Digital Archaeology: The Art and Science of Digital Forensics

13. Excavating a Cloud

The rapid emergence of cloud computing has added a few new challenges for the digital investigator. Just what is cloud computing? A good definition appears on Novell’s Web site, which defines cloud computing as “a set of services and technologies that enable the delivery of computing services over the Internet in real time, allowing end users instant access to data and applications from any device with Internet access” (Novell 2011). A number of factors contribute to the complexity of identifying and extracting data relevant to an investigation where cloud computing is involved. To a very great extent, the technologies involved differ little from those discussed in the chapters on Web forensics and network forensics. But ...