Archive: Business & Technology

U.S. Rep. Michael ArcuriWashington, DC – U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri (NY-24) announced $225,000 in funding through the U.S. Department of Justice for Architecture Technology Corporation—New York (ATC-NY) located in Ithaca, NY to provide local law enforcement agencies with forensic science training.

“New technologies make it possible for law enforcement to solve more crimes more quickly, but without the proper training they can’t use it to their full advantage,” said Arcuri, who served as Oneida County District Attorney for 13 years. “This funding will allow ATC-NY to teach more than 300 officers, at no charge, computer skills that will save valuable investigative resources, particularly in time-sensitive cases.”

With previous federal funding through the U.S. National Institute of Justice (NIJ), ATC-NY has developed Mac Marshal, a collection of programs that allow investigators to assess and collect data on Apple Macintosh OS X systems. The current Forensic Science Training Development and Delivery Program grant will be used to provide 12 one-day training classes over the next year, each accommodating 20-45 students, with a goal of training approximately 300 students.  These classes will train state and local law enforcement officers how to use Mac Marshal, which is available free of charge to the U.S. law enforcement community.

Existing forensic tools do not gather such OS X-specific data and cannot handle dual-boot systems, thereby excluding vital sources of potential evidence from an investigation. Mac Marshal enables an investigator to quickly assess the operating systems installed on a Mac OS X disk image or machine, including the last boot times and other information for each. This information lets the forensic examiner quickly pinpoint the disk partitions most likely of interest, and apply operating system-specific tools to those partitions.

Mac Marshal has been expanded to provide a number of different Mac OS X-specific tools, addressing Mac-encrypted home directories, enhanced file metadata, Spotlight searches, Safari web caches, the OS-wide Address Book, and iTunes/iPod information (e.g., linking an iPod found at the scene to a machine in a suspect's residence) – the focus will be on Mac-specific tools that best meet law enforcement and NIJ needs.

ATC-NY, located in Ithaca, NY, provides advanced research and development, as well as products, in the fields of computer information security, information management and reliable computing.

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