‘Riding Furiously in All Directions’ – Implications of Uncoordinated Technical, Organisational and Legal Responses to Illegal or Inappropriate On-line Behaviours

The development of technical, organisational and legal responses to the challenges posed by illegal or inappropriate on-line behaviours is a growth industry. As the incidence of e-crime and computer misuse has increased, so has the demand for more effective defensive and offensive solutions. Noticeably, while responses have tended to focus on discrete sets of technical, organisational or legal challenges there is now recognition of the need for integrated solutions that can effectively balance requirements for network security, individual privacy and the generation of legally admissible digital evidence. More significantly, there is growing proof to suggest that the fragmented nature of these discrete approaches is inhibiting the development of the integrated solutions and skills required and impairing the overall effectiveness of the responses developed. At the technical level rapid developments in e-security, intrusion prevention/protection, user profiling and network monitoring and maintenance have improved our ability to treat the symptoms of illegal or inappropriate behaviour whilst making problematic evidence acquisition and the maintenance of individual privacy. At the organisational level the tightening of e-security and system usage policies has often impacted negatively on individual privacy and other rights, this inturn has resulted in other behaviours that have actually impaired the effectiveness of technical systems. At the legal level the rapid introduction of new laws and police powers has raised concerns about users privacy and other rights and displayed an approach to digital evidence that inadequately addresses the ‘last mile’, this in turn has produced organisational and end-user behaviours that impede evidence acquisition activities. In this context, this research paper adopts an e-forensic approach to examine the interrelatedness between technical, organisational and legal responses to the challenges posed by illegal or inappropriate on-line behaviour. The paper acknowledges some of the numerous challenges that remain unresolved in each approach and argues that the future developments must be focused on integrated solutions that balance the interests for security, legal admissibility and privacy in ways that are calibrated to address the dynamic and multi-faceted nature of the forensic computing domain.