Ethical, Moral and Social Issues in Forensic Computing-(Identity Essay

Ethical, Moral and Social Issues in Forensic Computing-(Identity cards) - Essay Example The forensic investigative procedure is explained with the help of a case study. Then, social, ethical and moral issues regarding identity theft have been discussed both from the user’s and the investigator’s side. The report is summarized in a concluding paragraph. APA referencing has been used properly. Before going into the niceties of ethical, moral and social issues vis-à  -vis identity theft in forensic computing, let’s first get introduced to what forensic computing actually is and what is identity theft. Computer forensics or cyber forensics is a very imperative topic in information systems and networks management. Forensics is the structured procedure of gathering, examining and showing facts and evidences to the court of law, and thus, forensic computing is defined as â€Å"the discipline that combines elements of law and computer science to collect and analyze data from computer systems, networks, wireless communications, and storage devices in a way that is admissible as evidence in a court of law† (US-CERT 2008). This involves the seeking, locating and securing the electronic data so as to provide evidence. This electronic or magnetically encoded data may include text messages, databases, pictures, e-mail, websites, spyware, malware, and so on. The evidence collected is strong and indisputable as compared to any other branch of forensic science because a copy that is made of the collected data is identical to the actual data and there is no room left for dispute. The who le concept revolves around the idea that a structured investigation is carried out to find out what exactly happened to the computer, when it happened, how it happened, and who did it. This is just like solving a murder case and performing postmortem. The operator does not know that the evidence information is transparently being created and stored by the computer’s operating system which can only be extracted through computer forensics software tools and