A computer program helping in the decision making could be an asset as long as there are criteria that can be weighted. To give an example. The question about the next summer vacation could be broken down in criteria like temperature, beach access, distance or costs and information on how to value the parameters. For temperature it could be the higher the better, beach access should be yes, distance should be as low as possible and costs as well.

The locations would then be added as options and values assigned to every criteria. Option 1 could be Sweden with a mean temperature of 25 degrees Celsius, beach access, 1800 kilometers distance and a total cost of 1200 Dollar per person. Option 2 could be Madagascar with a mean temperature of 35 degrees, 2600 kilometers distance and a total cost of $1500 Dollar per person.

The computer would then compute the results and present them to the user. Decision Oven is that program. It can do everything that has been mentioned in the article.

The application will display a total score and rank the options accordingly. It is of course up to you to convince your girlfriend to postpone the marriage because the computer said so.

It’s a standalone tool which means it can be run from external devices connected to the computer which is definitely a prerequisite for all forensic tools. It analyses the user level at startup and displays information like the local IP and hostname. A click on Start Collecting processes 14 sequences, some with subsequences, that collect data and write that data into logfiles in the Evidence Collector directory.

The software did write 25 different log files into the log directory including a list of opened files, installed applications and processes. Evidence Collector concentrates on hardware and software only while law enforcement agencies would definitely scan the computer for files as well, probably using a software like Locate to find information in filenames and contents.

A detailed list of what is analysed:

• Shares and policies applied on shares
• Started and stopped services
• Installed software
• Installed Hotfixes
• Enumerated Processes
• Events logs
• TCP / UDP mapping endpoints
• Process handles tracking
• List start-up programs
• Suspected modules
• Users policies
• USB history

Evidence Collector is a free software currently in beta. There is no information on the homepage about compatibility, it runs fine on my Windows XP Service Pack 3 system.