We just got back from Austin, TX, where our new Account Executive Tim Hale and I attended a Law Enforcement Symposium hosted by
Complete Tablet Solutions (CTS) and Apple. This briefing had a dual focus: the morning session was for Cyber Forensics and the afternoon detailed Mobile Technology for Law Enforcement. For a high-level recap of the event, keep reading!
Cyber Forensics
Tim White and Ron Ustach of Apple kicked off the discussion with a great overview of why today’s Mac computers, laptops, and mobile devices are powerful, flexible solutions for Law Enforcement. This event was to showcase vendors that add further value to OS X & iOS, allowing detectives, investigators, and the entire department to perform their work processes more efficiently than ever before.
Trey Amish of Blackbag Technologies had a great presentation focusing on how to remove cyber forensic material from Apple related products. For example,
iOS8 greatly impacts the investigation of a suspect’s device. With today’s ubiquity of Apple devices, a lot of IT gold was shared on the best practices in the “acquisition” of a suspect’s mobile device. (Acquisition is the process of efficiently copying all of the information in a user’s phone for further investigation). See the below screenshot of the variety of data that can be pulled from a phone:
Another question: Is it possible to gain access to a locked phone if you don’t have the keycode or fingerprint? It is, with the help of the correct pairing certificate and “pfile”, which can be found on any computer that the phone has opted to “trust”. Once Police have access to the pairing certificate & pfile, they can be moved to a department forensics station, which can then use those credentials to gain access to the locked device.
Another pro-tip: once a suspect’s device is taken into custody, it is critical to quickly put it into Airplane mode and into a
Faraday box or bag. Otherwise, with the help of iCloud, it can be remotely wiped. If this is of interest to you, be sure to check out
BlackLight and Mobilyze on their website.
PROMISE technology, a global leader in the digital storage industry,
also presented their RAID storage solutions tailored for OS X. Among their latest offerings is a purpose-built Network Video Recorder (NVR) Storage Solution for video surveillance – this is definitely worth a look if there is department interest in body cams.
Mobile Technology for Law Enforcement
Ron Ustach kicked off the afternoon by showing the many departments already employing iPad technology. With built-in 4G internet capability, GPS, cameras, microphone, and even fingerprint scanner & accelerometer, iPads are helping mobilize departments across the country. We were delighted to be introduced as a state-of-the-art mobile solution for Public Safety!
I gave an hour presentation on how PublicEye-armed departments are benefiting from faster response times, lowering risk, and saving cost. If you aren’t familiar with PublicEye,
please see our 5-minute video here. Or, watch our many
Police and
Fire departments say it in their own words!
We were also joined by SceneDoc and FileMaker, who also aid in Law Enforcement operations.
SceneDoc is a mobile investigation and field documentation platform being used by law enforcement and public safety personnel to securely, accurately and consistently document scenes. It provides electronic signature functionality as well as maintains a secure chain of command.
FileMaker can be used to quickly create and deploy custom multi-client apps to enter and capture information in the field.
We had a great time and learned a lot networking with the Detectives, Investigators, Chiefs, and IT staff present: we’re looking forward to expanding our Texas presence. Visit our
Events page to register for a free web demo and see where we’ll be presenting next!