The Dutch Forensic Institute is working on an improved hosting environment for his opsporingstool Xiraf. Xiraf is used for the detection of child pornography. The tool is so much used that the new hosting is needed.
The tool for detection of child pornography by the many use slower. There is not only more data per case was put forward, also the number of cases that a place should get in the database has increased substantially. Therefore, there is an agreement with NCIM to improve the hosting. In addition, the it-company is a part of the helpdesktaken run, and also look at how the system in other countries can be used. The procedure is necessary, because the infrastructure behind the Xiraf the last few years more complex.
The servers are outside the walls, but not at a commercial party. Of State, may from for security reasons, do not go into detail on how the infrastructure is arranged, but emphasized that safety is of paramount importance. “We have a lot of firewalls built-in, and authentication happens for example with a 2-factor”, says Erwin van Eijk, an expert in Digital Technology at the NFI, compared to Tweakers.net
There is also a hosted version of Xiraf for other law enforcement agencies. Agents appear to be, despite the complex possibilities of the system to be able to fairly easily find their way. “The concept of Google is clear. Of course, there is more in the tool than just a search field, but it is fairly easy to use.” The hosted cloud versions of Xiraf different from the version that the NFI used for his own business, already running on Xiraf.
Although the database of Xiraf is getting bigger, want Of State, but no concrete figures. “Moore’s Law seems to us flawlessly. Every 18 months we see a doubling of the how to analyze data. Each case that is examined contains more than seven million tracks, which are all in the database should be stored. We have noticed that this has an influence on the performance of the system.”
There are already measures taken in order for the system to accelerate. “We have considered at strategic locations ssds to deploy,” says Van Eijk. “The performancevoordeel was not large enough relative to the cost to the now to apply. More memory proved profijtelijker.”
However, it is now the storage format is adjusted. “In one of the first versions of the tool we made use of xml as a storage format. That turned out to be, as the system grew, however, for performance issues. In the meantime, we have our own storage format designed to solve that problem.”
Xiraf is by the engineers of the NFI developed in an attempt to save time in digital investigations. Xiraf is now not only by the NFI, but is also available for police forces. The past time showed that more and more departments use the tool, which also allows more data to the NFI is provided to analyze and store. Although there is redundancy, says Van Eijk at that point, things can be improved.