Cloud forecasting: Legal visibility issues in saturated environments

Abstract

The advent of cloud computing has brought the computing power of corporate data processing and storage centers to lightweight devices. Software-as-a-service cloud subscribers enjoy the convenience of personal devices along with the power and capability of a service. Using logical as opposed to physical partitions across cloud servers, providers supply flexible and scalable resources. Furthermore, the possibility for multitenant accounts promises considerable freedom when establishing access controls for cloud content. For forensic analysts conducting data acquisition, cloud resources present unique challenges. Inherent properties such as dynamic content, multiple sources, and nonlocal content make it difficult for a standard to be developed for evidence gathering in satisfaction of United States federal evidentiary standards in criminal litigation. Development of such standards, while essential for reliable production of evidence at trial, may not be entirely possible given the guarantees to privacy granted by the Fourth Amendment and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Privacy of information on a cloud is complicated because the data is stored on resources owned by a third-party provider, accessible by users of an account group, and monitored according to a service level agreement. This research constructs a balancing test for competing considerations of a forensic investigator acquiring information from a cloud.