Cosmic Echoes…by Rich Fleetwood

Archive for July, 2006

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This you HAVE to see…falling…with style…

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Two weekends ago, my wife and I took a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was there to help Wyoming Public Television record an orchestra concert at the Grand Teton Music Festival. I was able bring Annie along for the trip, and we had a great time.

On the way home, we took a little detour through a couple of small local parks…

Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park, to be specific.

Want to see some pictures of some of nature’s most beautiful scenary? Take a peek here at my new flash based photo gallery.

Last weekend, my college hosted the annual Riverton Rendezvous hot air balloon rally. I got to take another trip into the wild blue yonder, hanging under a 40,000 cubic foot nylon envelope. You can view the gallery of dozens of great hot air balloons at the same link above.

Also, I’ve added some new tools to SurvivalRing. Check out the homepage for the latest addition…MyWeather.

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First, read this…

I can see a couple of things here that concern me.

First, yes, it’s easy to see if a file has been accessed on a hard drive…IF it’s still in the original computer that was running the Operating System AND things such as resetting the computer’s clock wasn’t done.

I’m full aware of forensics software tools and their uses, as well as many variations of file recovery methods. I also have 24 years of computer experience, two computer science degrees, and A+ hardware certification.

Here’s the thing. Once a laptop hard drive is removed (or any drive for that matter), it’s so very easy to plug the drive into an external drive case (USB 2.0 for example), plug that data cable in, and simply make an IMAGE file (.iso) of the entire drive, which is an EXACT bit for bit copy of the data on the drive, to another same sized or bigger hard drive.

Then, return the stolen drive to the original computer, and no one is the wiser for what MIGHT have been done with, or to, the original stolen data in question.

In short, this story is NOT over, and all that data is STILL a valuable piece of personal information history that could still bite 26.5 million veterans in the proverbial buttocks.

The computer and drive were out in the wild for how many weeks? And how many hands did that system pass through? And there are NO fingerprints on the drive OR computer?

By the way, did the computer have any PHONE HOME software installed so that if it was online during it’s trip into the countryside, it could secretly call home base and give it’s current IP address so it could be tracked down immediately, by all the Alphabet Agencies neccessary?

Update ONE:

The Internet Security Zone has a story out this afternoon about this incident, with details on what the Feds may/might have done in their “checking” of the data. A nice little trip into the world of Computer Forensics

Update TWO:

Here is the OFFICIAL FBI Press Release regarding the fact that “They Found It”. Right….SOMEONE ELSE brought it TO THEM.