I popped into the end of a session delivered by some of the AFP (Australian Federal Police) Computer Forensic experts. The surprising discovery for me was how under-resourced they are. Sure, they know how to recover data ‘deleted’ from a hard drive, and they also get pretty good at finding incriminating stuff, but overall my impression was that these guys rely on a lot of luck.
Quickly banishing visions of NCIS-like teams that were the uber-crime-sleuth I’d wanted to be when I was younger, these guys are just hard working blokes (no women apparently) who often get called into really disgusting crime scenes (drug user’s premises with discarded syringes etc), and can find themselves at the end of their 24 hour search warrant with nothing to show for it.
I had hoped I would come out really scared about how powerful and technologically innovative this crack team were – but no, they are just coping (like computer crime agencies world wide no doubt).
Why Computer Forensics?
Answer: Because it is better than nothing at all…
Note: The AFP is looking for more recruits – they are in dire need.
