Fourth Amendment Search and the Power of the Hash

CONCLUSION

The hash algorithm has afforded digital media forensic analysis a highly reliable and efficient means to ensure that the integrity of the digital evidence collected remains uncompromised. It also provides a means to discard from the examination the irrelevant, and focus in on the important, while exposing little, if any, ancillary information. The interests of law enforcement are served, as are the legitimate privacy interests of the subject. The use of hashing thus does a laudable job at advancing the purposes of the Fourth Amendment. As collections of known hash values grow and are incorporated into widely used foren-sics tools, however, the potential for hashing to intrude into private ar-eas also grow