Patent ID: 6345283
Filing Date: 2002-02-05
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A computer-implemented method of locating meaningful sentences in a large amount of computer ambient data containing a mixture of textual data and binary data to reduce the time required for an investigator to locate investigatory leads in the ambient data, the method comprising:providing an ambient data file including data from unallocated storage space, file slack space of one or more computer files, a windows swap, or a temporary system file; reading a portion of the ambient data file into random access memory; searching the portion of the ambient data file to determine whether the portion of ambient data includes any of several pre-specified punctuation marks; if any of the pre-specified punctuation marks are located in the portion of the ambient data file, comparing the portion of ambient data file with a pre-compiled list of words to determine whether any word from the pre-compiled list of words is present in the portion of the ambient data file within a predetermined proximity of the located punctuation mark; and if any word from the pre-compiled list of words is present within the pre-determined proximity, copying a sub-portion of the portion of the ambient data file, the sub-portion including the punctuation mark and the word, to a second data file, thereby producing a second data file likely to corresponding to grammatical sentences.