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.

Being one of those kind of people who tries to ready for any little thing, I usually have on my belt a Gerber multitool (which I use at least a dozen times a day), and a MiniMag double A flashlight in its own little holster. This is great for college, when you’re digging under desks trying to fix other people’s computers, traipsing across campus after dark after closing the lab, or fixing the car in the parking lot at Walmart after the rear bearing goes out on the ALTERNATOR, of all things.

Well, the cool tool above is an UPGRADE kit to any AA minimag flashlight, that allows you to LED based light, with a greatly increased lifespan of your batteries.

Takes only minutes to change out a couple of parts, with NO tools needed, and the light seems to be ever so much brighter, at least what I’ve seen under the desks I’ve worked on lately. Give it a try!

Aa Mini Maglite LED Conversion Kit, You Save $3.02 - Use keycode SPRINGFLING at checkout, Expires 05/10/2006

It only took an afternoon, and most of the evening, but I now am the proud owner of a dual boot desktop Pentium 4 computer!

I’ve mentioned my HP 864n a few times on the blog, and this past week I did some major hardware upgrades to it, in the process of bringing it back to life. Windows XP died last August, going into a horrible reboot loop, both in regular and safe mode. I used Knoppix Live linux CD to verify the drive was still good, but had no luck in trying several different methods to fix the boot issue.

Fortunately the next day after the system crashed, I won a nifty little door prize here at Central Wyoming College…a brand new Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop…and I’ve been using it since then.

I picked up a new 200 gig hard drive last week, with intentions of using it as an external USB 2.o storage drive, but then thought how I could use it for something else…while improving on things.

So…installed the 200 gig in the 864n, installed the full recover CD set of 9 cds (full recovery of WinXP MCE, as it came out of the box), and a few other tools. Also installed a new Sony DVD-+RW dual layer burner, and another half a gig of RAM at the same time.

System has been running VERY fast all week. A friend from DC surprised me with the original boxed set of SUSE Linux 10.0 this week, and knowing that it was in the mail, I toyed with the idea of DUAL BOOT!

Going from the included manual, it took only 5 hours (mostly software install time, plus downloads of 160 megs of updates automatically by the install procss). A few reboots, and it’s working…Suse linux 10.0 and WinXP MCE on the boot menu…

All hardware works…including the printer and tv card…network system is all hunky dory…and web access is as fast as I want it to be…1000kb download speeds from my wireless internet access via Wyoming.com.

I’ll keep you updated as I begin to play with Suse…and start looking at some linux multimedia tools to learn about.

Summer is winding down…many projects of mine are in final work…and college classes start in about 30 hours from now…on Monday 08/29/01.

Overall, it’s been a good summer break. However, NOTHING could have put a better topping on the entire season than what happened Thursday.

First, around 10:30am, I joined the other Student Senators for an afternoon of helping many new freshman in the Rustlers Roundup, a day of new student orientation, tours, free food, and grab bags of cool stuff, and then joined the other senators on the stage of the Little Theater, which was completely full, in a “student panel discussion” of surviving and thriving how-to tips and q&a for all the new folks there, in learning how to deal with Becoming A Successful College Student.

It went REALLY good, and I felt this was one of my most non-nervous times to be on stage and helping a few hundred folks begin their college career, by sharing the ways that each of we senators had been successful so far in our academic careers. I actually ENJOYED this panel discussion!

Up to this point, I had worried about it for a couple of weeks, but it went off without a hitch.

Later in the evening, here at Central Wyoming College, the Student Success Center had an End Of Summer party for TRIO grant recipients, of which my wife and I are thankfully part of, because it helps pay for a portion of our college careers.

The party went from 5p to 7p, and there were many door prizes, lots of cheesy (yet fun) games for the entire family, over 60 pizza pies from the local Dominoes franchise, and something very cool to end the evening. Someone was going to take home a brand new laptop computer at the end of the evening.

My wife Annie, myself, and fellow student senator Regina showed up around 5:10 at the CWC gym where the party was held, as I had to work at the radio station until 5, then headed home to get Annie.

We got back to the door and got in line. Those folks who were the TRIO recipients had to get their pre-semester meetings with Ed Hill, the TRIO counselor, done before they could get their “Official” laptop door prize ticket stub and be entered to get their chance.

Annie was in front of me, but had not had her meeting with Ed yet, and so had to head over a few tables to visit Ed before full check in. I was next, and having met with Ed the day before, got handed the ticket that WOULD have been Annie’s ticket stub.

After signing the checkin sheet, I was handed some neat goodies, another stub for OTHER door prizes, and went to grab a table for Annie, Regina, and I. I put some pizza together on the table for us, got some cold drinks, and went back to sit with Annie until she was done. After about 5 minutes, she and Ed finished, and she went back to the signin table, got her stuff, and ticket stub, and we went back to our table to munch and visit with everyone else.

During the evening, there were all kinds of kiddie and family games, including cake walks, facepainting, Twister, a tots fishing derbie for trinkets, and more. Every 15 minutes or so, a door prize was handed out to some lucky visitor.

During this time, Annie and I ribbed each other to try to convince ourselves to join in the fun, and after a while, I did the cake walk a few times (no free food for me), the Limbo Dance contest (at 40 inches high, and my third pass, I lost my balance and wound up on the other side of the bar on my face), and a few other things.

Overall, a pleasant and mostly harmless evening seeing lots of folks and their kids have fun with each other.

Finally, around 6:50pm, it was announced that the ticket was going to be called to see who won the fabulous door prize…a brand spanking new Dell laptop system, with all the bells and whistles.

I was hoping as much as everyone else, and THIS was the reason I was here for the evening, and had convinced Annie to come (she really didn’t want to).

The first number was pulled. 863390. No one spoke up. It was called out again…several times…everyone looked REALLY hard at their tickets…total silence in a room of 200 or so folks. Finally…last chance for 863390….no takers..someone had left early.

Susanna Lawson, one of the MC’s for the evening (and one of my tutor advisors) picked up another ticket from the hat, after no response to the first number.

863466.

Holy Crap.

I look again REALLY hard at my ticket….

Sweet Mother of God.

863466.

Staring right back up at me…those numbers on MY little blue ticket with a nice red border.

HOLY CRAP!

It was MY number.

Annie looked at me. I looked at her…I whispered to her…”I Got It!”

I stood up…and said, “Can you repeat that number again?, PLEASE?”

Susanna repeated 863466.

Yep…I WON!

A brand new, freshly purchased, never used DELL Inspiron 6000 Laptop computer, with 80 gig hard drive, DVD RW burner, 512 megs of RAM, and MS Office…and a HUGE screen…and WIRELESS access…which is really great, as this campus is slowly going wireless bit by bit through most of the buildings *except* for the dorms where we live…they MAY get wired next summer.

I could not believe it.

After getting up and walking over to the middle of the room where Susanna, Ed, and Marilu Duncan all verified the number, I said a little speech of THANK YOU! to the crowd. I then followed Carol W. over to the table where the computer was, signed off on the “permission slip to use your likeness” (marketing stuff) form, posed with my new ‘puter for a few digital pics, and and put it all back in the box, and went back to sit down with Annie and try to absorb what had just happened.

Annie let me purchase a brand new (yet recertified) hi end computer last year with a portion of our tax refund, and as I was sitting there thinking, I thought this would be a VERY good time to offer her this computer, as her laptop (purchased used last year from a family friend…333mh IBM Thinkpad) was slow, tiny, and usable for her needs, but just barely.

So, I did…thinking long term about if I give her THIS one, she’ll give me her old one, and I’ll still have a laptop to use for my web stuff, writing, and so forth. After all, this new one didn’t cost me a dime.

She didn’t want it! Her old one was JUST fine…she knew how to make it do what she needed, and that was ALL that she needed. However, most of the OTHER folks in the gym this very evening (who didn’t hear me offer it to her), were VERY interested in this machine, and I chatted with MANY of them, showing them the cool tools it had, and being very happy.

So, she said “it’s yours…you use it…I know you want it…(grin)…”

I guess I will….might as well…(bigger grin!!)

It’s a great computer. I went to Dell late, late, late in the evening, and configured a ‘puter just the same as what this one came with, and the bottom line for this machine was around $1400….AMAZING!

First time EVER in my life I won something (as compared to something like the Telly Award I was ‘recognized’ with for my video work back in June). A very timely tool too, as it will be used VERY heavily this coming year in my classes.

A bit after 7pm, we headed home, and I showed it off to my kids, their friends, and a couple of neighbors. All were a bit impressed, and happy to see it won by someone who could REALLY use it to help others ( as I have been the past two years as a tutor here on campus).

Spent an hour or so seeing what the system software was, checking specs and reading the online manual, and then put it away. Again, Annie was amazed.

“Not going to play with it tonight?”

“Nope” was the answer. I have to put it down, and think about what I’m going to use it for, how I’m going to organize the software tools, and just what I’m now going to have to get to make the most of this NEW electronic gadget that just entered my life.

After all, 80 gigs ain’t much when you think about it, and I have over 300 gigs of data on my desktop rig…and SOME of that will have to get mirrored on the new laptop.

The biggest “Cool” of the whole thing is that this new system will let me do video editing anywhere, anytime. My Sony HC 20 handicam DV camera will hook up via firewire directly to this monster, and after editing, I can burn the final production DVD the moment I’ve done…..yes…VERY cool….

This new system will be used for audio work as well, and I can record, edit, and even broadcast directly from this laptop once everything is set up and tuned. THAT is awesome as well.

Hope I didn’t bore you with all the above…as you might notice, at least *I* am quite excited about it. And, even 3 days later…walking on air…it’s a WONDERFUL summer after all.

Rich

…We have REAL net access again…(doing the Ren & Stimpy HappyHappyJoyJoy dance around the room now).

We’ve been dealing with droopy DSL service the past few weeks, as the local college destruction…er, construction guys have been digging holes in the yard, drilling holes in water pipes, breaking drain pipes, and generally wreaking big-ass havoc on our little corner of campus…all to install (albeit 20 years too late) “fire suppression sprinkler systems” in our little corner of the Central Wyoming College campus, in the west apartment building complex.

Before they started destroying anything, our DSL was working fine. We paid for 768k up/down service, and were seeing average speeds of 400/500k down, and much less up. No problem…we were “right on the edge’ of service with the ISP provider.

Then, hell….

All the commotion with tractors, backhoes, hammers, chisels, etc. did SOMETHING to our phone lines (a very important part of the DSL connection), and It Started To Suck Bigtime.

We spent days on the phone with Wyoming.com, talked to 5 different techs, and switched DSL modems, cables, and routers…all to no avail.

Finally, we figured out that we COULD get Wireless Broadband here, without bolting any antennae to the outside of the building (our bedroom window faces the hilltop containing the transmitter tower). How did we find out that wireless would work here? Next door neighbor, Ben, is a techie at the ISP, and got it working in his dorm. In calling and troubleshooting the DSL problems, he suggested the wireless option. I am very glad he did.

Got the hardware this afternoon….plugged it all together in about 20 minutes….tweaked the IP addie in the software controls, and BOOM! We are ZOOMING back on the net…almost 1meg in d/l speed, and 500k upload speeds..MUCH better than DSL was.

I am a happy camper again…

Thank you Wireless Gods…and Wyo.com for your assistance…

NOW….if you bill be for those dialup hours I had to use to do my work, I’ll be VERY upset…

Rich