Controlled Experimentation of Digital Forensics : Towards Formalization for Strengthening Evidence Reproducibility, Reliability, and Transparency

The digital forensics research community develops new solutions daily to advance its subfields, including cloud and network forensics and security. However, a substantial amount of such research requires greater experimental rigor. A few works have discussed how to improve such rigor. One of the most essential ways to address it is to promote the reproducibility of digital forensics controlled experiments. Research has demonstrated that specific techniques, such as conceptual modeling and ontology, have been successfully applied. This book presents techniques for planning, modeling, conducting, and disseminating controlled experiments and quasi-experiments in digital forensics. By properly documenting and disseminating experiments, researchers are preparing their experimental artifacts to ensure reproducibility, thereby enabling the appropriate evolution of a given research topic. The target audience comprises researchers in digital forensics, undergraduate and graduate students, law enforcement personnel, police, experts, and other related communities interested in improving their experiments to make them more reproducible. All of these groups might benefit from this book by deepening their understanding of the essential concepts of digital forensics experiments, how to plan, conduct, and disseminate experimental findings, and how to organize experimental artifacts for reproducibility.