Importance

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Abstract

Ambient data is data created or retained as an artifact of a computer system, rather than by the intention of the user. Ambient data typically includes both textual and binary, i.e., non-textual data. Ambient data can include information of which the user is unaware and that is of interest to an investigator. Most of the information in the ambient data is not useful, and the large amount of ambient data on a typical computer system can require significant time to review. The system excludes most of the non-useful ambient data and isolates full names from the ambient data by comparing the characters in the ambient data with a list of first names and nicknames. If a listed first name or nickname is found, the located name and data surrounding the name is saved to a second file. The amount of data saved is sufficient to capture a full name, regardless of whether the last name is located before or after the first name. Non-textual data is replaced with spaces before saving to the second file, so that the second file can be imported into a commercial word processor.

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First Claim