Computational intelligence in E-mail traffic analysis

Abstract

E-mail is an Internet application that has become a popular form of electronic communications, allowing people to quickly send messages to others and to distribute messages to large groups of people. However, there are certain individuals in society who use e-mail as a means for aiding with the conduct of illegal or criminal activities. Law enforcement agencies require ways of analysing a suspected individual’s e-mail data, in order to extract and obtain important evidence linking the suspect with the occurrence of a crime. The work in this thesis considers the problem of examining the e-mail data of a known suspected individual by analysing the traffic component of their communications, but not the content of their messages. This thesis proposes an approach, termed “computational intelligence”, which utilises a combination of computational techniques to provide different perspectives on a suspected individual’s communication behaviour. This thesis describes how computational intelligence can be used to investigate the overall changes in an individual’s email traffic behaviour patterns and also provide useful information that aids in understanding those changes in behaviour.