Digital diplomatics and forensics: going forward on a global basis
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-03-2014-0016 |
| Published date | 16 March 2015 |
| Pages | 21-44 |
| Date | 16 March 2015 |
| Author | Frederick B. Cohen |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance |
Digital diplomatics and
forensics: going forward on a
global basis
Frederick B. Cohen
Management Analytics, Pebble Beach, California, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to discuss moving forward on a global basis with digital
diplomatics.
Design/methodology/approach – This study fused a historic review of multiple elds to form a
proposed future.
Findings – Today, the metadata associated with digital record-keeping is largely based on the
methods from the pre-digital age. It fails to take into account the underlying digital mechanisms and
their unique properties. At the same time, digital systems already produce large quantities of redundant
data that could be and has been used in consistency analysis. A rational improvement would be to use
the nature of digital systems in conjunction with intentional redundancy to create metadata and other
forms of redundant information that could be validated in diplomatic examination but would be hard to
forge consistently by an internal act of alteration.
Originality/value – This study uses a unique approach of fusing digital forensic science with digital
diplomatics in the form of using inherent redundancy in digital records and metadata for consistency
analysis as a means to fuse the elds.
Keywords Digital forensics, Archival science, Digital diplomatics, Digital records management,
Questioned digital documents
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
There is a lack of consensus in digital forensics surrounding the basic elements of the
science underlying the eld (Cohen et al., 2011). It has been suggested that a common
language would help the process of digital forensics and associated research in the
development of the eld (Cohen, 2012), and the lack of such a language appears to stem
from an inattention to history. Such a history exists, the verbiage is embedded in the
legal systems of the world, and it was formed and applied for questioned document
examination since the 1600s (Mabillon, 1681). The eld is called diplomatics, for which
foundations have been developed for centuries, it has been used as a foundation for other
elds like archival science and records management, and those elds have been
partially updated for use with digital documents. We adopt the name “digital
diplomatics”, or alternatively, questioned digital document examination (i.e. the
The author wished to acknowledge the work at InterPARES Trust at UBC and by researchers
around the world participating in this effort. Special thanks go to Luciana Duranti for her
attention to the details. Funding for travel to the conference was provided by the InterPARES
Trust.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0956-5698.htm
Digital
diplomatics
and forensics
21
Received 14 March 2014
Revised 10 September 2014
Accepted 27 October 2014
RecordsManagement Journal
Vol.25 No. 1, 2015
pp.21-44
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0956-5698
DOI 10.1108/RMJ-03-2014-0016
examination of digital documents to ascertain reliability and authenticity), and apply
the results of this investigation to this emerging eld.
Overview
This paper concerns itself with background information and a discussion of the
emerging eld of digital diplomatics, which we notion as the eld that is used to
establish or refute trust in digital documents within a legal framework. We start by
detailing the historical context. We then proceed by working through the analog of
diplomatics and forensics for the digital age, making the analogies where appropriate
and breaking the analogies where necessary. Next, we posit an approach to meet many
of the challenges identied with the transition to digital documents as evidence, and
seek to reconcile the classic elds to the emerging digital ones, taking the difference into
account. Finally, we summarize and seek ways to move forward with the resulting
science under the banner of digital diplomatics.
Background
Causality as a foundation of science
Foundational to science is the notion of causality. Cause (C) acts through (¡)
mechanisms (
m
) to produce effects (E). Expressed as C¡
m
E, this forms the basic
assumption of science as a whole, and scientic evidence in the narrow sense of legally
admissible evidence. Noteworthy are the notions that correlation is not causality and
that effect does not imply cause (Cohen, 2008/2014). To form a scientic hypothesis
about a legal matter, a hypothesis of a mechanism by which cause produced effect must
be formed, with the effect being the traces found and the cause being a hypothesized act
of interest to the matter.
The mechanism of classic diplomatics and forensics is called transfer[1], which has
the effect of producing traces, a concept rst scientically explained in forensics by
Locard (1929). But this is not the mechanism of digital systems. Rather, digital systems
use something more akin to transmission[2]. Traces in digital systems are produced by
the execution of nite state automata (a.k.a. nite state machine [FSM]) taking input and
state and transforming them into output and next state, with the inputs, state, and/or
output xed to media, transmitted[3] to another such FSM, or retained in a feedback loop
within the FSM.
Diplomatics
The eld of diplomatics is often identied as founded in 1681 when the famous French
phililogist[4]Mabillon (1681) rst published the results of an analysis of approximately
200 documents, divided into categories and examined with regard to material, ink,
language, script, punctuation, abbreviations, formulas, subscripts, seals, special signs,
chancery notes, and so forth. He created descriptions to allow the detection of forgeries
and identied ground truth based on recurrence of intrinsic and extrinsic elements in
documents from same time and place (Duranti, 1998). In modern terminology, and
taking some liberties in usage, he used redundancy to test for consistency. Note that this
approach was based on correlation, but causality was also present in the form of known
chanceries or scriptoria traditions (cause) and capabilities of scribes over the ages
(mechanism). In addition, and perhaps more vitally, no ground truth was available for
much of this effort because the documents were too old for eye witnesses and the
documentary evidence supporting the claims was in question along with the claims.
RMJ
25,1
22
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