Defense investigation
The changing role of private and defense investigators within a modern criminal-justice system shaped by digital records and specialized evidence.
Salem · OregonAcademic research relating to digital forensics and investigative methodology
NTRLNK / 06
Methods forevidence in motion
The NTRLNK Research Library presents academic papers and scholarly analysis by Dr. Odd on digital evidence, forensic examination, investigative reasoning, and emerging systems whose actions must remain reconstructable.
Scholarly work for evidence that is becoming more technical, distributed, and autonomous.
The NTRLNK Research Library brings together work for researchers, investigators, students, attorneys, technologists, and other professionals confronting questions of digital evidence, forensic examination, investigative reasoning, and sound investigative method.
The papers examine both established practice and emerging problems. The collection considers how evidence should be preserved, attributed, contextualized, and tested when software tools, confidential computing, or autonomous systems complicate the traditional investigative record.
Every paper is available as a complete PDF document. Publication pages keep the author, project DOI, ORCID, title, subtitle, and document access together so the library reads as a coherent body of work rather than a list of files.
02 / Complete collection
Five papers. One evolving investigative problem space.
Select a paper to open its publication page and complete PDF document.
Paper 01 / Complete PDF
The New Architecture of Defense Investigation
The Changing Role of Private and Defense Investigators in the Modern Criminal Justice System
- Author
- James Allister Odd, Ph.D.
- DOI
- 10.17605/OSF.IO/EJGH9
Paper 02 / Complete PDF
Beyond Logs
Authority-Aware Forensic Provenance for Tool-Using AI Agents
- Author
- James Allister Odd, Ph.D.
- DOI
- 10.17605/OSF.IO/EJGH9
Paper 03 / Complete PDF
Against the First Story
A Falsification-First Investigative Methodology for AI-Augmented Digital Forensics
- Author
- James Allister Odd, Ph.D.
- DOI
- 10.17605/OSF.IO/EJGH9
Paper 04 / Complete PDF
Inside the Black Box
Attestation-Bound Forensic Readiness for Confidential Virtual Machines
- Author
- James Allister Odd, Ph.D.
- DOI
- 10.17605/OSF.IO/EJGH9
Paper 05 / Complete PDF
When Software Acts
Counterfactual Reconstruction for Investigating Autonomous AI Agents
- Author
- James Allister Odd, Ph.D.
- DOI
- 10.17605/OSF.IO/EJGH9
03 / Research terrain
Recurring questions across law, systems, and evidence.
Forensic provenance
How tool-using AI agents can preserve authority-aware records of what acted, under whose authority, and through which evidentiary steps.
Falsification-first method
An investigative methodology that actively tests the first account and competing explanations in AI-augmented digital forensics.
Confidential computing
Forensic readiness for confidential virtual machines where protected execution complicates independent verification and later reconstruction.
Autonomous software
Counterfactual reconstruction for determining how autonomous AI agents acted and whether a different condition would have produced a different result.
04 / Author and identifiers
James Allister Odd, Ph.D.
- Project DOI
- 10.17605/OSF.IO/EJGH9
- ORCID
- 0009-0008-2976-6313