A Forensic Exploration of the Microsoft Windows 10 Timeline

The Microsoft Windows operating system continues to dominate the desktop computing market. With such high levels of usage comes an inferred likelihood of digital forensic practitioners encountering this platform during their investigations. As part of any forensic examination of a digital device, operating system artifacts, which support the identification and understanding of how a user has behaved on their system provide a potential source of evidence. Now, following Microsoft's April 2018 build 1803 release with its incorporated “Timeline” feature, the potential for identifying and tracking user activity has increased. This work provides a timely examination of the Windows 10 Timeline feature demonstrating the ability to recover activity‐based content from within its stored database log files. Examination results and underpinning experimental methodologies are offered, demonstrating the ability to recover activity tile and process information in conjunction with the Windows Timeline. Further, an SQL query has been provided to support the interpretation of data stored within the ActivitiesCache.db .     

The redenomination risk of exiting the Eurozone: An estimation based on the Greek case

Changing a country's currency involves a redenomination risk arising due to assets and liabilities that are impossible to redenominate because of contracts governed by foreign law. Depreciation or appreciation of the new currency could, therefore, result in losses or gains, thus creating a risk for economic agents. The risk can be estimated by splitting the economy into public, private, banking and central banking sectors, and summing up exposed aggregate assets and liabilities. This method is applied to Greece showing that exiting the EMU would certainly entail forbidding redenomination losses for the Greek public sector, leading to default. Surprisingly, however, the impact on the private and the banking sectors would actually be positive (gain). The impact on the Bank of Greece would be ambiguous depending primarily on the legal status of TARGET2 liabilities. It is notable that even the Bank of Greece possesses a significant cushion in the form of bonds under foreign law. In all, the redenomination risk for the Greek economy is modest, with the exception of the public sector.     

Forensic evaluation of 13 STR loci in the Roma population (Gypsies) of Greece

Allele frequencies have been calculated in 13 STR loci in a Roma (Gypsy) population sample from Greece. The data can be used in forensic cases. The comparison of the allele frequencies between the Roma and the Greeks showed significant differences for the majority of the loci. Furthermore comparison to another Romany population sample was performed.     

Nature,Dialectics and Emancipatory Politics

Ecofeminist theory and politics, which originally grew out of the radical feminist movement and peace and environmental movements of the early 1970s, is composed of many voices. Since the 1970s, ecofeminists have emerged in such places as India, with the work of Vandana Shiva, and Australia, with the work of Ariel Salleh, among others, expanding beyond their Western origins. Like feminists, ecofeminists do not claim a single theoretical position and practice. And like feminism, ecofeminism is constantly changing, motivated, in part, by the lively theoretical debates within it. The purpose of this interview is to introduce the reader to ecofeminist philosophy, to explore what ecofeminism is, what ecofeminists' central debates are about, where they are going, and what ecofeminism's possibilities are as a theoretical tool for understanding the underlying structures of social and ecological problems.

Barbara Holland‐Cunz has contributed to ecofeminist theory and politics since the 1970s. She has been an active member in the feminist movement, the anti‐militarist movement, and the anti‐nuclear movement in Germany since 1978. She holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Political Science from Frankfurt University, where she currently teaches in the Women's Studies center in the Social Sciences Department. Holland‐Cunz' research areas include political theory, philosophy of nature, feminist politics and utopias, and the history of ecofeminism. The courses she teaches include: feminist theory and epistemology, gender in political theory, political strategies and Utopian thought, and ecology and the philosophy of nature. Holland‐Cunz lives in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and is an Editor of CNS.     

Big Five Personality Traits and Responses to Persuasive Appeals: Results from Voter Turnout Experiments

We examine whether Big Five personality traits are associated with heterogeneous responses to commonly used Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) appeals in both a survey and a field experiment. The results suggest that Big Five personality traits affect how people respond to the costs and benefits of voting highlighted in GOTV appeals. Our evidence also suggests that one trait—Openness—is associated with broad persuasibility, while others shape responses to particular types of messages. In some cases the conditioning effects of Big Five traits are substantial. For example, in the one-voter households (HHs) included in our field experiment, we find that a mailer that raised the specter of social sanctions increased the likelihood of voting by a statistically greater amount among those scoring high on Openness. The findings constitute an important step forward in understanding how core personality traits shape responses to various aspects of the act of voting.     

The social relations of money as universal equivalent: a response to Ingham

In a recent debate in Economy and Society, Ingham criticized Marxist theory of money on the grounds that it relates money to commodities through the labour theory of value, while ignoring credit money. Ingham suggested instead that money is constituted by social relations characteristic of credit, namely relations of ‘promise to pay’. Drawing on Marx, this article shows that, pace Ingham, it is necessary theoretically to relate money to commodities. Money is indeed constituted by social relations, but these are commercial relations among ‘foreign’ commodity owners, not credit relations. The social relations of money are successfully captured by Marx's concept of the universal equivalent, when that is interpreted as monopoly over the ability to buy. In this light, both commodity and credit money are forms of the universal equivalent, but qualitatively different from each other.     

Information and trust as social aspects of credit

Abstract

According to mainstream economic theory the contractual relationship between borrower and lender is characterized by asymmetry of information regarding the project to be financed. It is assumed that trust among credit participants is constructed individually as they collect and assess requisite information. In contrast, this paper argues that trust and information among credit participants have compelling social constituents that depend on economic function and social context. More specifically, the paper shows that financial institutions transform trust into a social and objective relationship. The capitalist credit system comprises a set of institutions that construct trust socially by using increasingly general information. Nonetheless, the foundation of credit-related trust is the ability to repay money. Hence the moral content of credit is thin, giving rise to fraud and deception.     

Improved estimation of postmortem interval based on differential behaviour of vitreous potassium and hypoxantine in death by hanging

Many formulae are available to estimate the relation between the potassium ([K+]) and hypoxantine ([Hx]) concentration in the vitreous humour and the postmortem interval (PMI). Typically these have been based on a correlation test and linear regression using the postmortal interval as the independent variable and [K+] or [Hx] as the dependent variable in order to estimate the confidence interval. However, a recent study has shown that a more precise measurement of PMI can be obtained if [K+] is used as the independent variable. The regression lines obtained from the most recent deceased subjects with forensic relevance received for autopsy in the Institute of Legal Medicine are [K+] = 5.589 + 0.174PMI and [Hx] = 26.459 + 3.017PMI, by changing the variables, we obtain PMI=3.967[K+] - 19.186 (R2 = 0.688, P < 0.001) and PMI = 0.172 [Hx] + 0.170 (R2 = 0.518, P < 0.001). In this paper we propose the cause of death as an extra factor which modifies the relationship and gives even greater precision in estimating PMI. In cases of death by hanging the results are considerably improved with [K+] = 5.224 + 0.225PMI and [Hx] = 15.161+4.957PMI, respectively, and consequently, PMI = 3.631[K+] - 17.334 (R2 = 0.818, P< 0.001) and PMI = 0.153[Hx] - 0.368 (R2 = 0.757, P < 0.001): the slope is less and the precision is obviously enhanced.     

IoT forensics: Exploiting log records from the DAHUA technology CCTV systems

CCTV surveillance systems are ubiquitous IoT appliances. Their forensic examination has proven critical for investigating crimes. DAHUA Technology is a well-known manufacturer of such products. Despite its global market share, research regarding digital forensics of DAHUA Technology CCTV systems is scarce and currently limited to extracting their video footage, overlooking the potential presence of valuable artifacts within their log records. These pieces of evidence remain unexploited by major commercial forensic software, yet they can hide vital information for an investigation. For instance, these log records document user actions, such as formatting the CCTV system's hard drive or disabling camera recording. This information can assist in attributing nefarious actions to specific users and hence can be invaluable for understanding the sequence of events related to incidents. Therefore, in this paper, several DAHUA Technology CCTV systems are thoroughly analyzed for these unexplored pieces of evidence, and their forensic value is presented.     

The Kurds in Iran: balancing national and ethnic identity in a securitised environment

The Kurdish population in Iran feels disenfranchised and excluded from the political system. Based on an original survey of Iranian Kurds, it is revealed that Kurds lack trust and confidence in the central government and do not exhibit any emotional connection with Iranian identity or the Islamic Republic of Iran. Overwhelmingly, survey respondents put their Kurdish identity and affiliations as the primary point of reference. This emotional and political disconnect with Iran poses a serious challenge to the incumbent regime. It is an affront to the official rhetoric of ethnic unity and Iranian solidarity that is reinforced by Islamic principles under the Islamic Republic of Iran. This has led the incumbent regime to opt for a security response to a clearly political challenge. However, as the survey data in this research reveals, the securitisation of Iran’s response to its Kurdish population is only widening the gap, and aggravating the situation. The securitised approach to Kurdish aspirations for inclusion and acceptance is a counterproductive strategy with significant risks for the Islamic Republic of Iran.