Computer scientist David Collins is working hard to replicate "mods" - both hardware and software for the Xbox and other devices. Criminals often hide illicit data on the XBox in the hope that a gaming console will not be seen as a likely evidence target especially when conventional personal computers are present in the same premises, for instance. The toolkit developed by Collins will allow police and other investigators the chance to lay bare the contents of XBox hard disks. Cell phones, smart phones, PDAs, game consoles and other devices provide a convenient means to store data of all kinds, including images, video, audio and text files. But they also provide a simple way for criminals to possess and hide illegal material too.
Collins' XFT utility can mount an image of the FATX file system used by the XBox, allowing the user to explore in detail the directory structure. Collins points out that unlike the standard FAT32, NTFS, and similar systems used by the hard disks in personal computers, there is little documentation on the proprietary FATX system. However, it is possible nevertheless to acquire an image of a FATX hard disk and to mount it on another device.
"Once the Xbox file system is mounted, the analyst can use shell commands to browse the directory tree, open files, view files in hex editor mode, list the contents of the current directory in short or long mode and expand the current directory to list all associated subdirectories and files," explains Collins.
Importantly, from the legal perspective, XFT can also record such investigative sessions for playback in a court of law, which protects the defendant from falsified as well as providing more solid evidence for the prosecution.
Collins explains how future work on XFT will involve making the toolkit into a fully functional forensic operating system (OS). This OS will be packaged as both a bootable operating system from a hard disk and a "live" bootable compact disk. "This implementation will be open source, verbosely commented and designed from the ground up as a forensic OS," says Collins, "This will remove any and all proprietary operating system dependencies, making the forensic process as transparent as possible."
3 comments:
I did not realize that you could hide information on gaming systems. That's way too advanced for me (even cell phones and PDAs?). In this article, it might have helped to explain some of the terms used, like FAT32 and NTF. Considering many of the things used today are based on electronics, it is frightening that any of these everyday objects could hide this kind of information. But, at the same time, it is comforting that they can use forensic technology to find the information and use it in court.
This post was great because it was very detailed. It was longer than most other posts indicating that the author put in a lot or work and detail. I think it was great that the author used direct quotes from an expert, David Collins. Finally, I think it was great the author discussed the importance of XFT.
To improve, perhaps the author could have given her opinion on this issue or discuss how this issue could effect students like us.
I had no idea you could hide information on gaming systems.
This article was very interesting because I occassionally play video games on consoles such as Xbox. I never would have thought that criminals could store information on video game systems. Assuming that a large part of the nation's gamers are younger people, it scary to think that people like that could be the perpetrators. The article keeps the reader interested, but it could have included more about the author's point of view. However, overall the article and summary was good.
Post a Comment