Savchenko O.A. The fundamentals of forensic processing of computer information

Abstract: The research object is investigation and detection of crimes committed in the sphere of information and telecommunication technologies. The research subject includes the main features of computer information as an object of forensic processing. The author analyzes the concepts of the nature of computer information and the process of its generating, and enumerates the main forms of its presenting. The author outlines the methods of work with computer information and traces of cybercrimes. Computer information as an object of forensic processing is considered as an object of criminal infringement, an instrument of crime, an evidence, and one of the forms of traces of cybercrimes. The author applies general and specific scientific research methods, including analogy, deduction, comparison, the system analysis, and the methods of formal logic, prognostication, and the interparadigmatic approach. Forensic processing of computer information is provided in the subsection of digital forensic services and the section of criminal investigation technique. At the same time, computer information and technologies are applied in other branches of the science: its fundamentals, tactics, and methodology. Thus the scientific novelty of the research lies in the conclusion about the need for a theoretical explanation and consolidation of application of information technologies in the process of detection and investigation of crimes, in other words, empirical knowledge, as the fundamentals of forensic processing of computer information. The author formulates the concepts of information in the sphere of telecommunication technologies, and the traces of crimes in the sphere of computer information. The author suggests the directions of development of forensic instruments used in the process of investigation and detection of cybercrimes. The research results can be applied for forming the theory of criminalistics, in investigation and detection of crimes and forensic expertise in the sphere of computer information, for teaching students, undergraduates and postgraduates in the criminalistics discipline. 

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