Email from the professor this morning (Emphasis added by professor):

We also had some discussion regarding tool acceptance in court.  I wanted to provide some additional detail on this.  Remember its the testimony of the witness that is being accepted.  *Disclaimer I am not an attorney* Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) say the following:

Rule 702. A witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise if:

(a) the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue;

(b) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data;

(c) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and

(d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.

END RULE 702

While several FRE rules discuss acceptance of evidence (Rules 401-404) and testimony( Article VI  and Article VII) 702 explains much. …  Michigan’s Rules of Evidence follows the FRE closely.

So, I went and looked things up on my own, in regards to my last post about being a little confused on Digital Forensics and Open Source Tools. Like usual, Google is your friend.

The search term I used was: “digital forensics open source tools court approved”, without the quotes. Which returned this page: https://www.google.com/search?q=digital+forensics+open+source+tools+court+approved

I think the best line out of everything I read was:

Saying that one tool is court approved and another is not, is like saying you can take crime scene photos with a Nikon, but not a Kodak. It’s just silly, and it’s a myth perpetuated by those who seek to benefit from the existence of such a rumor.

– The Digital Standard
That really does make sense. When you think about it, it is the person on the stand and their testimony that is being checked. Yes, methodology and procedure go with the testimony but why would one tool matter, as long as it gets the same results as the expert from the other side. Does it have to have all the fancy bells and whistles, or does it just have to get the job done?

One thing that has bothered me about the “No open source tools” argument is that DD for raw disk copies is acceptable. Most of the other tools doe the same work and then add compression or other bells and whistles, but really are based off it. So why is it O.K. to use some of the tools but not all.