A Survey of Computer Methods in Forensic Document Examination

Abstract

Forensic document examination is at a cross-roads due to challenges posed to its scientific basis as well as due to the availability of revolutionary computer methods. This paper surveys efforts to establish the scientific basis of forensic document examination -- some of which are based on computational theories -- as well as software tools to assist document examiners. They include: computer systems to provide the degree of match of questioned and known documents, systems that narrow down the search from a repository of documents with known writers and tools that compute features and provide visualization to assist the document examiner.