In an agreement, Microsoft Corp. and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) made available the Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE), a Microsoft-developed program. COFEE uses digital forensic technologies to help investigators gather evidence of live computer activity at the scene of a crime, regardless of their technical expertise. This agreement will make COFEE available to law enforcement agencies at no charge so they can better combat the growing and increasingly complex ways that criminals use the Internet to commit crimes. With COFEE, a front-line officer doesn't have to be a computer expert to capture this volatile information before turning off the computer on the scene for later analysis. An officer with minimal computer experience can be tutored to use a pre-configured COFEE device in less than 10 minutes. This enables him or her to take advantage of common digital forensics tools the experts use to gather important volatile evidence while doing little more than simply inserting a USB device into the computer.
