Online IT degree recommendations?

[myth]

Well, I'm learning a lot of random information here. Most interesting are everyone's IT-related backgrounds (with the winner being lao tzu). And I appreciate the suggestions. To be clear, I'm not planning to move into IT (well, necessarily). The position I'm targeting is digital forensics, specifically within law enforcement. People filling this role enter through two pathways:

(1) Law enforcement: Some agencies take LEOs and send them to advanced training to do it. Essentially, they're teaching cops some IT skills. This can vary a lot by agency and/or position. At the basic level it's seizing and packaging digital devices, then using tools to do data extractions. Other agencies are training cops to do some pretty fancy stuff.

(2) IT professionals: Some agencies hire civilians with IT backgrounds, send them through more specific training and arrive at the same place as the most highly trained cops (and let's be honest, the IT guys usually know their stuff better than the badge-holders).

I'm just wanting to learn more and see how far I want to take it. I found one school that seems interesting - Western Governor's University. But it's much more effort or money than I'm willing to dump into it at this point. I'm also looking for brick and mortar (probably community college level) schools offering AS degrees in IT, so I can price it out and see what my options are. For now, I may just study and go after the A+ certification. As long as I'm not investing too much money into, I don't care if I never use it. I just can't keep my day job and also get experience in IT very rapidly, so I'm left with training.

[Juvenal]

Wow. I'm compressed! That was even fun to read!

My thesis advisor was an NSA panelist on the side, or maybe it was the other way around. She brought in one of their guys as a visiting professor on her IC grants. Dudeman wouldn't even talk to me about the architecture of an experimental I was actually running — the Connection Machine, one of the first massively parallel processors, built on a hypercube! uber cool — because he'd been briefed on it in a classified setting.

I thought about that, hard, because of the money, and then decided maybe that wasn't for me.

But some of the things they poured money into left all of us, including her, scratching our heads.

Most of us thought finite projective planes were awesome, but no one has ever figured out how to build one that couldn't be mapped back to one of the prime power Galois fields, orders 2, 4, 8, 16 .... 3, 9, 27, 81 ... on like that. But there's no particularly good reason why they should have to be.

There's a tiny little space in there where a projective plane of order 10 could live. Projective planes of order n are n+1-subspaces living it up in n^2+n+1 space, for order 10 that's an 11-D space hiding somewhere inside 121-D, and I knew this guy who wanted to find it by doing an exhaustive search, yeah, in 121-D, amongst 2^121 vectors, the ultimate trial and error run. Getting clever about it, he was able to bring down the complexity to where it could be done on an experimental.

NSA paid for it all. Nobody could ever figure out why.


Folks on my friends list can see my profile pic. The guy who did the search is in the white shirt talking to me, while my thesis advisor is sitting on a low garden wall talking to John Conway, the go-to infinite dimensions wizard when math writers need an expert in the popular press, and the guy who found the last of the "primes" of group theory to us math geeks. That was a national conference. He was a keynote speaker. He's wearing shorts and flip-flops. That's why I love pure math.

I built my billion-mirror disco using four of the order 8s and their duality clones to bring it up to 36-D, with an extension in 73-D that acted like a wedding ring for all of them. Most of them collapsed as the planes ripped each other apart, but a tiny few ... my thesis advisor was only interested in the fact they were also (73,36,16) designs, just 1-D fatter than the then-mythical-but-since-discovered (72, 36, 16) holy grail of symmetric design theorists at the time.

But, but, but ... a billion mirrors!

Eric Lander was originally a symmetric design theorist, and later lead researcher for the human genome project. I built my disco starting with bricks and mortar from his Symmetric Designs. Kind of a hero of mine.

[Juvenal]

I found one school that seems interesting - Western Governor's University.

That's a legit program, regionally accredited, granting degrees that will be recognized anywhere.

But what you're talking about, digital forensics, is a specialty, and these programs pump out generalists. My recommendation is the same as I'd give anyone thinking about a law degree. Get a job in a law office, and if your boss is willing to pay for it, do it. If there's someone in your department doing that kind of work, you could do a lot worse than asking them out for lunch.

[myth]

That's a legit program, regionally accredited, granting degrees that will be recognized anywhere.

But what you're talking about, digital forensics, is a specialty, and these programs pump out generalists. My recommendation is the same as I'd give anyone thinking about a law degree. Get a job in a law office, and if your boss is willing to pay for it, do it. If there's someone in your department doing that kind of work, you could do a lot worse than asking them out for lunch.

We have no one in-house that does it at that level. I'm the most technically-oriented person we employ outside of the actual IT department, which doesn't handle any digital forensics. I do know someone that works elsewhere, has a boat-load of certifications and does exactly this niche role. I'll be seeking their advice too, of course.

And I'm also pursuing training through work...but there are obstacles to overcome in that regard.

I also pursue learning new stuff just for the sake of learning it. It's about half the reason I finished my bachelor's degree. Did it while working full-time because I just wanted to, I was bored, and I found a way to finish it cheaply and fit it in with my work schedule. So getting A+, Network+, or Security+ and/or an associate's degree doesn't really concern me regarding time invested, I just have limited financial resources (cause, you know...cops make so much money).

Thanks for the input, all.

[Sparko]

Yeah, you actually have to have an aptitude for troubleshooting, and you don't learn that in a classroom. It's not just 'knowing things', it's knowing what to do with what you know, and being able to track down causes.

You mean "google?"

[Sparko]

Well, I'm learning a lot of random information here. Most interesting are everyone's IT-related backgrounds (with the winner being lao tzu). And I appreciate the suggestions. To be clear, I'm not planning to move into IT (well, necessarily). The position I'm targeting is digital forensics, specifically within law enforcement. People filling this role enter through two pathways:

(1) Law enforcement: Some agencies take LEOs and send them to advanced training to do it. Essentially, they're teaching cops some IT skills. This can vary a lot by agency and/or position. At the basic level it's seizing and packaging digital devices, then using tools to do data extractions. Other agencies are training cops to do some pretty fancy stuff.

(2) IT professionals: Some agencies hire civilians with IT backgrounds, send them through more specific training and arrive at the same place as the most highly trained cops (and let's be honest, the IT guys usually know their stuff better than the badge-holders).

I'm just wanting to learn more and see how far I want to take it. I found one school that seems interesting - Western Governor's University. But it's much more effort or money than I'm willing to dump into it at this point. I'm also looking for brick and mortar (probably community college level) schools offering AS degrees in IT, so I can price it out and see what my options are. For now, I may just study and go after the A+ certification. As long as I'm not investing too much money into, I don't care if I never use it. I just can't keep my day job and also get experience in IT very rapidly, so I'm left with training.

I work in Litigation Support at a law firm. We don't do digital forensics ourselves most of the time, but we work with outside companies that do it. Mostly gathering information forensically from clients for data productions (gathering emails and files from their servers based on subpoenas and information requests) - once the data is gathered, I take it and put it on a review platform that the lawyers will sift through to find relevant data and mark it, then I take that and make a production to send out to the other side. And reverse for data received from the other side. I also do general IT in house, helping with mostly multimedia (video, powerpoints, trial exhibits, etc)

[Cow Poke]

You mean "google?"

Actually, I used that a LOT. I had a case once where nobody could print to an HP laserjet, but they could before. I asked when they first noticed they couldn't print, and they gave me a date. I asked if there was anything else that happened on that day regarding their computers, and they said 'no, nothing at all'. I asked, "any software updates?" One of the ladies said, "Well, I upgraded Peachtree accounting on my computer, but I was able to print the rest of the day".

I Googled it, and found, in fact, that an upgrade to a particular version of Peachtree caused a loss of printer connection after reboot - so - the following morning! I temporarily disconnected her computer from the network, and everybody else was able to print.

So, yeah... I figure that the chances are pretty small that I'm the first guy on the planet to encounter every problem.

[Bill the Cat]

Well, I'm learning a lot of random information here. Most interesting are everyone's IT-related backgrounds (with the winner being lao tzu).

I can't even tell you what I do now...

[Cow Poke]

I can't even tell you what I do now...

Memory has gotten that bad, eh?

[Bill the Cat]

Memory has gotten that bad, eh?

secret_squirrel.jpg

[Cow Poke]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]26779[/ATTACH]

I know.

[Cow Poke]

Reminds me of the expression "The secrecy of my job prevents me from knowing what I am doing".

[Sparko]

Actually, I used that a LOT. I had a case once where nobody could print to an HP laserjet, but they could before. I asked when they first noticed they couldn't print, and they gave me a date. I asked if there was anything else that happened on that day regarding their computers, and they said 'no, nothing at all'. I asked, "any software updates?" One of the ladies said, "Well, I upgraded Peachtree accounting on my computer, but I was able to print the rest of the day".

I Googled it, and found, in fact, that an upgrade to a particular version of Peachtree caused a loss of printer connection after reboot - so - the following morning! I temporarily disconnected her computer from the network, and everybody else was able to print.

So, yeah... I figure that the chances are pretty small that I'm the first guy on the planet to encounter every problem.

Yeah, most of IT is knowing how to narrow down the problem and the best way to google for the answer. The rest is pretty much trial and error or handing it off to somebody else. Oh and turning it off and on again.

[Cow Poke]

Yeah, most of IT is knowing how to narrow down the problem and the best way to google for the answer. The rest is pretty much trial and error or handing it off to somebody else. Oh and turning it off and on again.

I think one of my favorite "troubleshooting" things was way back in my younger days with I worked in the "text editor" division of Lanier Business products - those big all-in-one computers with the big 6 1/2 floppy disks...

lanier.jpg

First National Bank of Corsicana Texas had bought 7 of them - quite expensive back in the day - and was having a problem with them rebooting all by themselves. Several other technicians had been out there, swapping boards, changing power supplies, etc, and the president of the bank was getting pretty angry. He called the company (we were based in Tyler) and said "do not send any of those idiots back here - send me somebody who can FIX these things!"

So, the boss called me in his office - even though I was fairly new and that wasn't my territory - and he said "you just have to show up, and try to calm things down - we're working on a fix, but we don't have one yet".

So, I went to Corsicana, and asked to speak to the office manager. I explained that I would like to hear the whole story from the start - pretend nobody else had been there, and let's see if we can figure out what's happening. She said, "well, that's new". I asked "what's new" and she said - everybody else just comes in here and opens the machines and replaces parts - nobody ever talks to us!

So, I asked, "OK, what can you tell me - I mean - you must have some suspicions or ideas of your own..." She said, "well, you're going to think this is nutty...." I said "nothing's nutty - tell me what's on your mind".

She said, "well, it really seems to happen about 10:30 to 11 AM, and only on days that are really hot. Since summer has started, it happens a lot more. I asked "is the room temperature different?" She said "no, that's what's strange - the room is constantly 72 degrees".

So, I went downstairs and asked for the building maintenance guy (FNB is one of Corcisana's "sky scrapers" ) They pointed him out to me, and I asked him, "is there anything going on in the building about 10:30 to 11 AM, particularly on hot days?"

He said, "well, hell yeah!" He explained that they had a computer that managed all the air conditioning units, making sure that they didn't start up at the same time, but that computer was dead, and they were waiting for parts. So, when it starts to get hot, all of the units start powering up at the same time, causing some brown-outs in the building.

Bingo!

I went to an electronics supply store, and bought some heavy duty power filters, and plugged the "no problem typewriters" into them, and never even opened my toolkit. A couple days later, the president of the bank called the office and said, "don't ever send anybody else here but 'that guy' who solved the problem".

All I did was ask questions and listen!

[Cow Poke]

I think one of my favorite "troubleshooting" things was way back in my younger days with I worked in the "text editor" division of Lanier Business products - those big all-in-one computers with the big 6 1/2 floppy disks...

I take that back - they were 8" floppies, and they're still available for purchase!

no problem typing.jpgf3bcf8_651ea383b4c246a98decca6c15de3b03~mv2_d_1721_1665_s_2.jpg