Thursday, December 08, 2011

Meetup

Last night's meetup was a great success!  Sam not only gave a great presentation, he also peppered the audience with some amazing card tricks!  Sam really knows how to deliver on not only the technical information, but also with the magic, and did a great job of keeping everyone entertained on both fronts.  Yes, Sam is an accomplished magician

Copies of the slides for Sam's presentation are posted to the NoVA4n6Meetup and Win4n6 Yahoo groups.

I ended up taking notes on my iPhone (using the Notepad app), but here are a couple of take-aways that I had from the presentation:

- I really liked the way Sam broke down and categorized the whole process through visualization.  The third slide of the presentation has a "tool analysis pyramid" (it also appeared later in the presentation)...maybe a better title would be "tool-analysis pyramid".  Based on the work that I've done on the Windows side of things, I really like how Sam broke things down into easy-to-understand categories, which has the effect of making it much easier to communicate your findings, thoughts or needs to others that also understand the framework.

- "Supported means supported."  Depending on the equipment or software you have, and the device, "supported" can mean different things.

- Sam programs in Perl.  Uh...that's the most awesome thing.  EVER.  If you find yourself doing something over and over again, automation is a wonderful thing.  It's also a force multiplier...someone like Sam can write something useful, and someone else who understands the issue and Perl can leverage what Sam did, reducing the time it takes to reach that same level of understanding and effectiveness.

- Sam runs races.  I've run some similar distances as what Sam runs, but that was 20 years ago.  I'd be honored if Sam were to come out and run the Tough Mudder with me...we'll have to see what the future holds.  Maybe I'll have to go out ahead of him and leave either some old cell phones or some antique decks of playing cards along the route...  ;-)

Overall, 32 attendees was a great showing...I thank everyone who braved the weather to come out and see Sam, and I hope that everyone had a great time.  And I wanted to thank Sam for taking the time to put together a wonderful presentation, as well as to come out and give that presentation to all of us.  Many of us have families and other commitments, and I for one greatly appreciate the time and effort that Sam, as well as our other presenters, have taken to put materials together and get up in front of their peers.

Online DFIR Meetups
Back when I attended (and presented at) PFIC 2011, I had a chance to talk to Mike Wilkinson, an instructor in digital forensics at Champlain College.  Mike decided to start online DFIR meetups via his Adobe Connect Meeting Room. The first meetup is on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 at 8pm EST.  Be sure to have Adobe Flash installed on your system, and come join us.  I did see a request that Mike record the meetups...I hope that this ends up being the case.

1 comment:

Mike Wilkinson said...

Hi Harlan
The meeting on the 15th will be recorded.

Cheers

Mike