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South Africa: Digital Data Challenged in Motata Trial
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
17 July 2008
Posted to the web 17 July 2008
Ernest Mabuza
Johannesburg
TWO witnesses testifying on behalf of Pretoria High Court Judge Nkola Motata said yesterday it was easy to manipulate the contents of digital data, and it would be difficult to tell if the data had been tampered with.
Motata is accused of insulting a witness after driving into a boundary wall while under the influence of alcohol. That conversation was allegedly recorded on cellphone video, but the admissibility of such evidence is being questioned .
A software developer said in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court yesterday that it was easy to change the details of a data file without tampering with its content, and it was also easy to tamper with the file's content and retain the original dates of when the file was created.
A professor who drafted some sections of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act of 2002 said the evidence before the court could be described as third-generation.
The court was hearing evidence in the trial within a trial to determine the admissibility of recordings made by Richard Baird on the night in January last year that Motata allegedly crashed into his garden wall.
When Baird spoke to Motata after the accident, he recorded the conversation using his i-mate phone. He also saved the conversations on his phone's memory and also the Secure Digital (SD) card in the phone. He later saved the contents from his phone to his laptop computer. He presented the prosecution and defence with a disk that was copied from his laptop.
The phone that captured the conversations was broken and the SD card was lost. The defence says evidence presented by Baird was not original and could have been tampered with.
Baird said he did not have the skill or software to manipulate the data messages.
Mobile software specialist Willem de Jongh said it would be easy to manipulate the contents of video data seamlessly.
"It is similar to opening and editing an Excel spreadsheet. The difference here is that we are working with video content. You can manipulate time and date," De Jongh said.
No specialist skill was needed to manipulate the file. "If you can change the date and time on the computer, and if you know how to edit an Excel file, you can do it," he said.
Without original data, it was impossible to determine from the disk given to the defence if there had been tampering.
Daniel van der Merwe, professor of criminal law and procedure at Unisa, said it was hard to ascertain changes to digital data after it was stored. Changes could be made seamlessly without any being apparent.
"I would like to emphasise the ease with which changes can be made to digital data. One does not require special training," Van der Merwe said.
In the absence of the original data, it would have been possible to ascertain the originality of the copy if a software programme was used to count the bits and bytes in the data message. This did not happen in Baird's recordings. Van der Merwe said digital data was easier to manipulate than analogue data.
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Motata is facing five charges, including driving under the influence of liquor and defeating the ends of justice. Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe gave Motata leave of absence soon after the accident.
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