Speakers

J Justin Tolman 00:11

Welcome to another episode of FTK over the air, where we talk about forensic topics, workflows, some of the cool software out there, how we integrate with that software, all sorts of stuff. And today we're going to add another little bullet point to that. We're gonna talk about forensic communities as well. So I'm Justin Tolman, and I'm joined by Lynn. Lynn, how are you doing today?

L Lynne Roossien 00:38

I'm good. And you know what today, aside from all those things that we normally talk about today, we're going to talk about Tom Cruise. Just saying, and then maybe not, not even in a good way, but how are we to tie all that together? cliffhanger?

J Justin Tolman 00:54

In a podcast, so. Yeah. So we have Kevin DeLonge on this week. And Kevin goes way back with us. So I actually met Kevin for the first time in Ohio while working at the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. And he came in to give us a demo of access data's mobile phone examiner. So it I don't even remember what year it was now, probably 20. I'm gonna guess, either 20, late 2013 or early 2014. But probably late 2017.

L Lynne Roossien 01:34

That sounds about right. Sounds about right. Yeah, we had access data before we became part of stero. The world of FTK, we used to have another product in that portfolio called Mobile Phone examiner. We played in the mobile space of the actual acquisition of mobile data off of the phone. And yeah, Kevin was like the mobile guy. And I remember we started I came over to Kevin is the one that plucked you out of forensic examiner obscurity and brought you into this wild world of being at a forensic vendor. So we can thank Kevin for your existence here. That's

J Justin Tolman 02:15

exactly it. And every time I talk to him, I I bring it up as a positive. I actually had dinner with the supervisor that hooked us up, Rick, and I was given him a bad time. I'm like, just one of your all time backfires. But he he actually is super cool, dude. And was you know, he's happy with how things turned out as well. And everything. So anyway, but yeah, that's kind of how I got into this mess. These shenanigans here. So yeah,

L Lynne Roossien 02:49

yep. Yep. So yeah, we all used to sit around and talk about the finer art of mobile phone acquisition. And now we talk about it in a slightly different way with FTK. Because now we do processing and parsing of native mobile phone extractions. But yeah, back in the day, we used to have a tool. And Kevin was sort of the ringleader of that particular part of the business. And yeah, he was the evangelist on on that world. And so what's really cool is that this is what I thought about, and I couldn't join you guys for the episode, which I was really bummed out about. But the thing that I always find so interesting is, it doesn't even matter what industry you're in. But we're in the forensics industry. So we'll talk about that. Like, it's neat to see that even though we're all in the forensic industry, and maybe we have bounced around from one company to another, which is a little bit more prevalent than it used to be way back in the day, right, we all bounce around a little more than we used to. But when you're still inside the same forensic community, you bump into the same people over and over again. And so even though you're at a different vendor, or you've gone to a completely different side of the house, if you do go to conferences, and you are in the industry with these people, and you're like, oh, man, it's my buddy from way back in the day. And it is really neat. And I love that about the industry is that yes, there's probably some lateral movement happening a lot more than there used to be. But we all know each other and we've all you know, worked with each other in some capacity. And I don't know it's it's always fun to have a familiar face and a familiar voice now and again, Kevin. He was a DJ Correct? Yeah, her life

J Justin Tolman 04:30

way back in the day. So you can tell?

L Lynne Roossien 04:33

Yeah, Kevin's got that smooth radio voice. So yeah, to hear a familiar voice even is really cool. And Kevin is one of the coolest dudes ever. Again, even even even though we knew him is, you know, mobile forensics guy. It's I'm so proud of him, that he's created an entire new community of people in the forensic industry to like, come together. I thought it was neat. how he the episode. But it's a neat story of like, I had this idea. And you know, this was my original idea. And like, look what it's grown into. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

J Justin Tolman 05:15

Always a good time. And I don't I don't know if we actually talked about it. But it was interesting, because while he was starting, that he was doing a bunch of other stuff as well, just building Twitter, apps, and all sorts of stuff in the background. But one thing that I thought of when you were talking about that was with the transition of everybody, between forensic companies, and even investigative agencies and firms and corporations. I was at a Sans conference recently, where I presented and one of the presenters gave a thing for new people coming into the industry. And one of the points in that was basically summed up to be nice to everyone. And that was one not so much that tone. But when I jumped into access data, after he brought me over, one of the scenes was the, the Polos change, but all the people basically stay the same. And because because, you know, access data, former access data trainers are basically at every forensic company. So you know, it doesn't matter, their mobile phone, or, or computer or whatever. And, and then we've had people from like, celebrate over and Max is just this huge churn of the same people. And so it's always good to have those connections. And fortunately, in my opinion, I think the forensic community has just a really cool set of people in it. I don't know what we're all I guess, equally crazy from the from, from the material in the job, I guess. So we all just get along. But

L Lynne Roossien 06:56

yeah, it's, Kevin calls it we're all in a nerd

J Justin Tolman 06:59

out that too. So it's cool. And but it's so true, that everybody's bouncing around all the time. You know, and so you learn a lot doing that? I think so.

L Lynne Roossien 07:14

Yep. Well, I think we're a collective of people who, whether or not we have been a fur, we talked about this all the time, you have been a forensic examiner in your career, I have not. But that doesn't mean that we're that we're not, you know, focused on the same goal of using forensic technology to change the world and make it better. I mean, it's like the simplest form of, of why we're all in this in this industry. And you know, maybe we put up with a little nonsense here and there, right, everybody, no one has the perfect work environment. And you know, we all get frustrated, and especially for folks that are on the front line, work in cases doing investigations, trying to review evidence, like it's frustrating, it's emotionally draining, it's taxing. You know, there's a lot going on, but we as the vendor side, we're really committed to, you know, using our tools to to give people a better forensic review experience, and maybe limit their exposure to some pretty nasty stuff. And then, you know, on Kevin's side, he's like, Hey, we're all in this together, right? So like, where do we all come together to hang out? And, about their tips and tricks? And where can we ask questions and get answers? And I want trusted answers. I want trusted answers from my peers. And so yeah, Kevin has built cyber social hub, an amazing community of forensic professionals, and not just forensics, I think he made this clear, digital investigations, whatever that might entail, and even cybersecurity, that's, you know, everything's sort of all encompassing now. And that's, that's, that's the world that he has built. And I think, again, the way that he started, you know, was quote, unquote, the guy who knew computers at his job, right, and you and you said the same thing. You're like, yeah, I don't know, I was the guy who took stuff apart and put it back together. And, you know, somebody told me I would be good at this. I remember when I was in. I was I was a trainer in the world of legal technology. And they said, Man, you sure can talk a lot. You should be in sales. And I was horrified and flattered all at the same time. And I was like, Oh, God, I don't know. And then once you get into sales, they're like, hey, people actually seem to enjoy listening to you and having a, you know, sales relationship with you, like, you should be in marketing because you understand all of this, right? So we all just sort of evolved down this down the river of, you know, acquiring skills and just being good at things and kind of falling into the role that we fall into. And I could not think of a more perfect person to fall into the role of, you know, community ringleader, then Kevin.

J Justin Tolman 09:55

Well, I agree and before we jump into the main portion with Kevin, I do want to do half plug for me and a half plug for his cyber social con that's coming up, depending on when we listen to this, but it is December, I gotta look 15th of 2022. That week, you can go to the website and register for that. It's a free online conference, which with a bunch of different speakers, including, including me, speaking on a bunch of different topics, I'm speaking on the the mixing of open source intelligence and big box forensic tools and open source tools in Python and that sort of thing, and how, like, premium tools like FTK work with Python and how it can help you take your investigations, you know, to a more thorough, more efficient, kind of deeper story there. So definitely check out cyber social con there, it's gonna have a lot of good information. So yeah,

L Lynne Roossien 11:03

yep. And we can't stress this enough, cyber, social HUD is free, okay, you don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to become a member of this community. It's a free sign up, join the hub get access to all the content and again, you know, Kevin hosting his own virtual conference is a big deal. And it's it's information tips and tricks. industry knowledge, right, you know, industry vet sharing, sharing knowledge, just like yourself. And it's more than just, you know, a product demo, which is lame. It's it's really good, usable, actionable intel on how to do your job better. So yeah, absolutely. Check out cyber social hub cyber social con. And this episode, we're going to answer burning questions such as a grin. What does Tom Cruise have to do with forensics? Why is Kevin afraid of his toaster? That's, those are things that I bet you guys all are dying to know. Exactly.

J Justin Tolman 11:59

Well, cool. All right. Let's jump in and chat with Kevin. Thanks, Lynn. All right. And now we are with Kevin DeLong. You'll notice that Lynne is no longer in the shot, she had to jump off for another thing. So, Lynn, thanks for jumping on. Now. We're moving on over to Kevin. Kevin. Thanks again for coming on. I know you're super busy. And we're going to talk about why you're super busy here in a second. How are you doing today? And why don't you introduce yourself?

K Kevin DeLong 12:40

I'm good, man. Thanks, Justin. I appreciate it. Again, like Justin said, I'm, I'm Kevin DeLong, the founder of what's a little thing called Cyber social hubs. Right.

J Justin Tolman 12:52

That's right. And so I, I remember you How long has it been since you started? How many years has it been?

K Kevin DeLong 13:00

Since for cyber social hub. So it's been just over two years, but people this year are really starting to, it's, you know, how you you hear always hear the like the snowball effect, right? Our Snowball was like, the little tiny snowflake for a long time. And finally, it's gotten to the size where people are starting to see it. So it's just been over two and a half years now. And for the longest time, we just had, you know, a couple of 100 members and who brought to the to the core members been there for the whole time. And thanks for their support. And if without them, we wouldn't have never built a community up and offered the value to the other digital investigators that we have. But yeah, it's it's grown quite a bit. It's a very cool thing to watch it kind of in the community build it up as we go.

J Justin Tolman 13:51

I want you to go into your database. I want to know which number I am when I

K Kevin DeLong 13:57

I will let you know, I'll look at it and see. I was pretty really stinks. You were you were we had to actually wipe the database. Like it was three months I think after we did it, because we had I believe I'm not a developer on the platform. We didn't build it we contracted the build on it in a company that we went with the first time literally were in business three months and then they were gone. I'm like okay, now that was not gonna happen so and so I was I was trying to message them to say hey, how do I get access to your database? Or which is our members in pull them out where we can move it over to a new platform and they were gone. Just going dead? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Your that just took money in Iran. I'm not really sure what happened. But yeah, they didn't hang around very long. Geez. So we're gonna get to cyber social hub. One thing I want to rewind a couple years A lot of years maybe now, but you and I met at the Richfield office at BCI eons ago, right on. And the funny thing was is that Rick Warner, who was the supervisor of the cyber department at that time at BCI, which was where I worked, brought you in to demo, mobile phone examiner's, or access status, mobile phone examiner, I MPGe. Right. And then later, Rick told me he's like, Yeah, I wanted to connect you with Kevin, because he has this contractor opportunity for a mobile device instructor, because he was trying to get me more money so that I wouldn't leave Ohio being from Washington State. And then turns out Kevin recruited me into X state, and I left anyway, so

K Kevin DeLong 15:51

that kind of we just hired you with complete kind of access. So wrong. Sorry, Rick, if your wife Yeah, sorry, man.

J Justin Tolman 15:56

I actually saw Rick a few months ago. I told him that and he's like, good, good, or whatever, you know, anyway, he was, uh, he was totally cool with it. But one thing I'm interested in, and I mean, I know some of it, but you where you started? How did you get like into the forensics industry? What was kind of your path, but also some of your motivations to follow that kind of that path?

K Kevin DeLong 16:24

Right, I was, I was born a geek. So that always helps with that natural curiosity where, you know, granted, I was born, I'm a child of the 70s. And, you know, taking apart the eight track player, not being able to put it back together, you know, those types of things. You know, I always had a natural curiosity, really young, about all things, and then anything technology, sci fi, you know, you and I had Star Wars conversations, anything has just always got my interest in and, you know, it was right after, right after I got out of the Marine Corps was when I got into law enforcement in, they started looking almost immediately for someone to process computers and things like that. And while I was the guy that could turn that big beige box on, so I was the guy, they say, you're it, you're going to all of this training. So you understand what a computer is that seriously, it's no joke. It's how it started.

J Justin Tolman 17:36

It's incredible to me how many people that literally was it like, Hey, Officer to log on, I saw him messing with the computer. And he like, he was able to turn it on and turn it off and no smoke came out. Like, send him in. And I've told this before, but I I missed my, my undergrad graduation, because I was signed up to do my PT testing and all that sort of stuff to become a police officer. And I was getting an IT degree and didn't want to do it. Okay, it turns out the interesting thing, I went got a master's and so went that route. But have I continued with the it would have been a different path. But knowing looking back now, I mean, I'd be here, but I would have been doing computer forensics, because the it would have been the same idea. Oh, Tillman's got this background. Send them to the icoc unit or send them to the whatever. And yes, yeah, you actually though, because they put you in that department. But I think you built up the lab there into a legit forensic lab. Is that correct?

K Kevin DeLong 18:50

Yeah, I am not known to do things half rear ended just by my nature. It's either go as hard as you can or go home was always kind of a motto. And we started off like kids you not on the second floor of the police department. There was a utility closet. They used to keep papers and you know, extra ticket books and forms extra supplies. I took over a little corner of it, and then eventually it expanded out. And I took the whole thing from them. I mean, literally, okay, it was like for those of you that are really wealthy a walk in closet, right. So I mean, it was it was it was decent size that it was enough for like, your really old big beige Fred boxes. I mean, these monstrosity things my I think the end table that sits next to my couch is smaller than the original Fred unit. But in this was like, what was this back in? 2000 2001? So I've been in digital forensics for a minute. Is it been 20 years? Yeah, it's been over 20 You're nice. Holy crap. See, this is see this stuff right here. Yeah, we didn't. We didn't have any of that stuff when I first started. But so yeah, it started there. And then we started expanding and growing. And I remember one of the first cases we worked it was a detective had brought a was at a StarTAC. I don't remember one of those flip phones, right. And they go, hey, it was left at a scene of a warehouse burglary. And he says, what, what can we get out of this? I don't know. Let's find out. Yeah, I mean, there was nothing then especially, I mean, crime mania to start tech. So you just kind of gathered what we could without changing as as very little as we were able to, there was no hookups and just documented best we could and, and went from there. And then, you know, as, as the cases came, started coming in, we realized, hey, we need more, more help. And by help I mean, funding, right? I, my department was fairly small. And we were looking to outside agencies for assistance. It's like, okay, so then I built built, and I wish I would have the sticker here, I still have the sticker, it's actually in the, on the metal door in my leaving my garage to come in the house. It was the North West Ohio technologies crime unit was, was what we came up with. And so we went up as far, you know, most of Northwest Ohio, we were recruiting people from there to join, and they'd either supply a body to us or funding, and then we would handle their forensics case extract data from phones. And that it just it just continued to grow from there. I have no idea what what state it's in right now. Or if it survived. Unfortunately, I have I have a little bit of contact with it. Actually, I gotta go back down here in a week to keep my credentials up. Because I still maintain my my credentials in Ohio. Just in case you never know,

J Justin Tolman 22:05

just in case, you need to go back to the road.

K Kevin DeLong 22:12

That's kind of what I mean, full force where it went up from there. No, that's super cool. I know. You'd been gone for a while at that point. But so we're going to BCI we actually had somebody from your department of detective bring in evidence to BCI to work and I was like, Oh, hey, you know, I know, Kevin. And they're like, Oh, I remember Kevin and Baba, blah, blah, blah. So we sat there while there, they just needed a dump and ship? Just, you know, send it on their way type case. So we're just BS and in the, in the break room. But yeah, I mean, the work you did there. Like you said, I don't know what where it's at now. But it it did leave a mark, you know, like people knew that that was a thing that was being done at a high level there. And that was kind of cool, where you've done it. And then Dan Sumpter was also on that same track, and I love seeing these officers that, hey, you got thrown into it, but you grab it in and then take it and make make it 100. You know, you take it in and run with it. And that's, as I go to these conferences, I meet people like you like Dan, other officers that, hey, I've built up this lab around this thing, because they get passionate about it, you know, and it's, it's a fun, it's a fun thing. And I think we'll get again, we're gonna get to cyber social hub. But that's where that passion kind of led you I think is like, let's get everybody together.

K Kevin DeLong 23:36

Yeah, it was that, like I mentioned early on, it was that part of that natural curiosity thing, right, of how things work. Remember, the eight track I mentioned, it's no different of how an SMS message is laid down and encoded, just a lot more nerdier at that point, right? It's like, Okay, how's this little tape spin around and there's eight tracks in this little thing. Anyway, just figuring all that stuff out. And that's really what digital any type of really digital investigation is, it's just you have to have a curiosity of how it works, how something was laid down or evidence was left or or what possible evidence could be there in any one of these systems that are touched along the way it's just to me I still get nerdy when I'm talking about it, and I don't even work active cases anymore.

J Justin Tolman 24:23

I think that's a that's a key difference between one of the things that we're doing right now is is we're talking about forensic review and forensic exams. And so you'd have examiner's and reviewers and I think that's a major difference between what an examiner is and what a reviewer is and examiner's but nerds like us that are like, Yeah, that's a text message, but how was it stored? And how do I get that out? And how do I do cool things with that data? To paint a story a reviewer and they have strengths in other areas that's their you know thing is like Okay, I just want to look at this stuff get get that data And in Listen, I don't care, you know, and we need both types. But I totally that's where, when I was at BCI, I really got into SQL lite databases and finding new ones and figuring out how to break it down started out in Excel. Like I think like almost everybody does, like, Okay, I got this database, I don't know SQL Lite, and then started teaching myself SQLite. And then we bought Brandon Sandersons forensic SQLite forensic browser at the time, I'm not sure if it's still called the same I think it is.

K Kevin DeLong 25:35

I think someone else purchased who purchased it, he'll tech to Tech in them have

J Justin Tolman 25:39

joined together. Okay, to help push that excellent tool. And Sanderson? Did I say Brandon or Paul?

K Kevin DeLong 25:50

You said Brandon, but yes, it is Paul. Yes.

J Justin Tolman 25:53

I wouldn't say Anderson's an author, programmer. But Paul is a cool dude. Like, when when I moved to access data at this point, Kevin pulled me out. And Kevin's first thing, I get hired, and he's like, I need a sequel lite class three days long, and I need it in three months. Don't talk to me until it's done. Well, maybe it wasn't balanced. And was able to build that. But we had forensic browser we got in working with Paul and communicating he was he was super helpful. It was cool. It was cool to work with people that have that passion. And that was one of the cool things. So you eventually left and we have MFI in kind of the between the police and the access data, right.

K Kevin DeLong 26:41

Yeah, so I was doing some contract work, right. And, and we're actually going to do a series on kind of the migration or people transitioning over in the multiple ways that you can, can can do that, which there's 1000 different ways that you can leave police work and, and get into where something that's actually going to pay you to live. And yeah, so MFI was my in between li Rieber, who's actually over at oxygen right now, I think. And so Lee was, you know, a mentor in the space. And he got me started in it. You know, I was on their forums for a long time. And just trying to answer questions, asking questions, just getting involved in the community. And Lee noticed it. He says, Hey, we're hiring for, you know, a part time instructor position. And I'm like, oh, man, that'd be awesome. But you know, I asked a lot of questions. I don't know that I'd be necessarily great for an instructor position. So he he ended up flying me somewhere I can't remember was the DC area. Anyway, I don't remember where it was. And I met some, some great people there that also got hired in the early MFI days. And yeah, so we did we contracted instructing. And yeah, contracting, starting is a good way to go if you take days off from the full time gig. At that time, now, I don't have any idea what it would it pays now. So don't anyone ever get your hopes up? It could have dropped because there's a lot more forensic examiners than there were back in those days. So it was fairly pricey to bring us in. But it was $1,000 a day that we got to make just for hanging out and teaching. So it was it was awesome. But yeah, that was the in between I took vacation days. Any PTO, any, you know, surplus comp days I had, and I'd be traveling somewhere to teach was great.

J Justin Tolman 28:38

eventually bounced. But that was one of the things that actually made the transition to access data cool with because I was on your team, you were the the head over the mobile instructors. But when I came in, it was not just build this, this class, the sequel light class, but it was it was kind of nerd sessions every week where we would get in and, and talk about mobile stuff that we'd found that wasn't even related to necessarily a class. I mean, we'd work it into a class because it's cool. And we thought it was cool. I think that was one of the things that drew me in as well. Once I made that jump was okay, this is not just like, Okay, write this class, because this is our job. It's we're gonna write this class because we think this tech is cool. And what can we how can we pass this cool stuff on to somebody else that hopefully finds it just as cool. And I really thought that those are the team.

K Kevin DeLong 29:35

fun days, because it was just like, imagine, you know, in my day, it was like, you know, I don't know, it was like, I don't I don't know what to compare it to, like nerd club of some type like a chess club. Maybe. That's all we did was we were just passionate about finding artifacts or something new that we had discovered. Yeah, it was good times.

J Justin Tolman 29:53

Now now it's like, like, Hey, I found this cool thing, the sequel light query I wrote in there Everybody's like, Okay, you're like, Well, come on, man, this is awesome. I gotta go to like conferences now to get around you or rob atto or whatever, to really get those nerd stuff flowing again to, like when you go to you or rob or anybody out there like techno and you're like, hey, I wrote the script, and they're like, You got to show me or you got we like, yeah, that's like, check out this one I wrote, you know, it's good times.

K Kevin DeLong 30:24

What does it do? Yeah, what is it? Right? Yeah, yeah. And you picked up? If I remember, right, you picked up a lot of Python skills to over the years, which is phenomenal. I'm a huge Python person, I write horrible code, but I try my best. It's fun. But yeah, it's a lot of fun. I think it's, I think it should be required in forensics. Absolutely. Whatever requirement, if not Python. And I don't know, what else would you would you say that people need? If not Python?

J Justin Tolman 30:54

I think I think Python is quickly becoming if not already become the language of forensics, if you're going to code. And you're not coding like an application, you're just coding solutions. Because of the non forensic support for it, you can find I mean, you know, how to create a file, Google, you know, and there's, you know, end to the most complex stuff. And all the big tools out there, at least the ones off the top of my head, I can think of have some sort of Python integration to where, okay, I've written a script, I'm going to run it against my stuff. And so it's just so useful in I know, obviously, x taro big box software, but you can't rely on their development cycles. I mean, you can for the normal stuff, but like, Hey, I've got a case right to, you know, with everything, okay, we'll get it to you in six months. And you're like, No, no, like, I need it now. So if you can solve your own problems, with Python, or with SQL Lite, or whatever, you're going to be that much. And then of course, once the big box releases the feature that can make it a one click Solve. Sure. But yeah, that's, that's always what I loved about knowing Python, or what I know of Python. And knowing SQL Lite, is I can solve my problems now and wait for everybody else to catch up. When development cycles and business cycles, you know, fit into that. So

K Kevin DeLong 32:36

yeah, you need to fit it in. And that's what I learned. Because, you know, I, I know a little bit about development teams, and maybe a little bit about the development teams that were there is, you know, it's, it's just, it just takes a long time. And I guess not really a horrible long time, but they really have to think through the process of okay, hey, what's the best way to go after this artifact, to process it forensic ly, because developers aren't necessarily always forensic guys, so they have to really stop and think, and they do ask a lot of questions. of okay, how, what's the best way to do this? How do we parse this? How, how do they want this displayed? And people don't always consider that they just think, Oh, we just need this feature yesterday, and it's not in here. But that's where Python comes in. Is that so? You know, don't go don't go too hard on development, guys. They, they, they're doing their best and crankin through there, because I did oversee a team of those, those folks. And great people, just they want to make sure they they do it the right way. And that's one thing that was I thought it was was pretty awesome.

J Justin Tolman 33:37

I think building on what your comment Exactly, they also have to build, like, the most good for the most people, which may not be right, because, right? They, I need my paycheck. So I need the I need the software to sell to people. But I know also, as a user, I may have a specific application that I need to do, but they're like yeah, but that's not going to you know, we put in this X amount of development that's not going to move the software x so you know, and that's something we all balanced with our time management but that's where again, can you solve your own problem, then perfect, it doesn't matter if it only solves your problem that's exactly what you need. And that's what's cool about it and and I again coming back to it's just fun for whatever reason like I built that like it becomes your baby I know you've done a lot of open source intelligence with Twitter stuff and it's like you start to look at that as like this is this is my baby this is my thing you know that I built it all and everybody should see it. Which everybody should see it

K Kevin DeLong 34:43

yet. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. I actually changed this year trying to make it easier because you know a lot of the and it's just there's so many examiner's out there nowadays, right? Not not when back in the day were actually doing it. There was I don't know. It just seemed like there was a lot got less of forensic examiners. And now it's there, it's the markets being flooded, not because of just being flooded, there's a need for it, for sure. But I noticed a lot of know, we had names for those types. But, you know, everyone has to start somewhere. So I don't like to say anything, you have to push a button to get an answer. Right. But the key to that is, hey, understanding, okay, when you did that, this as the information is getting, and so you can go back and in and grab that stuff. So, you know, there's just an evolution to, to at all. And, again, like I said, a lot of the newer examiner's necessarily are intimidated by Python. Because I mean, it's way beyond the digging down in an artifact, you're actually telling it, not only do you have to know how the artifacts constructed, but you're telling Python, how to go and deconstruct that, or parse it in a way that's user friendly. So I'm like, Alright, I need to make something easier. Because all mine was a straight command line driven. And I'd give talks and you know, there'd be a lot of people in the room, like when at a conference, when I'd give a talk, because everyone loved it, I think they really loved the word free that I always put in the title, right? Because that's what really draws law enforcement in. And then they see the tool, they're like, oh, man, I'll never be able to do this. So now what I've done with the tool is, it's all option menu driven, you know, it's all it's still a Linux looking script. And you just say, Hey, do you want it? What what service do you want to pull from right now? We're only doing Twitter. So Twitter, you can push that? And then it says, Okay, what type of data and information? Do you want to pull you in a pull profile? Do you want to pull friends? Followers? All the images, videos, history, you want to watch a geo area? I mean, it's, yeah, so I'm trying to make it easy as possible, where they just have to type know the information without having to know the command lines behind that. And then of course, we put it all into a SQL database now. Which makes things a heck of a lot easier cases really portable, large, but portable,

J Justin Tolman 37:20

right? And if you know, SQL Lite, then you can play with that to start building analytic,

K Kevin DeLong 37:25

exactly. Just do queries all day long. And, and I do like throwing it into a SQL database, because almost every tool on the planet can do some type of analytics against a SQL database, almost, literally, almost everything.

J Justin Tolman 37:38

Yeah. And that that's, that's actually the part of SQL that I really like is, it's not just the raw dump of the data. I like building the story that the data is telling, writing queries that will format the data to be like, Oh, hey, these are the trends. These are what's happening. That That, to me, is what's fun is when you start to build pictures based on that data in SQL light, super powerful, and super, super handy for doing that. All right, so I want to know, cyber social hub, where was the where was the genesis? What was the motivation? Like, who who wakes up in the morning is like, I'm going to build a social network today. Like, what, what

K Kevin DeLong 38:22

no one in their right mind does? No one well, you know, I, I love conferences, the fact that I get to see so many people and learn so many new things. And you know, somebody's got a great idea, I'll go sit in that class, or a session and watch and see what they've built in, they've artifact that they've parsed and come across, you know, and then you stand up there in front, trying to talk to them, hopefully, before we get they get kicked out in the next speaker has to come in, you do this a million times throughout a two or three day event. And then after that's over, everybody's gone. It's like, alright, I didn't get to talk to half of the people I wanted to talk to, I'd say two thirds. And so I was like, How can we do this after essentially the event is over I think that was our tagline for the for a little while. was how do you stay in touch with these folks? So we just built essentially it you know, I didn't have obviously millions of dollars to dump into this thing or even 1000s of dollars at the time I started building it. So I just looked at the existing networks that were there. I'm like alright, how are they doing this? How are they getting a good user experience with out you know, cuz you get the weirdos in there occasionally too. We still get them in there. I think you and I were talking just pre show a little bit about one someone in there. You know it is what it is. But that's really the was the driving force behind it. It's like okay, let's get just everyone from all of the shows to come. into one place and just share ideas with one another. And you know, somebody will have some awesome research and hopefully they'll share it with the group. And then someone else can learn. And it was just a Help help everyone else out because I remember, you know, back in the early 2000s, sitting in the lab there in Ohio going, all right. I have no idea how to parse this and deal with this case, who in the world do I talk to? Luckily, there are some few people around the state that that I knew. And I could try to reach out to them and get some answers. But and that's really what it was built for was kind of the collective of information. So that's where how cyber social hub was, was born. And I think the name of all places was, I couldn't think of a cool name. I'm like, Well, what am I gonna call this thing? You know, nerd hang out, what is it going to be? And I was looking at, one of the shows I wanted to go to it was the exhibitor floor plan. And it was a massive show, I mean, huge show. And I was like, hey, I really want to go to the show. And they had a bar actually set up in the middle of it. And it was just called the hub. And I was like, That's a cool name for a bar for nerds. I like it. So and then I just added cyber social onto it in that sow, the name was born as well. So yeah, that's kind of how how it came up there. And, you know, we had to go through the pains of deconstructing the platform and starting again, you know, granted, we only had like, I think it was under 70 members at that point. So it wasn't horrific to do it. But, you know, then you got to reach out to those seven and go, Hey, by the way, you know, can we get you to put your information back in this database? Yeah. Because we've destroyed the other one. And it's gone. And that's because we have a mailing list that we maintain as well. And so we had all 70 people saying, hey, please come back. Yeah,

J Justin Tolman 42:05

for sure. It's always you start to get that momentum. And it's probably a small panic when all of a sudden it's like, oh, no, like, we got to rebuild. Even if it's small momentum. It's still momentum in the Yeah, I'm sure there was that that bit of panic. But it's evolved, like so much over over the last two years, because I remember when it started, it was a social hub, right? You could post and stuff. But now, is it weekly, about weekly, you have some sort of live stream? You have various guests on there. Plus, there's other like, just recordings and webinars and stuff that happen. I mean, you guys have a lot of diverse content going on it now.

K Kevin DeLong 42:49

Yeah. And that's probably the hardest thing to keep up on is getting content to keep, you know, there's so many, we didn't want to restrict it to just digital forensics, even though that's where it originally started. We're like, okay, hey, let's kind of bring in maybe some cybersecurity folks. Because, you know, there's a lot of crossover and we haven't really cracked that crowd yet. But we have brought in what we've, what we've rebranded to, instead of digital forensics is just digital investigations. Because, you know, there's a lot behind just more than digital forensics, because I don't know about you. But in my lab, if somebody was doing something shady online, I had to go and investigate that too. And little did I know that it was called Osen. at the, at the time, who knew that was the name, we just called looking stuff up at that point, right? They came up with this awesome, cool name with open source intelligence. I'm like, ooh, like that. So we have a little bit of that. But there's some other groups doing like, there's I just went to osmosis Con this year. And I tell you what Cynthia Hetherington and her group with with Osen stuff, holy moly. They're phenomenal. And anyone who really wants to get in, that's where we push them. We just give. So we give the technical side of Osen. Like, there's a lot of Python Software. People don't know how to set up proxies, if they're going to go do investigations online. We try to hey, here's how to set up proxy servers. We'll teach you the nerd part of Osen. And let the real investigative side over there but yeah, I mean, it's really evolved to I think we're up I think we're at as of today was about 2600 members and then people that signed up for our mailing list where it I think we're just crossed over 15,000 examiner's that are staying in touch with you know, they want our information, why they haven't committed to to come in and see the conversations. I think people are still, you know, skeptical, the whole online thing, but you know, it's one One thing, you know, obviously, with law enforcement background I've committed and I committed early, we will never, ever give away or sell your information that you've signed up with. It's just not going to happen. Now, here's my disclaimer, I always kind of making just, if someone cop comes in offers me a couple million dollars to buy the thing, that'd be like, Hey, sorry, I'm selling. vago but no, I'm having too much fun doing it. But so yeah, I mean, you know, information safe, and we've grown so much. And like you said, we do a weekly podcast, which I think you've been on that before. I know you've been on some some webinars that we've we've done, for sure. And now I gotta get you back on on hub cast to have some fun chats and stuff. Let's see what shenanigans we should just call it the shenanigans or something that episode. There you go. And because I know that your word shenanigans shenanigans, Justin word, whenever I hear that word, I think of Justin, that's, that's his word. And, yeah, I mean, we have articles that independent researchers will will will post up there, we try to keep a reference of a lot of things going on in the industry. You know, if we here have a conference coming up, we put it in the events section, any open source tools, or just a tool section in general. Now, there's some other great websites that keep track of tools and training, and we're not trying to take over what they're doing. But again, we just want to be a good resource to really give back to the community. That's, that's the, that's the end goal.

J Justin Tolman 46:36

And I and I think, you know, coming back to what you said, you're, you're in this, you get in you have this artifact, you don't know what it is, where do you go. And now, like you said, the industry has changed so much, even since I was in it, but doing active investigations, but it's nice to have a place where you can go in and bounce legit questions off of and there's 2600 people in there, then, you know, with their powers combined can probably work something out there. And I tune into the, the live streams as much as I can. And they're always so cool, because they're, they're just whether it's a new tool, a new piece of hardware, a new process, a new way of looking at things. It just shows how quickly the the industry changes, and you kind of get this live this up to date, hey, this is something new, this is a problem, becausnew problem are going to see an old problem under a new lens. And I think cyber social hub is really presenting that you know, forward in an easy to digest manner. You know, and that's what's

K Kevin DeLong 47:49

and I appreciate that. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. I, I always kind of call the show the the late night, the really bad late night talk show hosts we do in the middle of the day, for the long descriptive title of what it is and because you know the format's just that we just we just have fun if you know, somebody wants to say something crazy, or has some some funny story to tell about somebody else, by all means please do it. Because you know, and that's what people have this stigma about digital forensics, that we're all nerds and pencil protectors. I don't I've never owned a pencil protector in my life. So there we go. So, you know, maybe you can call us Star Wars and Lord of the Rings nerds because I know your fan also. Both. That's fine. We'll take that because for you, I wore my my wet water and nice shirt today. So but yeah, I mean, it's again, just to kind of bring that human side to, to digital investigations and to let people realize that, hey, everyone has issues. Everyone says problems digging through this stuff. Just stay with it. There's an answer out there somewhere. And heck, if nobody has the answer, you're in a good position to write a really great research paper. To figure it out at that point,

J Justin Tolman 49:11

what what I think is a good indication of the, of the success of the, the the live streams is when you jump on the you host them through YouTube, or at least you pump them through YouTube. And there's actually like a chat that happens in the comments. There's questions and that's usually the hardest thing I find with any sort of live or recorded media, whatever is getting that engagement. And it's always fun talking with the other people watching. Even in the chat. You're like oh, that's a way to do that. Or it's it's shenanigans to use my word there. Yeah. And yeah, it's in a lot of fun stuff. So I think that's one of my favorite parts is always getting in and having the chat up, which is kind of a funny thing. In YouTube and having the chat up usually doesn't go well together. But I find it I find it fun. And it

K Kevin DeLong 50:08

there's a lot of heckling that goes on to if somebody knows someone else and man, if we find something else out about you that we can just it's a it's a fun if you find that little chink in the armor, we just poke at it. So yeah, if you're soft skinned, don't don't. Don't ever come on the show. I don't want to make anyone cry.

J Justin Tolman 50:26

Well, speaking of coming on the show, so that was one thing if we rewind, was it Myrtle Beach the first time you'd set up your podcast setup at Tech? No.

K Kevin DeLong 50:35

Yeah, that was our first. Yeah, event that we've done, which was awesome. So I've been trying to get them to do it for a few years. Before that. It was a lot of it was in jest, you know, I, because I didn't know how in the world we'd ever do that. And, and then one year, Jennifer and Alison, two awesome people, if you've never been to tech know, that just they, they're our contact people for the shows. And they're just the best people ever. And she said, I hate we're just, we're just going to do it. Just come down, we'll do it. We'll set you up in the reception area. And just bring what you need. I said, Well, you know, I said, I don't know, how big of an area I'm going to need. I said there's a lot of equipment, we have these, these cameras. And we have microphones and then lighting systems and everything else since us. Yeah, well, plenty room come on down and just do your broadcast. So we did it just this this past spring, which was in was it? April, May, it was May of 2022 was our first one. And man that was so much fun. We would literally just go and snatch people up and and have conversations, right? Like live at the show our people are walking by so everything could have gone wrong, you know, depending on on someone's mood. But no, it went really well. And that was that was a lot of fun. To to do, because you got to because as you mentioned, we try to grab all the latest trends. And if we'd see a good talk or something interesting going on, I'd go try to grab that person. I got total, no a lot of time that this show, right? Because, you know, not a lot of people don't have an ideal SEAL who cyber social hobbyists. And there's one. Yeah, no, I'm not gonna go on some crazy podcast with you. But no, we had a lot of a lot of fun people on

J Justin Tolman 52:36

now, I liked it, because I sat down with you for one of the mornings. And it was it added a different environment because there was the people walking by and they'd yell at you. And so then there was a couple times with me and with some of your other guests where you're kind of talking to people, and they're like, Oh, they're yelling at us or something. And kind of added that a really cool thing. While still like you said, it's so cool, because you've got vendors that are presenting their new stuff. You've got the open source and tech enthusiast presenting their newest research and stuff. So you can just grab them pull them in, and kind of present that. At least a part of it to those that couldn't make it to the conference. Definitely not a replacement for the conference. Now, like you said, Jennifer, nails the conferences just got back from San Diego a little bit ago texted Diego. Yeah. And you guys were there. You had your own drilling. Booth. You had your own young Yeah, action.

K Kevin DeLong 53:37

They were brave enough. Now they realized, okay, these guys are safe. They're okay to come to come and do a broadcast. And they put us in the showroom with everyone else with every other vendor. We were jammed in there with everyone. I think you guys were a row or so over. Yeah. And man, that was fun. You guys. You guys did one of these from there too, right? Yeah, we recorded a show. I Yeah. Cuz I walked by to talk to you. And it took my brain for some reason, like a second to realize that. Oh, he's recording I don't want to like come up and like, you know, say something that's inappropriate for being on the air which I'm known to do occasion. Oh, yeah.

J Justin Tolman 54:15

No, I am. It was funny. I was talking to Lynn and and then I tell her every time I'm like, I can't hang out with Kevin. Because every time I come back from hanging out with Kevin, I'm writing an email to my boss about I need more gear and this gear and this update and whatever I have podcast gear in the every time we connect your your setup, so slick minds getting their minds getting there, but

K Kevin DeLong 54:42

you're just pretty sweet is pretty sweet.

J Justin Tolman 54:45

I it's just but every time I see yours, I'm like, Okay, we need need. We need new mics.

K Kevin DeLong 54:51

And I got to do a shout out again to Lynn who was in intro and she was one of my favorite people at access data. She was there when when I work there too. So I had a chance to meet her a few times prior to here, but yeah, she's she's awesome. So yeah, awesome. So yeah. She's not the one that buys your equipment, though, right? What was that? Because she is she the one that buys your equipment? Nope, nope. All right, well, I'm trying to butter her up for that. So I still mean that lens, one of my favorite people.

J Justin Tolman 55:22

She helps me beg for it. So it's good to have her team. So the last thing I wanted to ask you about is what are some of the things just kind of the the trends that you're seeing? Because, again, your whole your whole kind of thing right now is, is having your finger on the pulse of the of the forensic industry? So what are some of the things that you're seeing in trends, the way you think the forensic industry, technology, workflows, etc, are going?

K Kevin DeLong 55:55

Yeah, in? Well, you know, you know, we've always kind of compared forensics to like this tree, kind of like the family tree, essentially, you know, where you have the term forensics as the the main trunk coming up. And then the offshoots of mobile cloud, which grew out, you know, it's a little bit of a smaller branches, and then you network forensics, and then you get the standard dead box, and then live. And then all of this other stuff, there's so many branches, this tree is this tree, if it was real, it's got to be the ugliest tree, ever, just the way it's formed. And it looks. But really what we're seeing now in the industry, and it might be just my own unique perspective of it, as well as kind of a merging between the intelligence folks or the information, folks. And again, the term OSA is you get those folks over there. And then you get the forensics guys over here. Because in forensics, you find artifacts, and you find proof of something that exists in data, right, but then making sense of that data and bringing it over to a real world type scenario, you're really pulling out pieces of, of intelligence, whether you're doing it for law stand, to build that case, when you're finding this information. And that's flowing over to the people that are building that bigger picture of maybe something that you're not involved in, maybe there's a more of a social thing going on, or, you know, you know, some other information that's that, that was looking for, to help put together that bigger piece. So I see Osen is probably the skyrocket right now. As large as it's becoming going as fast as it's growing, which is really surprising to me, and how closely the two fields relate. Because they could definitely use the information that we come up with, out of out of a hard drive or a phone, or network, wherever it is. And we can definitely use the information they locate out in on the internet, in libraries, historical historical records, property records, to help just build that solid case with digital information, because Olson is a little bit more than than digital, as you know, that, you know, they they go off. Yeah, you know, everything else, but a lot of it is digital tech, I would say. And I'm guessing here, but I'm gonna say like 80% of its digital related and there's a small 20% That's not and that's really where, where I see it, hitting, you know, you're gonna see the latest, this or that. And from from various folks. And, you know, it probably is within a certain space. But again, our perspective, from what we're seeing is that merging of those two disciplines to get that bigger picture of what happened, right, putting all the facts together. I know, that's kind of a weird answer. And I don't know that too many people are talking about that right now. So I'm gonna say first, there you go. But anyway, that's really I think we're getting down to especially with, you know, you look at the climate, you know, again, no, no politics, but just look in the climate of the political stuff. There's data. Right. Now, I'm not saying whether voting machines were right or wrong. I don't want any opinion on it. But there was data there. And then there was opinion, and then there was other facts. And if you look at just those situations, right, and you take the raw data, and you take the other information that people were searching for, it's essentially an Osen and a forensic grab, that are coming together to help put that bigger picture and, and we're going to see it on a large scale. We're already seeing it in Ukraine, right people collecting data, and it's forensic data. out there through social media grabs, reviewing, uh, suspects box phone. And they're correlating that with things that are happening on the ground. So with live scenes and and things like that. So I know one company has come up with a way that they were determining, excuse me troop movements based off of images from from cell phones, which they had to get the image from cell phones. Plus they put them together with some OCR and tracking capabilities, and locating geolocation and boom, they could put troop movements together. So I know on the local law enforcement that doesn't mean diddly to them, they don't care. But now start thinking, you know, incidents in in parks, right, that that may be unrest there, you might need to put some intelligence together based off of some physical stuff that you found. So anyway, I won't rant on about it. But that's really where I see it launching Fast and Furious in the next few years is the merging of those disciplines. And I'm seeing a lot of course, AI has been in, in our talks in our circles for a long time. People always say, hey, AI in forensics has no place. You know, if you watch movies, like, I think the movie was called AI and there was one called What was that one called? The robot named? Ava. My machine...

J Justin Tolman 1:01:25

What was it called? It's not Terminator, is it?

K Kevin DeLong 1:01:29

No, no, that's another one that scares me to death. Right? I'm scared of my toaster killing me in because there may be one in the room here that I don't want to set her off. But in realize how stupid AI can be, you know? Yeah. But it does a really good job and other things. In the areas that we're seeing, too, are deep fakes. There was a session at this last conference I was at on deep fakes. And it was showing the merging of technologies and how some digital forensic software is able to detect on whether something's a fake or not. And the misinformation that that's saying so there was like videos of Obama. Putin, I learned I didn't I didn't know this. There's a whole channel on Instagram. that's dedicated to a fake Tom Cruise. Did you know this? He is He is generated, fake Tom Cruise. And man, it looks real. I would I would have looked in gone. Really, he just said that. It's like it's completely fake. But there was some high level, former CIA and intelligence folks at this last conference, talking about the merges of those two pieces of information. And again, that's the whole forensic intelligence coming together. And it's going to be it's going to be fun. It's really interesting to see. And they're using AI to kind of help on two fronts. They're using it to create that technology. And then the second one is using it to detect that type as well. I posted a cool video on deep fakes in cyber social hub. It's in the main thread. Yep. If you get a chance, watch it, it will. It will scare the crap out of you for generations to come. So there you go. So anyway, there's where I see it going.

J Justin Tolman 1:03:22

That's so cool. So first off on the deep fakes, I stumbled across a video where they've deep fake Gandalf, L. Ron and Boromir. And they do reviews of all the Rings of Power episodes. It's hilarious to send me that link, I'll send you a link, I'll send you a link.

K Kevin DeLong 1:03:36

It's Oh, yeah, please do.

J Justin Tolman 1:03:37

It's classic. Okay, so but one of the things that I love about the trends that you're seeing is that they mirror the trends of society, like, I think more so than ever, our physical lives and our digital lives are meshing. And I know that, oh, the internet's been around for a long time and Cloud has been, but it's truly becoming a mesh. Now, to your point where, like, oh, I want to go to a place you use digital maps. You know, you store all your data in a cloud, we communicate here in that and we sync our health information. And we all this sort of stuff, this open source stuff with the social media, and I was just watching a thing to your point where it was a Russian training video. And these guys, we're like, Where was this? Where they're recruiting prisoners or whatever. And where was they and they were able to isolate what prison in what courtyard it was in based on the background. So much of our life is videotaped, audio recorded, stored in line that the division there so I totally see where the forensics industry is now moving that same way. It's no longer separate because our lives are no longer separate. They've got to come come together. They've got a mesh, right. And we're seeing that as a demand from our Internet Crimes Against Children units as well, they have cyber tips that come from the cloud that says, hey, we think we found this thing. And then they've got to go out to a home or business, whatever and look for that thing. And right now, they're kind of very separate things. sort of from social media. And then here, have you talked to semantics 21, before a company out of Canada,

K Kevin DeLong 1:05:34

I happen to have a business card from them. Their name here, right? Yes.

J Justin Tolman 1:05:40

So their company's AI, I sat down with him, I recorded an episode with him. And he talks heavily about the application of AI and forensics, I think you should get a hold of him. Cool, dude, and talks about where AI is good. And for forensics and what it does not do. And it's a really cool thing. And so yeah, AI absolutely has a place in our investigations.

K Kevin DeLong 1:06:08

Totally cool. Because he showed me that that platform, and I was blown away. I was like, I gotta get you on one of the shows, because I'm like, nerded out completely. And yeah, it was it was. Yeah, guys, go check it out. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Well, I can't even speak on it. It's so it's so up there and advanced. It's just It amazes me. It blew me away. But like, if you ever seen the series, I think it's on HBO though. Called Westworld?

J Justin Tolman 1:06:33

I'm Yeah, I know what it is.

K Kevin DeLong 1:06:35

So I've watched I'm in season three, and so a little slow. But the other season is about AI essentially robots, right? And then and then I won't do too many spoilers here. But eventually what it's what they tried to do is it's it's a form of data and real world. Consequences. That's coming together. And again, it's just AI wanting to take over the world, essentially. But every every show, you know, that should that should tell us something as a society has I ever showed a show that's like AI? Is the solving all of our problem? No. All of it ends with the world getting wiped out. I mean, look at the matrix, we'll be living in bubbles and with metal tubes in us right, serving the master overlord. Anyway.

J Justin Tolman 1:07:19

For sure. So, Kevin, thanks again. I want to know one last thing. Are you sure How was andorre for you? You've been watching

K Kevin DeLong 1:07:28

You know what? It is so different from the rest of the star whirls world that I actually kind of like it. It's a lot of character building. So if people are used to, and they will say say you're a person who just watches Star Wars for lightsabers and you know people getting shot at it, maybe endorse not for you. But there's a lot of character building in this is pre New Hope. Yeah. And man i I'm into it is a little slow sometimes even for me. Yeah. But they're doing some really good character building. What What's your thoughts on it?

J Justin Tolman 1:08:04

That's my thing. I have never been so pulled in, by character development in a Star Wars media, as I haven't and or like, like you said, it's, it's wasteful. And that takes some adjustment. But once you're in it, you want like, like, I think the new episodes out today. Like it's like, Okay, I gotta get the wife. We gotta go watch the new one. Because you just want to know where it's going. So

K Kevin DeLong 1:08:28

Yeah, I know, my staffs already watched it. And I said, No, no talking about it. They get up like early before work even starts to watch it like, oh, yeah, don't ruin it for me. Don't worry. I'll be watching that one later on.

J Justin Tolman 1:08:39

Cool. Cool. Well, Kevin, thanks. Again, cyber social hub. If you're if you're listening to this, you're not signed up. You need to go sign up. There's a lot of good discussions there free on a bunch of other stuff. It's totally free. Yep. And the content comes out that Kevin and guest generate weekly, if not, depending on what's going on more than weekly. And so a lot of good stuff there.

K Kevin DeLong 1:09:03

Awesome. Justin, thanks so much for having me on. Man. I really appreciate it's been fun. And now it's your turn to be the victim. So we'll get you on one of our hub casts. You'll see Justin on that weekly content. All right,

J Justin Tolman 1:09:15

Cool. Thank you, Kevin. Hey, thank you.