Wow. I’m a little surprised that the Wiggles make only about $45 million per year.
Having three girls, I think I’ve already covered at LEAST that much in tickets and merchandising myself.
Twitter has a fail whale showing at 07:25 AM EST? Already?
Wow, if that isn’t an omen for the rest of my day, I don’t know what is.
ETA: Still a solid fail whale at 7:43 AM EST. Either Twitter is getting a massive upgrade, California is having an earthquake, or Twitter is under attack again by Russian/Muslim/Chinese dissidents/extremists/hackers.
*** WARNING: This post is not for the faint of heart. I’m not kidding. Please stop reading now if you have a sensitive nature. ***
“Why I am who I am,” or “Computer Forensics and You.”
For the better part of the past thirteen (thirteen?!) years, I have been a computer forensic examiner. Sure, the title varies by job and location — digital forensic analyst, media exploiter, computer forensic investigator — but the job is always the same. Computer forensic examiners delve deeply into computers that have either been the victim, instrumentality, or witness to a crime. (Thank you, Mark P., for that definition. I’ve never left it behind.)
It’s not at all like what you see on “CSI.” Computer forensics can be tiresome, dreary, boring, and downright drudgery. Performing a competent analysis can take days, weeks, or even months depending upon the subject, the condition and state of the hard drive, or the importance of the case. For that time period, the examiner is literally trying on the subject’s life, wearing it like a costume for eight or more hours a day. Everything someone likes, hates, is interested in, fantasizes about, or fetishes goes through his or her keyboard at one point or another. Think about every email message you’ve ever written…every chat you’ve ever typed…every website you’ve ever visited…every phrase you’ve ever searched for online.
Seriously…think about it. I’ll give you a moment.
Now think about me reading and seeing it all. That should scare you a little bit, and if it didn’t, you’re probably lying to yourself. It’s okay. Most people do.
Doing computer forensics for any amount of time in your life changes you. It damages you. It makes you unfit to be around others in decent company, because you have to mentally screen absolutely everything you say in fear of drawing looks of horror or disgust from the good people around you. For forty hours a week, a computer forensic examiner is exposed to the worst that the world has to offer — child pornography, beheadings, torture, rape — all in high resolution photo or video formats. In fact, people in the business have found that for general criminal computer forensic examiners (and we’re not talking about intrusion analysts, as exposure to the badness I’ve mentioned is usually infrequent and incidental), there is a two-year time limit before your soul dies. Around that time, every examiner either has built-up enough of a callus that he/she can continue forever, or that examiner pushes the chair away from the desk, stands up, and says, “I can’t do this anymore.”
Two years. As I said, I’ve been doing it for almost thirteen.
What does the general criminal examiner work with? Almost 80-90% of the cases criminal computer forensic examiners work on are related to child pornography. This ranges from simple digital images to full-length movies recorded by the dregs of humanity. The worst kind, in my opinion, are those we’ve dubbed the “No, Daddy, no” videos, in which a usually heavy-set man rapes his extremely young children. Their faces tell the real story — this isn’t the first time, and they have endured their father’s actions numerous times before. People who make and/or collect these kinds of things usually don’t just have one or two…they have one or two dozen, hundred, or thousand.
How about the counterterrorism examiner? Beheading videos, torture videos, and endless rants about exterminating Americans are the feature of the day. Over and over, you watch videos of jump-suit clad Americans, British, Australians, or others on their knees, begging for their lives, as a troupe of Muslim-extremists stand behind them with knives in hand. Then, after the speeches are done, one of the masked men will all-too-slowly remove the head from the body, then place it triumphantly on the back of his victim. Fade to black. At first, you don’t know how to feel…it sickens you. Then, you feel outrage, and you want to seek retribution. Then, you feel…nothing. You comment on the technical quality of the video and remark about the quality of the jihadist’s upgraded A/V equipment. You comment about the sounds that people make when their heads are removed — it sounds something like a pig drowning. You comment, and you go onto the next one. Like their pedophile brothers, jihadists don’t just have one or two, they have hundreds, and the examiner has to watch every one. After seeing a few dozen of these beheadings and torture videos, the political correctness one may have started with goes right out the window. Gitmo is no longer a bad idea, but a necessity, and suddenly you start getting right with waterboarding. Just sayin’.
Being exposed to this kind of daily horror changes you. I’m not asking for sympathy; I think paramedics or police officers have it worse. (One of my good friends is both a computer forensic examiner AND a paramedic — I’m just WAITING for him to snap.) I’m just offering an explanation for why people like me might not say the most appropriate thing, or why our humor tends to run a little darker than that of others, or why our Twitter posts might occasionally make you blush.
As you can imagine, our meetings are rarely dull.
People who only have known me for a short time might find me to be paranoid, disturbed, or even a little deviant. People who have known me for a long time, especially those in the profession, understand completely.
What’s the upside? Why do computer forensic examiners do what we do? Well, it pays really, really well, and we get to put the occasional criminal behind bars or terrorist behind a scope. That makes it worth it all, even if we do tend to have basements full of MREs, anti-radiation pills, water filters, gas masks, and shotgun shells.
One thing’s for sure…terrorist attack, zombie apocalypse, or cyborg uprising, I’m ready — and it won’t even be much of a surprise.
I hate the phone. There, I said it.
I hate landlines, I hate cell phones, I hate the sound of a ringtone. I hate to hear you eating in the background and typing on your keyboard. I hate to hear the wind blowing while you walk and talk. I hate to hear crackle crackle static and they you cracking up at some joke you made that I didn’t catch.
I hate when people talk on the phone while they drive, shop, eat, poop, and and work out.
In this day and age, I am never away from communication. Send me a Text, an email, an IM. Twitter me, FB me, Favstar me, Tumblr me. I’ll answer you. I love you. I’ll laugh with you and cry with you and give you my full undivided attention (as much as my ADD allows). But if you want to speak to me, Don’t fucking call me.
There are a limited exceptions to this rule: 1) You are my mother. 2) You are never at your computer and the only way we get to speak is by you calling me in between carpools 3) You crapped your pants and thought it would be hilarious to tell me right at the moment (and yes, it would be) and 4) I’m at work.
Other than that, don’t expect to reach my by phone. If I don’t pick up my phone it’s because I have no idea where it is. I am busy. The battery died. I’m naked.
The phone rings and I cringe. The voicemail blinks and I cry. Really, truly, I hate the phone. And it’s probably a good thing - that you all do too.
I simply wanted to thank you.
This past year has not been one of my best. Though I have a fantastic family and a great job, the going was still frequently rough, and it continues to be. There were many times that your Tweets brought the first smile to my day, and there were even more occasions in which they took the edge off when I needed it most.
I have some long-time friends on Twitter who know me in real life, and I have some very new friends on Twitter who wouldn’t know me if they passed me in an empty hall, but in both cases, I consider your friendship both very real and very special. You know who you are.
So with this, I wish you the absolute best your lives can bring in 2010, and above all, I hope everyone gets the fresh start that they want or need. If 2009 has proven anything, it’s that we all deserve one.
Thank you, and Happy New Year!
Hah! I had no idea FoxMarks had become XMarks, and that XMarks not only worked with Firefox installations but also Internet Explorer, Safari, and Google Chrome.
For my little geek heart, this is awesome. It means I can have Safari and Firefox bookmarks on my same system synchronized, and that same synchronization will apply to my iPhone and to the Firefox installation running on Ubuntu on my baby netbook.
Sync, when it works, is the sexiest feature of an application.
Yes, I need to get out more.
