Article by Richard Raysman and Peter Brown posted on Law.com, November 13, 2007:
Over-stuffed file cabinets that hold business records and personal information have been replaced by compact computer hard drives that offer easy and convenient storage of and access to a variety of items, including correspondence, forms, memos, photos, account information and Internet transactions.
As a federal district court judge recently observed, a computer itself is not evidence in most cases, but merely the instrument for creating evidence (like a typewriter) or the means of storing it (like a file cabinet).
Accordingly, today’s litigants routinely seek access to opponent’s computer hard drive to search for discoverable evidence, especially when the opposing party may not be forthcoming about deleted or transferred files.
This article will discuss hard drive imaging and some of the federal rules used in seeking this in discovery, as well as the process generally used in federal courts to obtain such information….
A new way to promote a good digital chain of custody is to authenticate records with a voice signature. A voice signature can help show who collected the evidence, when it was collected, and that it has not changed since collection. –Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/04/text-message-investigations.html