 1.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:54, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
  •  Done Good idea. Expanded --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 10:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Is hashed a technical term that should be linked or explained?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
      •  Done --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 09:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Are there some books you could use to beef up this article. At my local borders (where I am sitting right now) the Computer Forensics for Dummies book is out of stock. I know there are other books you could use though.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:44, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Beef up... the content? or the sourcing? I can dig out some more books, unfortunately most of the books we use are reference manuals for various software so not really reliable - so I'll need to grab a few books from Amazon etc. (not a problem) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 13:30, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I was just hoping this would be a meatier article. It just seems a little light compared to some scientific GAs. I was hoping for more content.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 05:43, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a problem knowing how far to go. This is not really a science - it's computing topic more than anything (i.e. a faux science, one of my main gripes with it :)). The other problem is where to go with the content; there are two main aspects to this, the technical aspect of actually digging for information, and the legal aspect of what you can do and where/how it is used. My outstanding plan for this whole field was to use Digital forensics as a starter/overview article (i.e. deal with the history, and then draw the other topics together in summary form) and then focus on the sub-topics individually one by one in their own article. To beef this up I suppose I could merge Digital forensic process, but am somewhat loathe to do that because I can make that a pretty lengthy article when I get the time :). The part that could probably do with expansion is the history, so I will wait and see what I can pick out of the sources I have coming :) (btw, if you want to fail it for being light on content, no worries, it has been useful to get outside input!) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 09:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Let me think about this a while. I will be at Borders again this afternoon. I want to poke around there and then comment on use of sources. I will comment further this afternoon. Don't buy any books from Amazon to get a GA. WP is a free collaboration and you should not invest any more in it than you are paid for contributing to it.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 13:37, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry, any excuse to buy some more books.... ;) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 14:15, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry. I got caught up in something yesterday and did not get a chance to snoop around at Borders. I'll get back to you in a few days.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry, I won't be around for a few days either. Look forward to your comments :) --Errant [tmorton166] ^(chat!) 16:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I have stepped back and looked at this fresh and feel it passes.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:16, 22 November 2010 (UTC)