Forensic science, or forensics, is a field you've no doubt heard of. It focuses on the use of science and technology to present evidence in court, and in a lot of fiction forensics is simply presented as your lead detective sending something to the lab and getting back important evidence against a criminal or criminals. However, forensics is complicated and has a lot more depth than just comparing someone's DNA--and they're beginning to find holes in practices that have gone on for decades, including bite mark analysis and even fingerprints.In addition to physical evidence, with the surge in digital devices in people's lives a new branch of forensics has been added: Computer forensics. This is the analysis of data found on someone's hard drive (and other storage devices) or, in cases of remote attacks, a tracing of information packets that can sometimes be followed along the route of attack; the latter is called "network forensics".
If you live in the USA (because PBS restricts access and their videos aren't playable outside the country, darn it--though you could conceivably download a VPN to circumvent a regional block) and are interested in the field, then I highly recommend watching this NOVA program about forensics. It's fascinating.
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Sources:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/forensics
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/weekinreview/28santos.html
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12589
http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/40151/computer-forensics
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/forensics-on-trial.html
http://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/forensics.pdf
http://www.newyorkcomputerforensics.com/learn/forensics_process.php
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Do you have any favorite examples of forensic science, either fictional or real? Do you think older techniques that are now proving to be less-than-reliable should be completely phased out? Are you in favor of DNA profiling if there's biological evidence it can be extracted from?
-----The Golden Eagle
