Galaxy Gear: Beginning Thoughts and Introduction

     My name is Jared Donohue. I am currently enrolled in my final semester at Champlain College in the Computer and Digital Forensics program. At Champlain, students work on a "Capstone" project in their senior year. For Digital Forensics students the task is to do research and forensically analyze a new device, product, or application that may be utilized in the search for digital data.

     This semester I will be analyzing Samsung's Galaxy Gear, otherwise known as the Samsung smart watch. The watch is paired with a Samsung Phone or tablet via Bluetooth and works as a notification accessory to the phone. The watch can make phone calls, send texts when using S-Voice which is a voice command software utilized by Samsung devices, and even take pictures. The watch has many more features and more applications are being produced for it as demand grows. Since digital evidence can be an important part of an investigation, any new technology that may have this data needs to be understood by professionals in the field. However, not much research has been done on this device so many questions have yet to be answered:

• What can be recovered from the watch itself?
• Are text messages stored on the watch or pushed from the phone?
• What can be found on the watch if the phone disassociates itself from the watch?
• Is there an easy way to extract data from the watch without a direct USB connection?
• What happens to data when the watch is reset?
• Is there any way to push pictures from the phone to the watch?

These are just a few questions that I will look into throughout the semester. As I start to conduct my forensic analysis of the watch, many new questions may come about and findings will be posted here as the semester progresses.