Peter Sommer - Expert Winess, Digital Forensics

Expert Witness & Digital Forensic Services

Site Contents: © Peter Sommer, 2009. Not to be reproduced without permission

PO Box 6447 London N4 4RX UK

Professor Peter Sommer has been providing computer-related expert witness and digital forensic services since 1985, though the practice only began to pick up in 1995.

His criminal instructions have included not only the obvious “hacking” and “computer fraud” cases but also terrorism, harassment, corruption, software piracy and murder. A number of these have made headlines and a few have altered the way in which these crimes were subsequently investigated and charged.   A number also have been complex and presented challenges in case management.

Civil instructions have included theft of trade secrets/breach of confidence, Internet-based defamation, theft of software code,   IP/copyright breach,   employment disputes and computer contract disputes.   Again, a number of these have set precedents.

Professor Sommer teaches information system security, digital investigations and digital forensics, but his first degree is in law and this enables him to provide uniquely focused services to lawyers and investigators.

This web-site provides a guide to the services available and contains assistance for lawyers and others contemplating an instruction.

Peter Sommer is a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science and also a Visiting Reader at the Open University.

There is also a separate website for his academic work here.

“In the UK all but the very smallest and simplest businesses use computers; there are 76 computers per 100 in the population. Almost anyone who wants a computer can afford one - a home PC costs the equivalent of 3-4 days’ work at average earnings; the computers bought have disk storage of ever larger and cheaper capacities; the household with several computers and which have been in use for several years is now not unusual. Over 90% of Internet users have unlimited access broadband - and new applications such as social networking , file downloading, streaming video and Web 2.0 serve to increase usage.

97% of all businesses have a broadband connection to the Internet, 70% have a website. Internet sales are 7.7% of all sales by non-financial sector businesses.

Small wonder, then, that digital footprints of activity are left everywhere we go and that digital evidence is important in an astonishing array of human activities - and that it is used in court and dispute resolution”

(Figures from ONS, 2008 and BERR/PCW ISB , 2008)