computer forensics

[dsity]

any body have first hand experience?
how it works? wages etc....

CSI made me want to ask

 

[GTaudiophile]

Info here...

 

[Platypus]

I took a few classes in it while in college. I worked with a guy who does it for a living and we did lots of real life scenarios. I also attended a panel during this time with the secret service, cia, fbi, local gov, and private sector computer forensics specialists talking and answering questions about the field. It was cool because we all got to hear how their jobs were and how different it was the higher you go up the chain. It really interests me still, I intend to look into it further, possibly setting up some sort of consulting.

 

[gamepad]

hmm, that sounds cool. i wonder how the market is for that.

 

[Platypus]

Originally posted by: gamepad
hmm, that sounds cool. i wonder how the market is for that.

At a local level, this is a really hot job area that is exploding right now.. the problem is that your work will be tedious. Every local law enforcement forensic professional I talked to said they were operating on a 6-8 month backlog minimum. It doesn't have the same urgency as something like at a federal level where your work is directly related to a case that is happening right then. The private sector also gets to deal with more current situations. Most of these panelists complained how they could only obtain a certain amount of the computers in an area whereas federal level had basically unlimited access to the number of computers they can take.

Unfortunately, a lot of these local law enforcement places all use 'industy standard' software, or as standard as this ever changing field could be. In my classes we learned the actual way to do things and then the tool's way of doing them. 9/10 I preferred doing it by hand. Your job would basically be to run a few of these tools and report your findings. It isn't that glamourous at this level as I said before.

 

[dsity]

very interesting...

to the person who had a friend in this field...how much did he make annually...or did it vary? I'd really like to do this as a career...do you'd have to travel a lot? or would they take conficated items to a location...and that's where your job was?