Column: The Physics of Digital Information

Abstract

One of the interesting questions underlying creating a science of digital forensics is what form that science might take. At the end of the IEEE Oakland Conference in 2011, I presented some of the underlying questions and identified my approach and why I favored it.2 My basic position is that science is about causality and a scientific theory should require that cause(C) produces effect (E) via mechanism M (written C→ME). The scientific method then identifies the criteria for rejecting (refuting) or accepting (for a time) a scientific theory.(see PDF for full column)