An entrepreneur from the service sector contacted me because he was interested in preserving some WhatsApp conversations and was not entirely sure which professional to consult.<\/p>\n\n
The entrepreneur informed me that he had approached his usual notary to have a series of WhatsApp conversations notarized. This request was not driven by any mediation procedure or legal claim; quite the opposite. The entrepreneur wished to have official evidence of these conversations as a precaution, so that, when the time came, he could certify the originality and non-manipulation of specific conversations, along with any digital evidence attached to those conversations (photos, voice notes, videos, documents, locations, etc.).<\/p>\n\n
According to the aforementioned entrepreneur, the notary, with good judgment, advised him to consult a certified computer forensic expert. As is the case in courts with Court Clerks (LAJ), a notary can only attest to what they perceive with their senses. Although the notary or the Court Clerk may observe a WhatsApp conversation or an email on a computer device (mobile phone, tablet, laptop, etc.), they are generally not qualified or legally authorized to assert the originality and non-manipulation of that WhatsApp conversation or email, which, at first glance, appears authentic.<\/p>\n\n
Thus, a notarial deed or a document signed by a Court Clerk, intended to grant a certain degree of authenticity to digital evidence of an IT nature, can only be guaranteed with a computer forensic report, prepared by a professional with an official qualification<\/strong>. The basis for such an assertion is that what the notary or the Court Clerk observes is not the digital evidence itself, but a graphical representation, as both abstractions (digital evidence and its graphical representation) possess characteristics and properties of a different nature.<\/p>\n\n An example to demonstrate the above is explained by creating a simulated WhatsApp conversation. There is a wide range of mobile and desktop applications that allow for the simulated generation of a WhatsApp conversation between two interlocutors. An example of one of these applications is the Whatsapp Fake Chat website. This website allows users to simulate a conversation through a small configuration wizard. In this way, the user can specify the telephone operator, the phone’s battery level, the degree of 3G\/4G\/Wifi connectivity, the text messages exchanged, and their status (sent, delivered, or read).<\/p>\n\n In short, and returning to the entrepreneur’s case, I discussed the different options I could offer him, the most interesting being the preparation of a chain of custody report<\/strong> for the WhatsApp conversations and linked multimedia elements (images, voice notes, office documents, videos, etc.). Along with this chain of custody report, I provided him with a USB copy of both the report and the extraction. I also offered to act as custodian, for as long as he wished, of the extraction performed, so that the forensic report could be expanded at any time (both by me and by any other expert designated by the entrepreneur) to study the originality and non-manipulation of one or more specific conversations and, if applicable, the relevant multimedia elements.<\/p>\n\n Although WhatsApp cloud backups are always a good recommendation for preparing a forensic report, these backups are volatile in the sense that they are replaced by each new backup. In this context, it may happen that any interlocutor in a conversation deletes messages or any multimedia content, and when the backup is made, that evidence disappears.<\/p>\n\n Therefore, in certain circumstances, considering an “offline” backup<\/strong> safeguarded by a certified computer forensic expert or proposing a forensic extraction<\/strong> to certify its proper chain of custody, can become alternative strategies to resort to in the future<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An entrepreneur from the service sector contacted me because he was interested in preserving some WhatsApp conversations and was not entirely sure which professional to consult. The entrepreneur informed me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,66,72],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-custody-service","8":"category-news","9":"category-whatsapp-messages"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1400,"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions\/1400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peritajesgamez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}