Web Design Expert Discusses Forensic Examination of Utility Company Website

Case Overview

This case involves an individual who was electrocuted by a downed power line. Following the incident, the defendant power company claimed that the power line was mounted to a private power pole that owned by the property owner. As such, the defendant claimed that they had no responsibility for the pole or the electrocution. The plaintiff alleged that this concept has no basis in the industry. An expert in website design was requested to perform a forensic analysis of the utility company website to determine whether there was any language to this effect on their current or archived site.

Questions to the Software expert and their responses

Please describe your experience in the field of web design and/or computer forensics.

I began doing professional web design in 1993 (when I was in high school and the web was 2-years-old). I worked as a professional web designer for about 10 years before getting my PhD in computer science. I have written books on web design and taught it since 1999. My research is all web-based and my most recent book is focused on essentially doing forensic analysis of social media accounts. It includes a section on the internet archive, and I have done expert work for a SEC case using the internet archive and searching for material online as is described in this case.

How would you go about searching through archived versions of a website for specific phrases?

Depending on how large the site is, I think it is worth identifying the relevant sections at different time points (usually around the points of a redesign) and doing an exhaustive page-by-page search for relevant content. This is usually a relatively quick process once you know what the pages look like and where the content might be. The internet archive also has an advanced search that can be used to look for specific phrases within archived pages. If the website owner has produced their own archived versions of their site, these can easily be searched with simple code for any mentions of the phrases of interest.

About the expert

This highly qualified expert has extensive experience in the field of computer science. She earned a BA in economics as well as a BS and MS in computer science from the University of Chicago and a PhD in computer science from the University of Maryland. This expert formerly served as a lecturer of computer science at the University of Chicago, an adjunct lecturer of computer science at George Mason University, an adjunct professor in teh advanced physics lab at Johns Hopkins University, and an adjunct lecturer of computer science at Georgetown University. In addition, she has served as the research director of the Joint Institute for Knowledge Discovery at the University of Maryland. Currently, she served as an associate professor of information studies at a public research university in Maryland.

E-090926

Specialties:

Software