Error, Uncertainty and Loss in Digital Evidence
International Journal of Digital Evidence · 2002
Access and status
Cost
Free
Free to read or download at source. No account, no purchase.
Status
Current
Current as at the verification date below. Standards and tools both move — confirm at source before you rely on it.
What it is
Eoghan Casey's paper in IJDE 2002, Volume 1, Issue 2, which took apart the then-common claim that digital evidence is exact and argued that error, uncertainty and data loss are intrinsic to it and must be stated. It proposed expressing a level of certainty in conclusions rather than asserting them flatly.
Who it is for, and when
This is the foundational citation for the proposition that a competent digital forensic opinion must characterise its own uncertainty — directly relevant to Daubert-style challenges about known error rates and to any cross-examination of an expert who testified without qualification. Useful to lawyers as a short, readable statement of why 'the computer says so' is not a conclusion. The PDF is free through the Internet Archive capture of the IJDE issue index.
What it does not cover
It offers a framework for talking about uncertainty, not a method for measuring it, and gives you no error rates for any tool. IJDE never issued DOIs, so cite it by volume, issue and season; there is no publisher-hosted copy left.
Go to the source
Open at web.archive.org (opens in a new tab)https://web.archive.org/web/20111001000000/http://www.utica.edu/academic/institutes/ecii/ijde/articles.cfm?action=issue&id=2
Details
- Type
- Paper or report
- Written for
- AdvancedLawyers and courtsWorking examinerAdvanced, Lawyers and courts, Working examiner
- Publisher
- International Journal of Digital Evidence
- Year
- 2002
- Topics
- error-rates, foundations, expert-testimony, legal-admissibility
- Checked at source
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