Do Cd/DVD Burners Have Digital Signatures?

[taaresu]

Hi' I am new here but I have a friend in the middle of a court case concerning some cd's that were burnt with some rather unsavory material which I know for a fact that it was not burned from his computer. Now I had heard from somewhere that there may be a way to find out if dvd's an cd's can be tracked to the burner they originated from I wanted to know if that is actually possible if so it would be a great help to my friend and his case. So please if anyone has any kind of further information as to whether this is true or not please reply I will be tracking this thread and thank you in advance.

 

[Matthias99]

This is not really HT -- but I don't believe there is any kind of 'serial number' or the like burned into CD/DVD-R/RW discs (at least not as part of the official specifications).

 

[Peter]

When you burn DVD-R ("minus") discs, then yes, there is a hardware signature area on the disk, in a specially reserved "RMA" area.
What actually ends up in there depends on the burner you use.

 

[JonB]

If the "technical experts" used by the prosecution or defense team are any good, they can tell what software was used to make the disk and perhaps what brand of burner was used, what speed it was burned at, etc... Also, they should consider the brand of disc used, the date it was burned, etc... A lot of that information can be used to raise "reasonable doubt" that it was created by your friend. All the defense lawyer would need to raise is those questions - it then puts the burden of proving otherwise on the prosecution. If the discs were made using a TEAC burner on RITEK discs and your friend had neither, then a jury could be swayed. If they were made on a day when your friend was not even in town, that could be useful info.

ps, if the defense lawyer knows NOTHING about this technical subject (CD/DVD burning), he would be better off not bringing it up in court. It could easily backfire.