How can a 3.5" floppy diskette be traced back to a person or computer?

Question

I hear this was used to catch a serial killer awhile back. I was wondering how they did that...

Answer 1

Fingerprints, handwriting, or the contents of the disk. In this case, it was what was on the disk, in terms of files.

A quote from a news article.

"Dennis L. Rader, the "BTK" serial killer, who pleaded guilty last year to 10 murders in Kansas, was arrested after he sent a floppy disk to the police.

Using Guidance Software's EnCase Forensic program, the police retrieved deleted files that contained Rader's name as the author. Other digital data indicated that the computer on which the disk was used was owned by Rader's church, where he was president of the council."

When you type up a MS Word document, Word likes to record the author's name in the file header. That appears to be what happened here. In any case, many people don't realize that deleted files can be undeleted. If the disk had been a blank disk or had just a text document on it, it would have been different. But this disk had deleted files on it that tripped him up.

Hope this answers your question.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060602/BIZ04/606020355/1013