When digital evidence is presented in front of a court of law, it is seldom associated with a scientific evaluation of its relevance, or significance. When experts are challenged about the validity of the digital evidence, the general answer is “yes, to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty”. Which means all and nothing at the same time, since no scientific metric is volunteered. In this paper we aim at providing courts of law with weighted digital evidence. Each digital evidence is assigned with a confidence rating that eventually helps juries and magistrates in their endeavor. This paper presents a novel methodology in order to: - Provide digital forensics experts with the ability to form a digital evidence chain, the Digital Evidence Inventory (DEI), in a way similar to an evidence “block chain”, in order to capture evidence; - Give experts the ability to rate the level of confidence for each evidence in a Forensics Confidence Rating (FCR) structure; - Provide experts with a Global Digital Timeline (GDT) to order evidence through time. As a result, this methodology provides courts of law with sound digital evidences, having a confidence level expressed in metrics and ordered through a timeline. The objective of this work is to add a reliable pinch of scientific certainty when dealing with digital evidence.
