1. These assignments need to be properly supported with references to the scientific literature.

2. Use a 12pt font for the body of your assignment.

3. The assignment many be up to four (4) pages long, including any appendages (or cover pages, etc.).

The assignment

According to Wikipedia,

Forensic toxicology is the use of toxicology and other disciplines such as analytical chemistry, pharmacology and clinical chemistry to aid medical or legal investigation of death, poisoning, and drug use.

Obviously, the digital domain is very different from the domains of biology, chemistry and medicine, but one may argue that malware is possibly similar to toxins in the sense that they cause behavioral changes in (and sometimes death of) a digital system. The question that arises is whether this analogy is superficial without any merit apart from possibly being a quaint observation, or whether the analogy contains some profound lessons learnt over centuries that may help the digital forensic scientist to help answer the question "Was this system ‘poisoned'?" Is there anything akin to ‘running a tox screen' for a digital system?

Obviously the usual methods used in toxicology (such as gas chromatography) will be useless in the digital world and will require the analogy to be developed much further than done in the previous paragraph.

The challenge of this assignment is to see how far the analogy can indeed be developed (within the length constraints). This requires one to - to the extent possible - determine whether the idea shows promise that could be developed further. Alternatively, one may start by reflecting on the obstacles that may render the idea to be too far-fetched to be of practical significance. Either way you will hopefully be able to present a well-argued case for whatever outcome you foresee.