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Technology; friend or foe? There was certainly a time that the use of computer generated technology would have been a welcome relief to most crime scene investigators. The value of accuracy, eliminating most human error had value beyond words. Enter: technology that is as much a friend as it is a criminal. Technology and the brilliance it is made up of is only as good as the person utilizing it. On the flip side, it can also be as bad; incredibly harmful at best. When a crime has been committed, in this day in age, a computer is often the accomplice. That being said, the sooner the evidence within the computer accomplice is collected by the attending computer forensics specialists, the more likely the data that has been accessed, even if deleted, is remaining evidence on the computer; whether only in part or true to form detail. The longer the forensic team takes to collect this invaluable data, the more likely it is that the computer will overwrite key pieces of evidence, which would ultimately result in the prosecution or release of a potential criminal mind. Even partial data is extracted from the hard drive of the accomplice computer; it can still be very much useful in a prosecution, as partial data is also admissible in court today (Krehel, 2011). Securing the hard drive in the exact manner in which the computer has been found is absolutely vital to any forensic expert hoping to do their job with attention to detail and accuracy. This can be done by duplicating or replicating the hard drive at the onset of any said investigation when a computer is involved. Because forensic specialists are not attorneys, it is nearly impossible for this professional to know which data to keep and what to leave behind for overwrite. In this case, the choice is clear. There isn’t one. Every shred of data on the accomplice computer must be collected ((Biles, 2010). Just as

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