Introduction:

The Senator Leahy Center for Digital Investigation (LCDI) is an establishment that was created to encourage Champlain College students to gain technical knowledge of an area within their field of study. As a team, interns are expected to communicate and work together in order to finish a project. This is the experience of the LCDI through the eyes of two interns.

Our Experience:

Our experience so far at the LCDI  has been exceptional. As first year students, we have learned valuable information about computer and digital forensics that we can actually use in the field. As technical interns, we are compiling information about a digital forensics tool. We are doing this to determine what tool has the greatest functionality and to gain real world experience working with a digital forensic tool. We are working with SIFT, and, so far, everything about it has been thrilling.

As interns, we have learned a few new things working with more experienced members. As one might expect, we have honed a large amount of new technical skills while working in a computer lab. But we have also practiced skills newer to us, such as working on a team and working under a team of supervisors. You can attend any amount of hours in a technical course without ever learning the social skills required in a workplace. Our time at the lab has given us great experience in interpersonal relations we’ll need to utilize in our future careers.

Before starting our work, we knew very little about digital forensics or the tools used to analyze data. We also didn’t know very much about Linux commands. This was difficult at first because SIFT is a Linux based forensics toolkit, but we have gained exponential knowledge from working with it over these past months.

Our experience at the LCDI has thus far been overwhelmingly positive and exciting. The environment the LCDI has allows me to explore the social aspect of a workplace while also exploring the technical aspect. This, to me, is exactly what we were looking for in college, and is unique to Champlain College. We are excited to have the future opportunity to work ever higher positions at the LCDI.

Conclusion:

Our next step is analysis of the data that we just finished generating. We’ll keep you posted!

To learn more about this and other blogs of the LCDI visit us here: LCDI Blog.

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