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Blockchain in Digital Forensics

implementation of intelligent contracts to plan a test environment. The second pro­

cess (Lone & Mir, 2019) consists of checking the execution of tasks delegated to

customers to execute predefined test cases based on a transaction count or on a length

basis. The final step is a performance review period in which all the test reports are

obtained for documentation. The management of digital information raises unprec­

edented difficulties because it is latent, unpredictable and unstable and can rapidly,

efficiently and sometimes in a time/machine-dependent way cross jurisdictional

boundaries. Ensuring that the systems and methods used to obtain and pass evidence

in a digital society are authentic and legalized is also a real challenge. Digital data’s

hash code, the location of the criminal scene and officers’ identities are no longer

enough to allow facts to be taken to court. It is therefore important to recognize all

the parties involved with the forensic investigation and provide the precise location

of each item of digital evidence and the persons who have access to evidence and

have a full list for all transactions, such as the digital signature of each product.

Moreover, the forensic scientist depends on electronic forensic equipment, and the

reliability of test findings is thus highly dependent on whether those techniques are

accurate and how they are implemented.

The following is the flowchart shown in Figure 14.4 for the systematic process

followed in maintaining the CoC with the help of Hyperledger:

Phase 1 – Generation of Evidence: In this phase, the evidence is generated a

unique ID, which is generated by taking the hash value of that evidence,

which keeps track of the integrity. Other characteristics, such as the author

and host, are often set to the first participant address/ID. The participant’s

address/identification will be transferred, showing that it is the developer

and the first owner of the digital evidence. The production period of proof

is also mentioned in this phase.

Phase 2 – Evidence Transmission: The evidence transmission process takes

the proof ID and address as input and transfers the possession in return to

the given address. This phase first tests whether facts exist, and if so, it sets

the proof owner to the new individual, who invokes the task.

Phase 3 – Evidence Elimination: The evidence elimination feature takes the

evidence ID as input and deletes the necessary proof. It first tests whether

there are any facts, and whether or not it excludes the evidence from the

database, the participant who invokes it is the source of the evidence. No

participant may withdraw specific evidence, but a contract can be provided

stating that such information is no longer applicable to a specific event.

FIGURE 14.4  Process for maintaining CoC in Hyperledger.