Evidence tendered in legal hearings must meet the expectations of the court. The validity of digital evidence must be tested to determine its admissibility in legal cases in the same way as other established forms of evidence are verified.
As outlined in Chapter 3, The Nature and Special Properties of Digital Evidence, for evidence to be admissible in a hearing, it must meet three conditions: that it was obtained lawfully, is relevant to the case, and has not been contaminated.
It must generally be demonstrated that it has not been altered or damaged in any way prior to, during, or after its acquisition and that adequate or sufficient evidence was collected to support a case. If it passes these conditions, it may be argued that the evidence has been validated or at least tested and the likelihood of its validity has been determined. If it is valid, then it may be tendered and judged on its evidentiary merit.
There really is no universally well...