- Ulrich Boser
By Ulrich Boser
The Open Case
WASHINGTON — I received an email earlier today from the FBI press office hailing their computer forensics labs.
“A domestic terrorist. A kidnapper. A corrupt politician. An identity thief. These are just of a few of those brought to justice with the help of our Regional Computer Forensics Laboratories,” reads the breathless prose. But if you read the text closely, you wonder what sort of technology the FBI is actually using to catch criminals.
First, there’s the lead picture. Take a close look. While it’s hard to tell for sure, it looks like the FBI agent is examining a computer from the early 1990s. Is that really the type of machine that they analyze on a regular basis?
More importantly, there’s the data on their forensics work over the past year, and according to the FBI, their team examined more than 10,000 floppy disks. That’s remarkable. I mean I haven’t even seen a floppy in five years.
Ulrich Boser is founder of the website The Open Case
And author of the Book The Gardner Heist
