Hiding Evidence
For this assignment, you will learn about ways to try to hide evidence to prevent its discovery during a forensic investigation.
Page Contents
Background Material
Requirements
Prepare a video presentation that addresses the following:
- Explain steganography. Define the term, and give examples of how it can be used to hide data. Be sure that your spell checking system doesn’t autocowreck “steganography” to “stenography” when creating your slides! Stenography refers to transcribing spoken words into printed text, which is different from steganography. (In a roundabout way, stenography is also related to digital forensics, since every court has a stenographer to create a written record of oral testimony.)
- Find an example of a hidden website that exists (or used to exist) within the Tor network. Explain what the site does or did. If the site was taken down as part of a law enforcement operation, describe the law enforcement operation using publicly available records and news articles (and cite your sources). Do not search for, visit, take screenshots, or reproduce any information from a site that contains, or claims to contain, child sexual abuse material (CSAM). If you choose to go into the Tor network to do this research, boot your computer system from a Tails live CD or USB stick. Do not go into the Tor network from any Windows computer, as you could be exposed to security threats including viruses and malware.
- Find a steganography tool that runs on your operating system. Read the documentation for this tool, and figure out how to use it. Present a demonstration showing how this tool works. CAUTION: Do some research and be sure the tool is legitimate and isn’t a scam or a vector for malware. Don’t just download the first result you get from an Internet search!
If you elect to work with a partner, you should each present for approximately equal time.
Be sure to include the URLs to your portfolio (or both portfolios, if working with a partner) in the presentation.
Portfolio Items
Add the following components to your portfolio:
- A brief tutorial on using the steganography tool you identified. Be sure that your tutorial is original and is not copied from the vendor’s site (or elsewhere). Screenshots are helpful in tutorials.
Submission
Submit your presentation video to one of the weekly submission boxes for the course. If you’re working with a partner, only one person needs to submit the video.
