Inproceedings
Retracing the Flow of the Stream: Investigating Kodi Streaming Services
Contribution Summary
This research contributes to the field of digital forensics by introducing a framework for conducting IPTV investigations based on Kodi. The authors present a comprehensive analysis of the Kodi ecosystem, detailing the locations of evidence for investigation of digital piracy or streaming of illegal content. The paper evaluates the approach on different platforms, including Windows, Android, and Linux, demonstrating the recovery of file artifacts, databases, and viewed content history. The results show the potential of this method as a resource for forensic investigators to examine Kodi or similar streaming platforms.
Keywords: Kodi; IPTV Forensics; Digital Forensics; Streaming Services; Log File Analysis; Forensic Investigation; Cybercrime; Child Sexual Abuse Material
Abstract
Kodi is of one of the world's largest open-source streaming platforms for viewing video content. Easily installed Kodi add-ons facilitate access to online pirated videos and streaming content by facilitating the user to search and view copyrighted videos with a basic level of technical knowledge. In some countries, there have been paid child sexual abuse organizations publishing/streaming child abuse material to an international paying clientele. Open source software used for viewing videos from the Internet, such as Kodi, is being exploited by criminals to conduct their activities. In this paper, we describe a new method to quickly locate Kodi artifacts and gather information for a successful prosecution. We also evaluate our approach on different platforms; Windows, Android and Linux. Our experiments show the file location, artifacts and a history of viewed content including their locations from the Internet. Our approach will serve as a resource to forensic investigators to examine Kodi or similar streaming platforms.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{bromley2020KodiForensics,
author={Bromley, Samuel Todd and Sheppard, John and Scanlon, Mark and Le-Khac, Nhien-An},
title="{Retracing the Flow of the Stream: Investigating Kodi Streaming Services}",
booktitle="{The 11th EAI International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime}",
series = {ICDF2C '20},
year=2020,
month=09,
location={Boston, USA},
publisher={Springer},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
abstract={Kodi is of one of the world's largest open-source streaming platforms for viewing video content. Easily installed Kodi add-ons facilitate access to online pirated videos and streaming content by facilitating the user to search and view copyrighted videos with a basic level of technical knowledge. In some countries, there have been paid child sexual abuse organizations publishing/streaming child abuse material to an international paying clientele. Open source software used for viewing videos from the Internet, such as Kodi, is being exploited by criminals to conduct their activities. In this paper, we describe a new method to quickly locate Kodi artifacts and gather information for a successful prosecution. We also evaluate our approach on different platforms; Windows, Android and Linux. Our experiments show the file location, artifacts and a history of viewed content including their locations from the Internet. Our approach will serve as a resource to forensic investigators to examine Kodi or similar streaming platforms.},
doi={10.1007/978-3-030-68734-2_13},
}