ICMedia

At the end of this year will be held in Brazil in the city of Foz do Iguaçu, PR, IEEE – International Workshop on Information Forensics and Security (WIFS). The international event is held annually and will have the 2011 edition held in Brazil through a joint effort of the Institute of Computing of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INC), Brazilian Federal Police, Brazilian National Association of Forensic Experts (APCF) and the Brazilian Association of Companies for Technology in the Digital ID (Abrid).

The proposal to host the event in Foz do Iguaçu won despite strong competition from two other candidate cities: Berlin and Shanghai. The main argument on favor of Brazil was the prospect of uniting in one place an IEEE scientific event and the International Conference on Forensic Science in Multimedia and Electronic Surveillance (ICMedia), created by Brazilian Forensic Experts aimed at integrating scientists, public security professionals and technology developers, providing an appropriate environment to deal with scientific problems, and enhance technological solutions in multimedia and electronic surveillance from the forensics point of view.

The ICMedia will be divided into two phases. The first one, called ICMedia Open Issues will be held in conjunction with the WIFS'11, which will open space for the presentation of experiences from real cases in the form of posters and open-ended questions to stimulate research, development and innovation in forensics (cases and open issues in forensic sciences), promoting integration between forensic experts and international scientific and academic community. The Open Issues are meant to be a reference for research, production of knowledge, methods and technologies for practical applications. The second phase, to be held in 2012, has more technological and applied profile, directed to the technological state of the art, but also has tracks for more scientific-oriented state of the art sciences.

The world's largest professional association for technological advancement: IEEE

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, better known by its initials, IEEE, is an association dedicated to promoting technological advancement and innovation, which originated in the field of electrical engineering. Currently, its role is broader, encompassing the areas of knowledge related to electrical engineering, electronics and telecommunications, and still expanding to several other related areas such as information technology and signal processing.

The IEEE was formed in 1963 by the merger of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE, founded in 1912) with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE, founded 1884) and carries on the tradition of the institutions from which they originate. Among the notable leaders of such institutions are names like Elihu Thomson, co-founder of General Electric (AIEE, 1889-1890), Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone (AIEE, 1891-1892), Frederick E. Terman, one of the "fathers" of the "Silicon Valley" (IRE, 1941), William R . Hewlett, founder of HP (IRE, 1954). The status of the IEEE defines the nature of the organization as "scientific and educational directed towards the development of theory and practice of electrical engineering, electronics, communications and computer engineering and computer science and related sciences and arts".

The IEEE serves as a major publisher of scientific journals and conference organizer of the highest academic level. The institution is also a leader among institutions of standardization, having developed more than nine hundred technical standards and industry standards in place, and develop and participate in various educational activities, including the concept of engineering programs in institutes of higher education level.

Possibly because they originate in electrical engineering, a specialty which derived many other technical areas, the IEEE is the world's largest professional association for the advancement of technology and is not restricted to electrical engineers. To achieve this rank, the IEEE is made/sponsored by a large number of societies and more specialized technical committees (TC – Technical Committees). The pioneer of these societies is the Society of Signal Processing (Signal Processing Society – SPS). The SPS is probably the largest and most recognized association of scientists and professionals in the field of signal processing in the world since 1948.

What is signal processing?

Signal processing involves all the technology related to the generation, processing and interpretation of information. The SPS produces the highest quality publications and conferences, technical and educational activities in order to keep its members informed about everything that happens in state of the art signal processing and serve as a means of disseminating the scientific and technical development for the general public.

For forensic professionals, especially those dealing with images and audio evidence, the importance of actions sponsored by SPS is enormous. In forensics, different techniques, methods and tools in signal processing can be used in order to clarify certain evidence, explaining its nature, origin and how the evidence interacts reality that surrounds it. Thus, through evidences forensic experts can get the information needed, and this, after treated, processed and interpreted, may allow the determination of materiality and authorship of a crime.

How SPS interacts with forensic science?

One of the SPS technical committees (TC) of most interest to forensics is the Information Forensics and Security Technical Committee – IFS-TC. This committee's mission is to promote activities in technical areas related to information under the forensics and security point of view.

The importance of the approximation of forensics with the academic-scientific community is a ever growing necessity, especially taking into account the popularity of technology, which, despite its positive side, provides access to sophisticated criminals. One reflection of this importance is the necessary increased level of technical knowledge for forensic experts in recent years. Only Brazilian Police Forensics Department has about seventy doctors and more than two hundred teachers in various areas of knowledge, and this quantity grows every year. This profile enables the Brazilian experts to establish a good communication interface and partnership with the scientific community.

IEEE Intl. Workshop on Information Forensics and Security (WIFS'11)

One of the WIFS'11 coordinators is Anderson Rocha, who has a master's, doctoral and post-doctorate degree at Unicamp, where he works as a teacher and researcher in the Institute of Computing, since 2009. Rocha conducts research in the areas of computer vision, machine learning and computer digital forensics. Part of his research has focused on digital evidence that police and courts use to indict suspects and convict or acquit defendants. One of his research is in the field of forensic analysis of digital documents, a subfield of computer digital forensics¹.

Professor Rocha is the main coordinator of the research project "Computer forensics and forensic documents: collection, organization, classification and analysis of evidence" supported by the Foundation for Research Support of São Paulo (FAPESP). Recently, Professor Rocha was awarded the Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow Award. The academic recognition award is for young teachers and researchers who have provided advance research in new directions in computing and whose work shows potential for high impact on the state of the art technology. He is the first Latin American university graduate researcher and teacher awarded with such prize.

The WIFS'11 financial coordination will be made by Professor Dr. Ricardo de Queiroz of University of Brasilia (UNB). Professor Ricardo is one of Brazil's most significant names in the community of signal processing, and is recognized internationally for his work.

Noteworthy also is the participation of brazilian forensic experts in the event organization, particularly the PCF André Luiz da Costa Morisson and PCF Paulo Max Gil Innocêncio Reis, both from Brazilian Federal Police Audiovisual and Electronic Equipment Department (SEPAEL).

 
Already confirmed lectures and tutorials in WIFS'11 include:

Bill Horn (director of the Laboratory of Information Security and Cloud Computing HP, USA)
Debdeep Mukhopadhyay and dr. Rajat Subhra Chakraborty (IIT Kharagpur)
Nasir Memon (NYU Poly)
Patrick J. Flynn (University of Notre Dame, USA);
Ton Kalk (vice president of FutureWei Technologies, USA)
Eugene Liscio (AI2-3D, Canada)

Essa oportunidade de peritos oficiais apresentarem casos reais e questões em aberto, na interação entre a ICMedia Open Issues e o WIFS´11, não é restritiva à perícia federal, por isso espera-se que peritos estaduais e distritais também participem, bastando contactar os PCFs Paulo MaxThis opportunity for forensic experts to present real cases and open issues, interacting with ICMedia Open Issues and WIFS'11, is not restricted to Brazilian Federal Police Forensic Experts, so it is expected that state and district forensic experts also participate by simply contacting PCFs PauloMax ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), Morisson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Lambert ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

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¹ The digital computer forensics covers "the set of scientific techniques for the preservation, collection, validation, identification, analysis, interpretation,documentation and presentation of evidence derived from digital media in order to facilitate and/or allow the reconstruction of events"
(DELP, E., Signal Proc. Magazine, 2009).