Digital Evidence

Unfortunately, the answer is Yes and maybe. A digital time stamp may be used as legal evidence, as long as the digital time stamp is authentic. In the digital forensic industry, imaging is a bit-by-bit replication of the original digital evidence. Our forensic consultants use court approved methods and software to in order to capture a forensic image copy (MD5 Hash) of the hard drive. The most common forms of authenticating ESI or electronically stored information is done through hashing. Most common hashes used are MD5 and SHA-1. A "hash" is equivelant to a digital fingerprint. Depending on the type of ESI (email, MS Word Document, etc) it is often critical to forensically capture the metadata of the ESI in order to avoid any alteration and ensures output is fully admissable in court as evidence. Using forensically sound tools we are able to in most cases to view deleted files, printed documents, internet related files and hidden directories.

Due to the Dec 1st 2006, amended and new FRCP (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure), Today's legal issues are now becoming more challenging of the admissibility of electronic evidence.

The short answer is YES!

Yes, a digital time stamp can be used as evidence, but that does not necessarilly mean that it will necessarily be taken at face value. The opposing party could present evidence that contradicts the digital time stamp and show that the digital clock was not set to the right time. The opposing party could also try to show that the digital time stamp had been altered in some manner.

Many computer forensic companies can preserve this type of evidence for trial and show that the digital time stamp had not been altered in any way.