Student Today / Babar Iqbal

Babar Iqbal, a 14 year old whiz kid from Dera Ismail Khan, has set a world record by publishing his first research paper on digital forensic science. The field of Digital Forensic Science covers the recovery and investigation of data in digital devices and is often used to aid computer crime investigations.

Babar’s research pertains to Apple iDevices (iPad, iPhone, iPod) and has been accepted by the 8th IEEE International Conference on Innovations in Information Technology. He has been invited to present his research at the conference as well.

What sets his method apart is that it doesn’t require jailbreaking and can image an Device in less than 30 minutes.

Jailbreaking is gaining illegal root access to iOS, Apple’s operating system, through use of custom kernels. Devices which run iOS include the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. On a jailbroken device, one could download application, themes and other stuff that is unavailable through the official Apple store.

This new method can aid law enforcement agencies in retrieving digital forensic evidence present on the phone including contacts, texts, all multimedia items as well as GPS info and Cellphone tower logs which can triangulate location of device at certain point in time.