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I love communicating with my readers. Unfortunately, I don’t get nearly as much time as I’d like to do it. Occasionally I have a conversation that I think will have value with other readers and I ask to share those discussions in a public forum. This is one such conversation, dealing with the effects of viewing such things as child porn while performing one’s duties as a forensic investigator. I hope this help helps others, and as always – your feedback is appreciated in the comments below. I read every comment!

Here’s the e-mail chain from my monkey mailbox (chiefmonkey AT gmail.com). Enjoy!

Chief, I have a job interview, for a forensics firm, coming up next week. I know its a good job educationally and financially, but I am worried about the material I will be exposed to. The worst kind of porn. Just a quick background. I finished a 3 year diploma in information security and forensics 3 years ago. After school I took a job with a small law firm in the area doing some security projects and systems administration. The main reason I took the job is because the head of my program at college was working with the lawyer to start an information security company. I was exited to work with my teacher, but in the end it didn’t take off. Last year when the economy took a dive I was laid off. I have been doing random jobs for the last 8 months while trying to find a serious job in the infosec field. Last week a friend from college called me up and asked if I wanted to take a job at the forensics firm he was at. I enjoyed the investigations at school and the few I did after I graduated; so I agreed to an interview. I then found out I would not be working with my college friend as I was interviewing to be his replacement, because he was having issues with the material he was seeing in his investigations. This lead me to asking the question of how I would react. Before finishing school I had wondered about this topic, because I was thinking about doing forensics for law enforcement, though I never come to an answer. I want to do something in my life that makes a difference. I would like to think doing investigations that help convect the guilt and protect the innocent would make it worth it, but I don’t know. So I seek your guidance Chief. In the post Pr0n: The Subject That Keeps On Giving you wrote “Once you are exposed to that material during an investigation, it haunts you for the rest of your life and may even affect your life in ways that you’d never imagined. You start being uncomfortable around young children, you start feeling guilty for no reason other than having to view that garbage during a forensic acquisition, and – well, you just become sad and angry”. With that in mind was it worth it for you? You have had an exiting career doing investigations and security, but would you trade all of it to have not seen some of the things you have seen on the journey? or has the good out weighted the bad? Does it ever stop haunting you? Thanks for taking the time to read about my concerns and for any advice you can give. I know we all will react differentially to these things, but I want to go into it with a informed perspective. ~ Reader



My response:

Hi,



To answer your three questions: Would you trade all of it to have not seen some of the things you have seen on the journey?

I, like others in this field, certainly have days where we probably would trade it all to make it “go away”. There is a vast spectrum of “badness” for this type of material from semi-harmless to mind-blowing evil. To give you an idea of what that scale looks like – if I had to make a scale – it would look something like this (1 being harmless, 10 being OMG):



1) Crawling through financial records and tax statements. *yawn*

2) Crawling through video surveillance. This is time consuming and depending on what crime was committed can be quite disturbing.

3) Discovery of e-mails, deleted attachments, and IM logs. You’d be surprised (and maybe scared) at some of the things that people share when in front of a computer. When they are discussing things like #7 through #10 below it gets even worse.

4) Finding breadcrumbs of people’s posts in facebook, myspace, etc. Most of it is just utter nuttery, but there are some people that like to brag about things they’ve done which is disturbing to read if you have a vivid imagination.

5) Finding sophisticated tracking software on a victim’s computer, and then tracking where the information went, and how it was used. Cyber criminals are just as sick as pervs, except the exploitation revolves around financials and personally sensitive information like medical conditions, relationships, etc.

6) Child-looking adults that dress up like children for sexual adult videos/pictures. These even fool medical doctors when testifying as to the age of the “victim”, which usually lands the perp in jail for child pr0n. Unless the actress comes forward, or an investigator tracks them down – the perp is almost always jailed. (Perfect example right here: http://www.pumpsmag.com/ ladies/lupe-fuente-saves-fan- trip-puerto-rico/ <– warning, the ads may be NSFW)

7) Violence against animals. Tying animals to train tracks, microwaving, drowning, strangulating, shooting, stabbing… sadly this is mostly done by young teens and angry drunks.

8) Violence against women for the sake of being violent. Tying them up, locking them in closets, burning them, rape, sodomy, “sharing” them with other perps, starving them to death – all videotaped or photographed.

9) Sexual exploitation of children, typically related to the perp in some way (daughter, son, niece, nephew, grandchild).

10) Sexual violence against children (from infants to teens) in the worst possible ways. Things you’d never imagine, or inferred from TV, Movies, or Books. Things that you’re pretty sure only probably happened in truly evil people.



Would I trade it? Probably not. I’ve done some great work, and some not so great work. But I’m damn proud of the great work!



…or has the good out weighted the bad?

To be honest, that thought is what kept me going for years and years. A few years ago, I made a decision that I was at a point in my life and career where I honestly didn’t want to do it any longer and starting outsourcing that function. I still make a few exceptions for boring things (like financial investigations and favors to friends), but that’s about it. It’s a sanity thing.



Does it ever stop haunting you?

Computer forensics has taught me two important lessons in life:



1) There are evil, evil, evil people in this world. You can be as optimistic as you like, and embrace Buddhist-like philosophies on the nature and meaning of life, but nothing will prepare you for what you will encounter. You need to put an emotional shield up and focus on the mission at hand, and then try really hard to let it roll off your shoulders. Take pride in the fact that you helped prosecute someone that broke the law, or that you helped free a person that was wrongly accused (my favorite types of cases, all though somewhat rare).



2) That being said, don’t forget that there are wonderful people in this world that try to do the right thing, try to make a difference, and try to make the world a better place. For some of those people to accomplish their mission, they have to have very thick skin, and fuel themselves on the merits of their work. While it may seem sometimes that the good people are outnumbered, I can tell you from my experience that it’s the other way around. The truly evil people are a small subset of the population, and should not cloud your vision of what humanity is.



~ Chief





Post your comments below!

Chief