Computer Forensics Glossary  - A

Letter:  A 

Acrobat

Acrobat is a application software by Adobe Systems. These applications use Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) as their native file format. Some software in the family is commercial, and some free of charge. Adobe Reader (formerly called Acrobat Reader) is available as a no-charge download from Adobe's web site, and allows the viewing and printing of PDF files.  (w)

Active Desktop

Active Desktop is a feature of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0's optional Windows Desktop Update that allows the user to add HTML content to the desktop, along with some other features. This functionality was intended to be installed on the then-current Windows 95 operating system. It was also included in Windows 98 and higher Windows operating systems until Windows Vista, where the feature was discontinued.  (w)

Active Directory

Active Directory (AD) is an implementation of LDAP directory services by Microsoft for use primarily in Windows environments. The main purpose of Active Directory is to provide central authentication and authorization services for Windows based computers. Active Directory also allows administrators to assign policies, deploy software, and apply critical updates to an entire organization. Active Directory stores information and settings relating to an organization in a central, organized, accessible database. Active Directory networks can vary from a small installation with a few hundred objects, to a large installation with millions of objects.  (w)

Active Hub

An active hub is a hub that includes a signal amplifier. also known as multi-port repeater.  (w)

Active Matrix Display

An active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD) is a type of flat panel display, currently the overwhelming choice of notebook computer manufacturers, due to light weight, very good image quality, wide color gamut, and response time.  (w)

Active Window

An active window is the currently focused window in the current window manager or explorer. Different window managers indicate the currently-active window in different ways and allow the user to switch between windows in different ways.  (w)

Acquisition

A process by which digital evidence is duplicated, copied, or imaged. (2)

Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA)

Advanced Technology Attachment is a standard interface for connecting storage devices such as hard disks and CD-ROM drives inside personal computers.  The standard is maintained by X3/INCITS committee T13. Many synonyms and near-synonyms for ATA exist, including abbreviations such as IDE and ATAPI. Also, with the market introduction of Serial ATA in 2003, the original ATA was retroactively renamed Parallel ATA (PATA). 

Alert

This is a notification sent a system. 

ALGORYTHIM

A finite sequence of steps for solving a logical or mathematical problem or performing a task.  (w)

Alt Key

The Alt key on an IBM PC keyboard is the key located immediately to either side of the Space bar, used to change (alternate) the function of other pressed keys. Thus, the Alt key is a modifier key, used in a similar fashion to the Shift key.  (w)

Alt Newsgroup

Alt Newsgroups stands for Alternative Newsgroups.  It is different from the seven other Usenet newsgroup hierarchies (comp., misc., news., rec., sci., soc., talk.) because these groups use to require a consenious of about the users prior to a new group being estiablished.  Because of this anyone can create an alt. newsgroup.  These groups generally have more obscure and or bizarre topics.  (w)

American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)

The American Registry for Internet Numbers is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Canada, the United States, and some islands in the Caribbean and North Atlantic ocean. Established in December 1997, ARIN is incorporated as a nonprofit in the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA.  (w)

American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)

American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character encoding based on the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that work with text. Most modern character encodings — which support many more characters — have a historical basis in ASCII.  (w)

American National Standards Institute (ANSI)

The American National Standards Institute is a private nonprofit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States.  It was formed in 1918. The organization also coordinates U.S. standards with international standards so that American products can be used worldwide. For example, standards make sure that people who own cameras can find the film they need for them anywhere around the globe. (w)

America Online (AOL)

America Online is an American global Internet services and media company operated by Time Warner.  (w)

Analysis

To look at the results of an examination for its significance and probative value to the case.(2) 

Anonymous

Anonymous is derived from a Greek word meaning 'without a name' or 'name-less'. In colloquial use, the term typically refers to a personal identity, or personally identifiable information of that person is not known.  On the Internet this term the use of means hide one's real identity.

Anonymous FTP

Anonymous FTP desribes a user's ability to remotely access another computer system without a specific account.  These users generally have less rights than other specified users.

ANSI

See American National Standards Institute.

Antistatic

The antistatic properity is used to describe the treatment of materials or their surfaces in order to reduce or eliminate buildup of static electricity generally caused by the triboelectric effect. Its role is to make the surface or the material itself slightly conductive, either by being conductive itself, or by absorbing moisture from the air, so some humectants can be used. (w)

Antistatic Device

An antistatic device is any item which has the effect of reducing static electricity charges on a person's body or equipment, either to prevent fires and explosions when working with flammable liquids and gases, or to prevent damage to static-sensitive objects such as electronic components or devices.  (w)

Antivirus Software

Antivirus software consists of computer programs that attempt to identify, isolate, thwart and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious software (malware).  This is typically accomplished usingtwo different techniques.  (a)  Examining (scanning) files to look for known viruses matching definitions in a virus dictionary (b) Identifying suspicious behavior from any computer program which might indicate infection. Such analysis may include data captures, port monitoring and other methods. (w)

Apache

Also see Apache HTTP Server

Apache Software Foundation

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit corporation (classified as 501(c)(3) in the United States) to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. The ASF was formed from the Apache Group and incorporated in Delaware, USA, in June 1999.  The software they produce is distributed under the terms of the Apache License and is therefore free software / open source software. The Apache projects are characterized by a collaborative, consensus based development process and an open and pragmatic software license. Each project is managed by a self-selected team of technical experts who are active contributors to the project. (w)

Apache HTTP Server

Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to simply as Apache, is a web server notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. Apache was the first viable alternative to the Netscape Communications Corporation web server (currently known as Sun Java System Web Server), and has since evolved to rival other Unix-based web servers in terms of functionality and performance. Since April 1996 Apache has been the most popular HTTP server on the World Wide Web.  (w)

AppleTalk

AppleTalk is a proprietary suite of protocols developed by Apple Inc for computer networking. It was included in the original Macintosh (1984) and is now deprecated by Apple in favor of TCP/IP networking. (w)

Application Software

Application software is a subclass of computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thouroghly to a task that the user wishes to perform. This should be contrasted with system software which is involved in integrating a computer's various capabilities, but typically does not directly apply them in the performance of tasks that benefit the user. In this context the term application refers to both the application software and its implementation.  (w)

Architecture

Architecture desribes the physical construction or design of a computer system and its components.  (w)

Archive bit

An archive bit is a file attribute present in many computer file systems, notably FAT, FAT32, and NTFS. The purpose of an archive bit is to track incremental changes to files for the purpose of backup, also called archiving. (w)

Archive file

A file archive is a computer program that combines a number of files together into one archive file, or a series of archive files, for easier transportation or storage. Many file archivers use lossless data compression in order to reduce the archive's size. See also compress1, gzip, PKZIP, StuffIt, tar1. (w)

Archive site

An archive site is a type of website that stores information on, or the actual, webpages from the past for anyone to view. (w)

Attached Resource Computer NETwork (ARCnet)

Attached Resource Computer NETwork is a local area network (LAN) protocol, similar in purpose to Ethernet or Token Ring. ARCNET was the first widely available networking system for microcomputers and became popular in the 1980s for office automation tasks. It has since gained a following in the embedded systems market, where certain features of the protocol are especially useful. (w)

ARIN

See American Registry for Internet Numbers

ASCII

See  American Standard Code for Information Interchange.

ASCII character set

American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a standard 7-bit binary code representing ASCII characters.  The values of these codes range 0 to 127. (w)

Extended ASCII Character Set

American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a standard 8-bit binary code representing ASCII characters.  The normal ASCII set is 7-bit.  The eighth bit is used to to represent special symbols, foreign-language characters, and graphic symbols.

ASCII file

This is a file in ASCII format,which may contain characters, spaces, punctuation, carriage returns, and sometimes tabs and an end-of-file marker, but no other formatting information. (w)

ATA

See Advanced Technology Attachment 

Attachment

attachment (or email attachment) is a computer file which is sent along with an e-mail message. The file may be sent as a separate message, but now it is almost universally sent as part of the message to which it is attached. Attached messages may be sent in unencoded form, or encoded in a number of ways: base64, binhex, uuencoding, quoted-printable.  (w)

Attack

This is an intentional attempt to bypass security controls. 

Autoexec.bat

AUTOEXEC.BAT is the name of a system file found originally on the MS-DOS operating system. It is a plain-text batch file that is located in the root directory of the boot device. The name of the file is a portmanteau of the words "automatic" and "execution", which describes its function in automatically executing commands on system startup; the portmanteau was coined in response to the 8.3 filename limitations of the FAT file system family. (w)

Autorun.inf

On removable media this file starts the Windows AutoPlay feature in Windows 9x and Windows NT. (w)

Authentication

This is the act of verifing, establishing or confirming the integrity the identity of a user, device or entity. 

Audio Video Interleaved

Audio Video Interleave (AVI) is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a standard container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback. Like DVDs, AVI files support multiple streaming audio and video, although these features are seldom used. (w)

Average Seek Time

This is a term used generally to describe the amount of time it takes for the read/write head to move to a specific location on a hard drive.