Still Here

Contrary to popular demand opinion neither Simon or I are dead.  We tried recording something last week but Skype was being EXTREMELY unreliable.  We’ve since joined up with voxalot and set up SIP accounts so the process should be a lot smoother now.

I’m glad to tell you that we’ll be doing a new episode tomorrow evening, that should be available to everyone by Wednesday morning.

Sick

Simon was allowed a week off, now I have to concede and say sorry to everyone.  Last week our kids were sick and, inevitably it was passed on to myself. Oh joy!

I spent a night camped out in the bathroom, scared to move more than a few feet away, if at all.

But don’t be worried, Simon and I will actually be recording a new episode in just a few days time, this time we’ll both be at the same desk, at the same computer so the sound quality should be the best yet (pity about the content).

Oh, by the way.  I’m thinking about running a small advert on the site.  This would mainly be for purchasing items for competitions and the like.  Give me your feedback about it.

New episode by Monday (I hope)

So, Simon’s mouth has a big hole in it, but he feels well enough to do a podcast so we’ll hopefully do one on Sunday for release on Monday morning.  It should be an interesting one…

I want to talk about virtual vigilanteeism, among other things.

I also owe a couple of apologies.

Don’t miss it.

No new episode today, sorry

I’m sorry to say that we are not able to do an episode of Forensic 4cast tonight. Simon visited the dentist today and has been feeling a little worse for wear.
Once Simon has recovered enough we’ll record another episode.
Thanks for your patience.

Correction

Thanks to Jamie from Forensic Focus who pointed out my mistake in episode 3.  I wrongfully stated that Brian Carrier did PTK and Jamie has corrected me in saying that Dario Forte (founder of DFLabs) is the main man behind it instead.

Sorry for the mistake, I do get confused from time to time and will likely need correcting in the future.

A link to Forensic Focus can be found in the column to the left.

New episode later today!

Simon and Lee recorded a new episode of forensic 4cast last night, it will be available for download sometime later today!!!

We’d love to hear from anyone who cares to say anything about digital forensics.  If you have comments or questions you can either add comments to our posts or email 4cast@whitfields.org

We have set up a LinkedIn group.  Look for it in the next couple of days, once its been approved.

You can also follow us on Twitter.

Things Not to Do to a Hard Drive Part 1

Episode 3.1 of the podcast is still available on this site and via iTunes.

This is no doubt the first of many experiments in the name of Forensic 4Cast. It really depends on what other strange stuff I may feel like doing in the future.

This first experiment involves an already broken hard drive, an inkjet refill syringe, and a carbonated drink. I think you know where I’m going with this!

First of all I took an old Western Digital hard drive of a standard PATA connection. This hard drive had an issue regarding dodgy jumper pins, meaning when connected to a computer it would not recognise any PATA devices at all.n Rather than fix it, I thought I’d play around a little bit.

I remember reading somewhere that an interesting way of rendering a hard drive unusable was to inject a soft drink into the air hole, sticking together the mechanisms, and allowing the carbonation of the drink to wear away at the platters. I thought I’d give it a try.

Having prepared my drink and syringe, and taken “before” pictures, I injected a carbonated pineapple and grapefruit drink (hoping citric acid would have an affect too) into the air hole.

I next left the hard drive to marinade in this drink overnight, and checked it the next day.

I expected to find some kind of damage, and maybe a slight sheen taken off the platters of the hard drive. To my disappointment, other than being much wetter than the day before, nothing else had changed. I don’t know what I was expecting really, but I hoped for something interesting.

Nonetheless, I took my “after” pictures, and I am left wondering what effect the drink actually had on the data held on the hard drive. I would still fancy my chances of recovering something from the disk if the correct machinery was available. As it isn’t the hard drive is sat soggy and unworking in my kitchen.

Anyone want a slightly damp, rattling paperweight?

Following shortly is a video of the experiment.

And… We’re back!

All I can do is offer my apologies once again.  I’ve had to send my Mac off for repairs, then my audio equipment went all weird.  We actually recorded an episode only to play it back and find that there was so much noise that it wasn’t worth adding to the feed.

Anyway, we’re planning on recording again before the weekend is out and this time it’ll work flawlessly (keep your fingers crossed).  We’ve got loads of ideas for future episodes and will start to add stuff to the podcast other than just a review of the latest forensic news.  Please stay tuned.

Difficulties in Production

OK, so this week I’m sitting in a classroom in Slough on EnCase – Advanced.  Simon and I recorded the podcast on Sunday night but, upon listening back to it, there are a few recording discrepancies that need fixing / cutting.  I will endeavor to fix these items and get the podcast up as soon as possible.  All I can do is apologise and ask your humble forgiveness.  We are a relatively new podcast so we expect teething issues, but things should smooth out as time goes on.

Feedback (Please)

So, like we said in episode 2, we are on holiday this next week but will resume full service upon our return.

We would like to know if you would enjoy something more in depth than just forensics-related news. We have a few items that we would like to discuss or even publish as videos. Please let us know what you think. I’ll likely do a short test video to go up at the weekend about Facebook. If you feel as if you would like to see more videos like that one please let us know.

Thanks for everyone’s feedback so far, we aim to reply to everyone but that may take some time.

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