What is "Cellular Forensics" Anyway?

What is "Cellular Forensics" anyway? Forensics means "pertaining to and presenting the findings in Court". Cellular? To me, that deals with mobile phones and their technology . Now I don't know if I picked this phrase up from someone else or if I made it up, but somehow I found this term "Cellular Forensics" and adopted it as my way of describing what some call "Mobile Forensics". So, when I say 'Cellular Forensics', I am describing "the utilization of technology (software, hardware, techniques) that enables an examiner to secure, acquire, document and present the data found in a mobile phone in a court of law." Sounds like a mouthful, huh?

So what good is Cellular Forensics? As we said before, "You are what you click" and a cell phone tells a bunch about a person. Contacts, Call History, SMS Text Messages and Pictures are just a few of the tell-all items in your phone. Imagine an employee sharing company secrets with the competition or a married man texting his lover...their phone information could be very damaging and valuable.

So is this like CSI on tv? Uhhh....no. There is no one piece of hardware or software that can acquire the over 1500 models of cell phones out there. Cellular Forensics is like archeology: you dig and dig using whatever proven tools you can find. Sometimes you can crack the nut, other times you come away exhausted with little to show for your efforts after hours and hours of trying everything but standing on your head. It's just par for the course in this new frontier. As my mentor Rick Mislan from Purdue University says, "Cellular Forensics is today what Computer Forensics was 15 years ago." In other words, it's a brand new field and each day is a new discovery! For someone with ADD, Cellular Forensics is a God-send! LOL!

As I often say, "The Future Is Now"!

Welcome to my world!