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Last 10 Authors - Microsoft Word How To - By: Jon Rowe.., Posted on: 2007-03-29

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Computer forensic examinations and litigation support projects often rely on Microsoft Office file metadata. Metadata is information stored in a file that identifies key attributes of the file and can assist a computer forensic examiner and lawyers by establishing key findings in a case. It can assist with the timeline of events for a suspect.

An area of a Microsoft Word file commonly referred to as metadata is 'Last 10 Authors'. Last 10 authors/locations and the data captured can be valuable in a computer forensic examination or electronic discovery project.

Many don't realize that last 10 authors isn't normally displayed or made available when metadata is extracted or viewed through computer forensic software, electronic discovery extraction or metadata viewer utilities. The reason that last 10 authors remains hidden is that it doesn't fall into the OLE stream metadata category.

What is OLE stream metadata? OLE stream metadata is what is commonly viewed through a metadata viewer or sometimes extracted during electronic discovery and contain fields such as Title, Author, Date Last Printed, Date Last Saved etc. Because the last 10 authors is stored in a different location and not easily accessible this information isn't normally extracted during the electronic discovery process.

Many scrubbing applications don't remove the data contained in the last 10 authors. Because this informaiton is not included in the standard metadata fields it is often forgotten and becomes available for others to view and possibly use to their advantage.

We were recently hired to review a couple computer systems and a USB drvie of a corporate employee. We were told that the two computers provided were the only systems that were used by the employee.

Because of the age of the laptop, size of the hard drive and user log files we doubted that the suspect had used the laptop for much of anything for awhile. Additionally, there were two older operating systems intalled which haven't been used for many years.

When we reviewed the last 10 authors information on dozens of current working files located on the USB drive we were able to determine that none of the files were created or recently modified on the laptop. In fact, we were able to determine the employee had access to two other systems which had been used to edit the working files.

It is important to also understand that the last 10 authors data is not only captured when a user clicks 'save' but Microsoft Word's autosave feature will intermintently save files and store the information in last 10 authors.

To seasoned computer forensic examiners and attorneys the last 10 authors information is used to support their case or they may insure it is scrubbed before producing documents to opposing counsel.

It is important to remember that not all metadata scrubbing applications remove the last 10 authors information, nor do most electronic discovery applications extract this content. Programatically, last 10 authors can be difficult to access and even more difficult to overwrite or remove.

In summary, last 10 authors is referred to as metadata, however, it isn't accessible through most computer forensic software or electronic discovery application. Last 10 authors data can be viewed and scrubbed using applications from Pinpoint Labs (Pinpoint MetaViewer, MetaDiscover). There are a couple other applications, however, the applications from Pinpoint Labs can access and scrub the data without altering the file system timestamps and is significantly quicker than other applications reviewed.

Article Source:- Directory Submission & Sexy Deepika Padukone


Pinpoint Metaviewer and MetaDiscover are available from Pinpoint Labs websiteMetadata Tools - Last 10 Authors
Visit our Metadata tools article directory for a completely unique version of this article.

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