I am sixteen years old and have quite a basic computer programming knowledge. I do however love the subject and so am looking forward towards doing a degree in the field. I am interested to know how much background knowledge (if any at all) would be required and recommended to do this. Any suggestions are very much welcome.
Answer
You should speak first to your school counselor or contact someone at a local college or university to see what courses you should take to prepare for a computer science career.
Here are some resources you can try out to help prepare yourself for a career in computer science...
If you want to learn more about computers then you can go to an educational website like Teach ICT because they have a whole bunch of FREE information about computers and also they have video tutorials on how to use applications like Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Flash animation, and etc.:
http://www.teach-ict.com/gcse/gcse_topics.html
Computer Networks:
http://www.networktutorials.info/tutorials.html
Relational Databases and SQL (Structured Query Language):
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Relational-Databases-Examples-Access/dp/1846283949/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
The websites FunctionX and Programmingtutorials have many FREE tutorials for learning about Microsoft Excel and Access, Oracle, C++, Java, SQL, HTML, JavaScript, Website Creation, C#, Visual Basic, etc.
http://www.functionx.com
http://www.programmingtutorials.com/cplusplus.aspx
Learn C++â¦xoax.net is a really good website to learn about C++ because it shows you how to download the FREE Microsoft's version of their Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Visual C++ 2008 Express and use it to create C++ programsâ¦and they also include many video tutorials for learning C++:
http://xoax.net/info/sitemap.php
Learn Java and other information about computers at HowStuffWorks:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/program.htm
You probably will need to take a course in Calculus, Data Structures & Algorithms and Discrete Mathematics:
A good book for learning Calculus is Forgotten Calculus by Barbara Lee Bleau - average price about $12
http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Calculus-Barbara-Ph-D-Bleau/dp/0764119982/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253147496&sr=8-1
The book Sams Teach Yourself Data Structures and Algorithms in 24 Hours by Robert Lafore is good introductory book for learning about Data Structures and Algorithmsâ¦Mr. Lafore has written many good computer books that explain complicated subjects in a way that is pretty easy to understand:
http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Structures-Algorithms-Hours/dp/0672316331/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255179625&sr=1-1
Other good books for learning Computer Algorithms:
Introduction to the Design and Analysis of Algorithms (2nd Edition) by Anany Levitin
Algorithm Design by Jon Kleinberg
You can get these above books from an online store like Amazon.com or your local library may already have these books.
YouTube has a whole bunch of tutorials for Discrete Mathematics and almost anything else you want to LEARN:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0862D1A947252D20&search_query=Discrete+Mathematics
Good luck with your computer science studies and I hope this helps!
You should speak first to your school counselor or contact someone at a local college or university to see what courses you should take to prepare for a computer science career.
Here are some resources you can try out to help prepare yourself for a career in computer science...
If you want to learn more about computers then you can go to an educational website like Teach ICT because they have a whole bunch of FREE information about computers and also they have video tutorials on how to use applications like Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Flash animation, and etc.:
http://www.teach-ict.com/gcse/gcse_topics.html
Computer Networks:
http://www.networktutorials.info/tutorials.html
Relational Databases and SQL (Structured Query Language):
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Relational-Databases-Examples-Access/dp/1846283949/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
The websites FunctionX and Programmingtutorials have many FREE tutorials for learning about Microsoft Excel and Access, Oracle, C++, Java, SQL, HTML, JavaScript, Website Creation, C#, Visual Basic, etc.
http://www.functionx.com
http://www.programmingtutorials.com/cplusplus.aspx
Learn C++â¦xoax.net is a really good website to learn about C++ because it shows you how to download the FREE Microsoft's version of their Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Visual C++ 2008 Express and use it to create C++ programsâ¦and they also include many video tutorials for learning C++:
http://xoax.net/info/sitemap.php
Learn Java and other information about computers at HowStuffWorks:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/program.htm
You probably will need to take a course in Calculus, Data Structures & Algorithms and Discrete Mathematics:
A good book for learning Calculus is Forgotten Calculus by Barbara Lee Bleau - average price about $12
http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Calculus-Barbara-Ph-D-Bleau/dp/0764119982/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253147496&sr=8-1
The book Sams Teach Yourself Data Structures and Algorithms in 24 Hours by Robert Lafore is good introductory book for learning about Data Structures and Algorithmsâ¦Mr. Lafore has written many good computer books that explain complicated subjects in a way that is pretty easy to understand:
http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Yourself-Structures-Algorithms-Hours/dp/0672316331/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255179625&sr=1-1
Other good books for learning Computer Algorithms:
Introduction to the Design and Analysis of Algorithms (2nd Edition) by Anany Levitin
Algorithm Design by Jon Kleinberg
You can get these above books from an online store like Amazon.com or your local library may already have these books.
YouTube has a whole bunch of tutorials for Discrete Mathematics and almost anything else you want to LEARN:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0862D1A947252D20&search_query=Discrete+Mathematics
Good luck with your computer science studies and I hope this helps!
any experts on criminal computer stuff?
Q. I studied an IT course for a couple of years in college, not too long ago. I'm quite in the know about computers, but I'm intrigued as to how the government or police or whoever catch people with dodgy files on their computer (child porn, terrorist info/bomb plans etc.) I mean, obviously just deleting internet history or documents wouldn't work, as even amateurs can get that sort of information back. But what I want to know is, do these officials have special ways of getting to marked or flagged files even if a drive was re-formatted or wiped with magnets, or are the people getting caught just saving things and stupidly thinking no one will catch them? Do specific marked or flagged files maybe get saved to a part of a computer that cant be destroyed i.e. secret black box sort of thing? It's a taboo question and maybe as joe-public I'm not meant to know, but I'm a curious person and it kills me not to know these things :P any genuine knowledge here?
Thanks Shane and Thankie, that's pretty much what I thought too. Though I think it's only files or data of a certain description that get bolted in somewhere so that the criminal cant get rid of them. I cant seem to choose a best answer but thanks! I always get the feeling someone is watching over the internet too... Perhaps I should do a further education course!
Thanks Shane and Thankie, that's pretty much what I thought too. Though I think it's only files or data of a certain description that get bolted in somewhere so that the criminal cant get rid of them. I cant seem to choose a best answer but thanks! I always get the feeling someone is watching over the internet too... Perhaps I should do a further education course!
Answer
This is the basic procedure ignoring a few of the chain of evidence requirements and some other details for keeping data as evidence. We'll keep it fairly simple and just assume there is just police involved but it may be several law enforcement bodies. Also assume that they have the forensics equivalent of the geek squad to collect computer data.
Lets use child porn since it involved something fairly basic. What I'm talking about here is digital images. The most common form would be JPG files. Like any other file type, it has some fairly specific data that defines it as a JPG file. This generic data that all JPG files contain is something you can use to determine if a file fragment is part of an executable or part of a picture. So there is a way to find pieces of digital images even if part of the file is overwritten and there is no directory entry pointing to the fragment. In short, there is software that can search raw hard drive data for picture files. The really nice thing about images is you can use any standard image file to represent child porn for training purposes.
Now, say that someone tips off the local police to child porn posted on the internet anonymously but perhaps not anonymously enough. We could make this difficult and go through a few anonimizer servers, but our criminal just isn't that good with computers. Once they get an IP address, they know they have someone that is probably in their jurisdiction by doing a whois and a reverse DNS lookup. It is almost a trivial matter to obtain the actual address of the person using that IP address at the time with a bit of legal paperwork. Ok, so now they have a physical address and at least the name on the account.
At this point, they carefully plan a raid. Maybe this guy isn't so stupid and he has a doomsday erase program rigged on his computer. So allowing for that, they may first kill the power to the house. Even then it might be a race to yank the computer cord or battery. They'll have proper search warrants to look for things in the house. So now the police have all the computers and any storage media such as CD''s, DVD's, flash drives, and anything else that might store computer info. Now the forensics geek goes to work. Everything has to be copied. There is special software, hardware and programs that do all this in a way that preserves the evidence chain and makes it possible to verify the integrity of the copies with the originals.
When all the copies are finished, then analysis programs are started These programs don't just look at the file names in the directory structure. They look at the raw data on the media. It doesn't matter if it is a CD-RW or a hard drive. So, even though our criminal managed to run his doomsday program, it didn't get to the point where it erased all the picture files. Do a full hard drive overwrite and you'll understand this better.
At this point we throw a monkey wrench into the works. It turns out our child porn guy was an extremely sick individual and really paranoid. So no data was found using normal means. However, hard drives are mechanically just a bit sloppy. Using special techniques that read the data on the edges of the tracks, the erased data is found even though it was overwritten. Thus our criminal gets caught and put in jail. This last bit is why secure overwrites use different patterns and write several times.
If you want the full details, you'll need to pick up some books on computer forensics. Then, even the evidence chain and the basic legal procedures are covered so the judge doesn't toss the evidence out with the computer.
Shadow Wolf
This is the basic procedure ignoring a few of the chain of evidence requirements and some other details for keeping data as evidence. We'll keep it fairly simple and just assume there is just police involved but it may be several law enforcement bodies. Also assume that they have the forensics equivalent of the geek squad to collect computer data.
Lets use child porn since it involved something fairly basic. What I'm talking about here is digital images. The most common form would be JPG files. Like any other file type, it has some fairly specific data that defines it as a JPG file. This generic data that all JPG files contain is something you can use to determine if a file fragment is part of an executable or part of a picture. So there is a way to find pieces of digital images even if part of the file is overwritten and there is no directory entry pointing to the fragment. In short, there is software that can search raw hard drive data for picture files. The really nice thing about images is you can use any standard image file to represent child porn for training purposes.
Now, say that someone tips off the local police to child porn posted on the internet anonymously but perhaps not anonymously enough. We could make this difficult and go through a few anonimizer servers, but our criminal just isn't that good with computers. Once they get an IP address, they know they have someone that is probably in their jurisdiction by doing a whois and a reverse DNS lookup. It is almost a trivial matter to obtain the actual address of the person using that IP address at the time with a bit of legal paperwork. Ok, so now they have a physical address and at least the name on the account.
At this point, they carefully plan a raid. Maybe this guy isn't so stupid and he has a doomsday erase program rigged on his computer. So allowing for that, they may first kill the power to the house. Even then it might be a race to yank the computer cord or battery. They'll have proper search warrants to look for things in the house. So now the police have all the computers and any storage media such as CD''s, DVD's, flash drives, and anything else that might store computer info. Now the forensics geek goes to work. Everything has to be copied. There is special software, hardware and programs that do all this in a way that preserves the evidence chain and makes it possible to verify the integrity of the copies with the originals.
When all the copies are finished, then analysis programs are started These programs don't just look at the file names in the directory structure. They look at the raw data on the media. It doesn't matter if it is a CD-RW or a hard drive. So, even though our criminal managed to run his doomsday program, it didn't get to the point where it erased all the picture files. Do a full hard drive overwrite and you'll understand this better.
At this point we throw a monkey wrench into the works. It turns out our child porn guy was an extremely sick individual and really paranoid. So no data was found using normal means. However, hard drives are mechanically just a bit sloppy. Using special techniques that read the data on the edges of the tracks, the erased data is found even though it was overwritten. Thus our criminal gets caught and put in jail. This last bit is why secure overwrites use different patterns and write several times.
If you want the full details, you'll need to pick up some books on computer forensics. Then, even the evidence chain and the basic legal procedures are covered so the judge doesn't toss the evidence out with the computer.
Shadow Wolf
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