Identity theft – in particular through phishing – has become a major threat to privacy and a valuable means for (organized) cybercrime. In this paper, we propose a forensic framework that allows for profiling and tracing of the agents involved in phishing networks. The key idea is to apply phishing methods against phishing agents. In order to profile and trace phishers, their databases are fill...

This review summarizes the findings from a retrospective study of 17,390 forensic autopsy cases of medicolegal investigations in Taiwan during the 1999-2008 period. Among this total, 1,874 cases involved illicit drugs and 750 involved household toxic chemicals. Rarely seen toxic substances, such as cyanide, corrosive poisons, ether, etc., were found in 6.4%percent; of homicide poisoning cases. ...

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a versatile and widely used analysis platform with application in diverse areas such as analytical chemistry, chiral separations, clinical, forensics, molecular biology, natural products, organic chemistry, and the pharmaceutical industry. Forensic applications of CE include fragment analysis, DNA sequencing, SNP typing, and analysis of gunshot residues, explos...

While the analysis of human DNA has been the focus of large-scale collaborative endeavors, non-human forensic DNA analysis has not benefited from the same funding streams and coordination of effort. Consequently, the development of standard marker panels, allelic ladders and allele-specific sequence data comparable to those established for human forensic genetics has lagged. To meet that need f...

This review explores the key factors that influence the optimization, routine use, and profile interpretation of the SNaPshot single-base extension (SBE) system applied to forensic single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping. Despite being a mainly complimentary DNA genotyping technique to routine STR profiling, use of SNaPshot is an important part of the development of SNP sets for a wide ...

Direct PCR was first used in the field of microbiology, where it was more commonly known as colony PCR. Since then, many more applications of direct PCR has been described in other fields where it has aided in diagnosis of infectious diseases and in botany. Direct PCR is a technique where amplification is carried out on samples without prior extraction, purification or quantification. In forens...

This paper describes the international disaster victim identification (DVI) response mounted in Thailand, with particular reference to Singapore's contribution to this process, in the wake of the Asian tsunami of 26 December, 2004, which devastated parts of more than 10 countries in and around the Indian Ocean and claimed more than 200,000 lives. Although Singapore was unscathed by this natural...

Molecular investigations gain increasing interest in forensic medicine. Examination of gene expression levels at the time point of death might have the power to become a complementing tool to the current methods for the determination of cause and circumstances of death. This includes pathophysiological conditions of disease and injury as well as the duration of agony or other premortem factors....

Prior to forensic implementation, a profiling system requires validation following the recommendations presented by the Technical Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods (TWGDAM). In this work two such systems, AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus and AmpFfSTR COfiler have been validated according to the guidelines provided by TWGDAM. Profiler Plus and COfiler simultaneously amplify nine and six STR loci respe...