Quincy writes "The DHS and Secret Service are setting up a new computer forensic institute in Alabama. Set to open in mid-2008, the new National Computer Forensic Institute will be able to train over 900 law enforcement officers per year. 'It will initially be staffed by 18 Secret Service agents and will feature classrooms, a forensic laboratory, an evidence vault, and server rooms. Courses will be offered in the investigation of electronic crimes, network intrusion investigation, and computer forensics... [T]he Secret Service says that it will help to bring judges and prosecutors up to speed as well.'" Maybe over time we'll see fewer botches of justice like those in the news recently.
A friend of mine got a job with the FBI as a network technician. He carries a badge and gun with his networking gear. I guess the gun is needed for those rare occasions when troubleshooting gets out of hand.
Keep hoping. The fact is, most people who sign up to be cops, don't want to do the kind of learning that is require (not disparageing and this comes with all the caveats of any generalization). Its just not their bag...
"Oh officer, you're going to arrest me? Please, just take a look in this box first..."
Officer, sweating, gulping, "Is that what I think it is?"
"That's right, and if this crate of mint condition, first edition gold-embossed Call of Cthulu sets were to disappear, I'm sure no one would mind too much, as these things tend to happen..."
Do you HAVE to be a law officer, or can anyone sign up?
I strongly suspect that you'll have to be a civil servant to go and train, but probably not an official law enforcement officer (LEO).
The federal government currently does this kind of training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) [fletc.gov] in Glynco, Georgia. I was a federal employee working for an Office of Inspector General [wikipedia.org], and I went to FLETC for 2 weeks of digital forensics training [fletc.gov] in a classroom. I was NOT a sworn LEO (i.e. couldn't take oaths, arrest people, or serve subpoenas), just an
Figuring out what happened in a computer system months after the fact is not easy. Most programmers have more than enough trouble figuring out what exactly happened in their own programs thirty seconds ago.
Still -- not to say it's a bad idea. You have to start somewhere...
The Secret Service has tried to produce aids like their "Best practices for seizing electronic evidence", and the National Institute of Justice has published its guide to "Digital Evidence in the Courtroom", but the need for more advanced training has been obvious in numerous recent cases
This will consist mostly of practicing the correct SOP for the using the forklift to cart out every single piece of computer equipment on the site. I sincerely doubt that they'll be teaching any discretionary tactics or give up their current practice of confiscating everything in sight.
Here's a question I've been wondering: What happens to your computer in each of the following cases?
1) Siezed as evidence, found innocent of charges
2) Siezed as evidence, found guilty of charges
3) Siezed as evidence, found innocent of sex-related charges
4) Siezed as evidence, found guilty of sex-related charges
I mean, it's not a box of pot. They can't easily take the pot out and return the box to you. Are they mandated to format the hard drive first? What about my diablo 2 single-player char!?!?
I mean, it's not a box of pot. They can't easily take the pot out and return the box to you.
You wouldn't get the box back anyway if they found illegal marijuana in it. The box would be evidence. You'd be unable to claim it after conviction because you'd be sitting in prison, and it would become unclaimed property and if it was nice it would go home with some cop.
Your computer, you will probably get back, because they've been getting more and more heat if they do something bad to your PC... as long as you
It sounds like they'll be teaching what to do with a hard disk image, which goes beyond just "use EnCase".
Besides, you have to seize everything unless you've got some guarantee that there's no evidence concealed on a nerdstick, an iPod, or any of a kajillion things that store more data than a high end hard disk did fifteen years ago.
FTFS: " Set to open in mid-2008, the new National Computer Forensic Institute will be able to train over 900 law enforcement officers per year. 'It will initially be staffed by 18 Secret Service agents and will feature classrooms, a forensic laboratory, an evidence vault, and server rooms. " Holy fsck! A full year from now? In a year computers will have changed enough to cause this to falter badly from the start! It will take only one worm of the right design, one change to hard drive technology, one of any
Not to worry - this is brought to you by the Department of Homeland Security, whose charter is "spend all our budget on grants, ask for more next year", and whose primary product is press releases. Nothing to see here, move along.
Theoretically the intervening time between then and now will be taken up designing a robust, in-depth curriculum and accompanying infrastructure that allows for the sort of flexibility needed to fight a "war" on the IT front....but why the Secret Service? This may just show my woefully inadequate knowledge of the US Government, but don't we have already have several Judicial branches designated to fight local, intra-state, and extra-country crime? I was under the impression that the primary duties of the
but why the Secret Service? This may just show my woefully inadequate knowledge of the US Government... I was under the impression that the primary duties of the Secret Service was the protection of high-ranking US officials and the prevention of counterfeiting US currency.
I think you answered your own question.
The Secret Service is one of the oldest (1865) and (by no coincidence) most technically sophisticated of federal law enforcement agencies.
You're exactly right about the Secret Service. Keep going with that list. What is "currency" these days? Almost all the dollars in the world are computer records. Their anti-counterfeiting mission put them in the lead to deal with computer crime. Computer forensics has not changed beyond recognition in the last year, probably won't in the next year, and in any event a lot of investigations will on Windows 98 machines and others that are more than a year old. There will have to be continuing education classes
COputer will not change that much in a year. How much ahve they changed in the last year? in the last 3? not much, and a faster processor doesn't matter here.
Of course, that's not the real issue, the real issue is determining how people use their computers.
Police investigators need much more than the theory, they need indepth coverage of the practices. Prosecutors and judges need more of the theory, the pros and cons, etc. A prosecutor doesn't need to know how to hunt down a trojan horse, but should be able to look at a police report and for the most part completely grok the methods the police used as a knowledgeable reader. Same with the judge.
But since the prosecutorial state is interested in prosecuting and sentencing as many people as possible for as long as possible, they have no incentive to actually DEFEND people... I guarantee the tone of these classes is "how to get more convictions".... where it should be "how to better determine the truth".
"How can we make an airtight case against the 15 year old who made a porno of his girlfriend?"
I just googled this "webe web" case. I find it hilarious that the whole controversy is framed by a bill introduced by Mark Foley.
He's somehow special because he *chats* with the boys instead of looking at pictures of them. heh
In all seriousness, he was a creepy old man, but nothing i saw in his chats were anything even close to exploitative, or dangerous, except the fact that he was abusing his position as an elected official for personal gain (woooo big surprise).
Good point. As a practical matter, this training will probably (hopefully) be available to anyone interested, particularly lawyers on both sides. Maybe the statement about prosecuting attorneys and judges was made just to show the public that the program will have value to them.
(People being people, it is probably harder to stir up public support for programs designed to produce better criminal defense lawyers.)
Microsoft must be the biggest supporter of computer forensic investigators.
Even since DOS 1.0, Microsoft operating systems never really erase a file. Now, they use cache, temp files, and the recycling bin to make lots of copies too. And that's only on the unerased portion of the hard drive. Chances are there are more copies on the erased data sectors.
Most users who really want to erase a file from the file system have to erase about two or three copies (if they know where the copies are). Wiping a file only zaps the original, not the copies.
Those investigators have it too easy.
My wiping program is made by Craftsman Tools (claw or ball-peen configuration)
My wiping program is made by Craftsman Tools (claw or ball-peen configuration)
So violent! A powerful electromagnet should make any data recovered from the HDD suspect at best, and most likely non-existant. The electomagnet has the advantage of requiring only a single switch, and it can be flicked remotely.
Really erasing a file takes a long time. The computer doesn't really erase memory either when it's freed up it just marks the space as free, it doesn't zero it (does on allocation though). There's no good reason to have an erase by default option, and many good ones not to. Hell, Vista even takes it a step further and uses your free space for old versions backups. No surprise, there's people who make big money (NetApp) selling things like that as a feature. If you want a secure deletion, well then install a
"most people don't want to wipe their data out..."
Are you aware that paper shredders are very common in a business setting. For the same reason, business users, very much do want to wipe their data out. Forever - with no copies or hidden backups.
I can cite many cases (Google them yourself) of business data falling into the wrong hands because of the "undelete" or "unformat" commands that make "file > delete" in Windows a joke.
quoth the grunt "me have baaad feeling about this".
isnt it always these people who are supporting the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/etc in open memos to congress and various other bodies.
I'd rather we "bring judges up to speed" by sending them to their local state u for a crash BA in computer science, where they will get "enough" of the theory they need to make judgments that are not incompetent, but without the bias from an organization which by its nature attracts inflexible authoritarians.
if (this_player()->query("made a mistake")) { if (criminal(this_player())) this_player()->retribution(); if (oneofus(this_player())) this_player()->rehabilitation(); }
"There must be an on button somewhere? Did you press the apple thing?"
...
"Did you find the files?"
"I don't even know what they loo-- What do they look like?"
"They're in the computer."
"They're in the computer?"
"Yeah, they're definitely in there. I don't know how he labled them."
"I got it."
"You gotta figure it out. We're running out of time. You gotta find them and meet me at the show."
"Roger. In the computer. It's so simple."
...
"We got 30 years of files right here in this computer that are gonna bring you down!"
"Oh, no."
"Down! (He smashes the computer) Where did all the files go?"
This really annoys me. You hear about a few bad cops in the news and suddenly the majority of police officers know absolutely nothing about civil liberties, right to privacy or any other constitutional or legal rights.
My dad is a retired cop who now teaches academy classes on top of his new job. Granted we live in a somewhat rural county (2 cities of 25k, a few other smaller ones around), but he would actually get letters written to him praising his work and professionalism from people he gave a ticket
So something that happened 15 years ago makes you claim that all cops NOW are ignorant?
I said there are always a few bad cops, but to say the majority are clueless really irks me. We aren't living in the times of Andy Griffith, most cops have college degrees now. At least in my area, competition is high for any open positions on one of the forces.
Sure what happened to you sucks, but you branded an entire segment of society based on one event. You wouldn't be too happy if I insulted what your dad did
It comes down to social priorities. If someone wanks to something that disgusts other people, they better damn well watch out because politicians and prosecutors make a living prosecuting you. Most of you are average middle class sorts and don't stand a snowball's chance in hell.
However, if someone launders hundreds of millions of dollars into overseas bank accounts, everyone secretly thinks "damn, I wish I was him, he's really lucky" and prosecutors think "crap, he can afford a dozen high priced lawyers.
I wonder. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I wonder. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I wonder. (Score:4, Funny)
Officer, sweating, gulping, "Is that what I think it is?"
"That's right, and if this crate of mint condition, first edition gold-embossed Call of Cthulu sets were to disappear, I'm sure no one would mind too much, as these things tend to happen..."
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
Probably Feds Only (Score:2)
Do you HAVE to be a law officer, or can anyone sign up?
I strongly suspect that you'll have to be a civil servant to go and train, but probably not an official law enforcement officer (LEO).
The federal government currently does this kind of training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) [fletc.gov] in Glynco, Georgia. I was a federal employee working for an Office of Inspector General [wikipedia.org], and I went to FLETC for 2 weeks of digital forensics training [fletc.gov] in a classroom. I was NOT a sworn LEO (i.e. couldn't take oaths, arrest people, or serve subpoenas), just an
Re: (Score:2)
You can make a citizen's arrest if you witness a misdemeanor or have reason to believe that someone has committed a felony.
So, they have computers in Alabama now? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I can't believe anyone would label the parent post "insightful". I'm thinking more along the lines of "troll" or "offtopic".
As others have mentioned, NASA is in the state... not to mention Honda and soon to be Hyndai.
Re:So, they have computers in Alabama now? (Score:4, Funny)
On advanced technologies for converting between feet and meters, no doubt.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like a near-impossible task (Score:4, Interesting)
Figuring out what happened in a computer system months after the fact is not easy. Most programmers have more than enough trouble figuring out what exactly happened in their own programs thirty seconds ago.
Still -- not to say it's a bad idea. You have to start somewhere...
More of the same (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
1) Siezed as evidence, found innocent of charges
2) Siezed as evidence, found guilty of charges
3) Siezed as evidence, found innocent of sex-related charges
4) Siezed as evidence, found guilty of sex-related charges
I mean, it's not a box of pot. They can't easily take the pot out and return the box to you. Are they mandated to format the hard drive first? What about my diablo 2 single-player char!?!?
Re: (Score:2)
You wouldn't get the box back anyway if they found illegal marijuana in it. The box would be evidence. You'd be unable to claim it after conviction because you'd be sitting in prison, and it would become unclaimed property and if it was nice it would go home with some cop.
Your computer, you will probably get back, because they've been getting more and more heat if they do something bad to your PC... as long as you
Re: (Score:2)
Besides, you have to seize everything unless you've got some guarantee that there's no evidence concealed on a nerdstick, an iPod, or any of a kajillion things that store more data than a high end hard disk did fifteen years ago.
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Holy fsck! A full year from now? In a year computers will have changed enough to cause this to falter badly from the start! It will take only one worm of the right design, one change to hard drive technology, one of any
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
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I think you answered your own question.
The Secret Service is one of the oldest (1865) and (by no coincidence) most technically sophisticated of federal law enforcement agencies.
Secret Service, and being up to date (Score:2)
Computer forensics has not changed beyond recognition in the last year, probably won't in the next year, and in any event a lot of investigations will on Windows 98 machines and others that are more than a year old. There will have to be continuing education classes
haha..no (Score:2)
How much ahve they changed in the last year? in the last 3? not much, and a faster processor doesn't matter here.
Of course, that's not the real issue, the real issue is determining how people use their computers.
They need two separate education tracks (Score:5, Insightful)
The other side (Score:5, Insightful)
The Secret Service says that it will help to bring judges and prosecutors up to speed as well.'"
What about defense attorneys?
You don't need one. (Score:2)
Re:The other side (Score:4, Insightful)
But since the prosecutorial state is interested in prosecuting and sentencing as many people as possible for as long as possible, they have no incentive to actually DEFEND people... I guarantee the tone of these classes is "how to get more convictions".... where it should be "how to better determine the truth".
"How can we make an airtight case against the 15 year old who made a porno of his girlfriend?"
mmmmhmmm
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
He's somehow special because he *chats* with the boys instead of looking at pictures of them. heh
In all seriousness, he was a creepy old man, but nothing i saw in his chats were anything even close to exploitative, or dangerous, except the fact that he was abusing his position as an elected official for personal gain (woooo big surprise).
Stew
Re: (Score:2)
(People being people, it is probably harder to stir up public support for programs designed to produce better criminal defense lawyers.)
People have no idea how to *really* erase a file (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft must be the biggest supporter of computer forensic investigators.
Even since DOS 1.0, Microsoft operating systems never really erase a file. Now, they use cache, temp files, and the recycling bin to make lots of copies too. And that's only on the unerased portion of the hard drive. Chances are there are more copies on the erased data sectors.
Most users who really want to erase a file from the file system have to erase about two or three copies (if they know where the copies are). Wiping a file only zaps the original, not the copies.
Those investigators have it too easy.
My wiping program is made by Craftsman Tools (claw or ball-peen configuration)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:People have no idea how to *really* erase a fil (Score:2)
I've told clients that using Windows is like being stalked by paparazzi.
Why would they? (Score:2)
If you want a secure deletion, well then install a
Re: (Score:2)
Are you aware that paper shredders are very common in a business setting. For the same reason, business users, very much do want to wipe their data out. Forever - with no copies or hidden backups.
I can cite many cases (Google them yourself) of business data falling into the wrong hands because of the "undelete" or "unformat" commands that make "file > delete" in Windows a joke.
meager offerings (Score:2, Funny)
Alabama? (Score:2, Funny)
Am I the only one here who got a laugh out of this?
Redneck #1: (pokes computer with a stick) "dang, can't say ah evah seen one of dem der thangs b'for"
Reneck #2: (spits out chewing tobacco) "Well, ah dunno wut dat der thang is, but I rekon we oughta be shootin' it bout now"
Redneck #1: (opens beer from 6-pack holster on belt) "hmm, watchu say we take dis inta town here, and seeif summun'll know what it is?"
Reneck #2: "boy.. are you kiddin? We's the smart ones in dis he
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law enforcement "bringing judges up to speed".... (Score:2)
isnt it always these people who are supporting the RIAA/MPAA/BSA/etc in open memos to congress and various other bodies.
I'd rather we "bring judges up to speed" by sending them to their local state u for a crash BA in computer science, where they will get "enough" of the theory they need to make judgments that are not incompetent, but without the bias from an organization which by its nature attracts inflexible authoritarians.
Typical law enforcement mentality (Score:2)
{
if (criminal(this_player()))
this_player()->retribution();
if (oneofus(this_player()))
this_player()->rehabilitation();
}
Super Computers? (Score:4, Funny)
Zoolander, anyone? (Score:2)
"There must be an on button somewhere? Did you press the apple thing?"
"Did you find the files?"
"I don't even know what they loo-- What do they look like?"
"They're in the computer."
"They're in the computer?"
"Yeah, they're definitely in there. I don't know how he labled them."
"I got it."
"You gotta figure it out. We're running out of time. You gotta find them and meet me at the show."
"Roger. In the computer. It's so simple."
"We got 30 years of files right here in this computer that are gonna bring you down!"
"Oh, no."
"Down! (He smashes the computer) Where did all the files go?"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
troll
Re: (Score:2)
Subtlety improves the quality of humor. So, yes, yours is more troll than funny.
Besides, banjo music is pretty funny in its own right.
Re: (Score:2)
My dad is a retired cop who now teaches academy classes on top of his new job. Granted we live in a somewhat rural county (2 cities of 25k, a few other smaller ones around), but he would actually get letters written to him praising his work and professionalism from people he gave a ticket
Re: (Score:2)
I said there are always a few bad cops, but to say the majority are clueless really irks me. We aren't living in the times of Andy Griffith, most cops have college degrees now. At least in my area, competition is high for any open positions on one of the forces.
Sure what happened to you sucks, but you branded an entire segment of society based on one event. You wouldn't be too happy if I insulted what your dad did
Re: (Score:2)
If someone wanks to something that disgusts other people, they better damn well watch out because politicians and prosecutors make a living prosecuting you. Most of you are average middle class sorts and don't stand a snowball's chance in hell.
However, if someone launders hundreds of millions of dollars into overseas bank accounts, everyone secretly thinks "damn, I wish I was him, he's really lucky" and prosecutors think "crap, he can afford a dozen high priced lawyers.