Creating and understanding email communication networks to aid digital forensic investigations

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Authors
McCarrin, Michael
Green, Janina
Gera, Ralucca
Subjects
Advisors
Date of Issue
2018-06-14
Date
Publisher
Cornell University Library
Language
Abstract
Digital forensic analysts depend on the ability to understand the social networks of the individuals they investigate. We develop a novel method for automatically constructing these networks from collected hard drives. We accomplish this by scanning the raw storage media for email addresses, constructing co-reference networks based on the proximity of email addresses to each other, then selecting connected components that correspond to real communication networks. We validate our analysis against a tagged data-set of networks for which we determined ground truth through interviews with the drive owners. In the resulting social networks, we find that classical measures of centrality and community detection algorithms are effective for identifying important nodes and close associates.
Type
Article
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Computer Science (CS)
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Funder
Format
6 p.
Citation
McCarrin, Michael, Janina Green, and Ralucca Gera. "Creating and understanding email communication networks to aid digital forensic investigations." arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.05327 (2018).
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.
Collections