A cloud-based forensics tracking scheme for online social network clients.
In recent years, with significant changes in the communication modes, most users are diverted to cloud-based applications, especially online social networks (OSNs), which applications are mostly hosted on the outside and available to criminals, enabling them to impede criminal investigations and intelligence gathering. In the virtual world, how the Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) identifies the "actual" identity of criminal suspects, and their geolocation in social networks, is a major challenge to current digital investigation. In view of this, this paper proposes a scheme, based on the concepts of IP location and network forensics, which aims to develop forensics tracking on OSNs. According to our empirical analysis, the proposed mechanism can instantly trace the "physical location" of a targeted service resource identifier (SRI), when the target client is using online social network applications (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), and can analyze the probable target client "identity" associatively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first individualized location method and architecture developed and evaluated in OSNs.
Department of Criminal Investigation, Central Police University, No. 56, Shujen Road, Takang Village, Kueishan District, Taoyuan City 33304, Taiwan, ROC. Electronic address: fengyulin@ntu.edu.tw.
Feng-Yu
FY
Lin
Department of Information Management, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei 10617, Taiwan, ROC. Electronic address: chienchenghuang@ntu.edu.tw.
Chien-Cheng
CC
Huang
Department of Forensic Science, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Rd, West Haven, CT 06516, USA; Institute of Biophotonics, National Yang-Ming University, No. 155, Sec. 2, Linong Street, Taipei 11221, Taiwan, ROC. Electronic address: peiychang@gmail.com.
Pei-Ying
PY
Chang
D000067917:Cloud Computing; D016494:Computer Security; D044707:Forensic Sciences; D006801:Humans; D048088:Informatics; D035846:Law Enforcement; D000068997:Smartphone; D061108:Social Media; D060756:Social Networking
IP location; Law Enforcement Agency; Network forensics; Online social network