2015-05-29 From the Toolbox - BitCurator Digital Forensics workshop

Friday 29 May, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Vienna

Register

Registration is open at: http://opf-fromthetoolbox-bitcurator-digitalforensics.eventbrite.co.uk.

OPF members are invited to attend free of charge. The price for non-members is 75 Euros.

Overview

This one-day workshop offers the opportunity to learn how digital forensics and the use of disk images can support your digital preservation workflows. Supported by expert facilitators Cal Lee and Kam Woods from the University of North Carolina, participants will get hands-on experience using the BitCurator tools including the latest developments with BitCurator Access. The BitCurator Environment is a suite of open source digital forensics and data analysis tools to help collecting institutions (libraries, archives, and museums) process and provide access to born-digital materials. Demonstrator content will be available but we also encourage participants to bring disk images from their own collections where possible and these will be used in practical sessions on the day. We suggest that attendees do not bring original media but only images of their media. We will be running a webinar for participants in May to give a basic introduction to BitCurator and to provide support with any installation queries and help also will be available in the evening before the event to ensure that everyone is up to speed and able to make quick progress on the day.

Agenda

Agenda - From the toolbox - BitCurator

Who should attend?

This workshop is intended for archivists, manuscript curators, librarians or others who are responsible for acquiring, transferring and/or providing access collections of born-digital materials, particularly those that are received on removable media. We will assume that participants are familiar with basic digital curation issues and practices.

Though it is not mandatory, participants will ideally know how to create disk images; generate and verify cryptographic hashes of files; and examine the contents of a file in a hex editor. It will also be helpful to understand the role and purpose of filesystems, file headers, and file signatures. Knowledge of Linux command line operations will also be beneficial, but is not a necessary prerequisite to participation. We’ll be on hand to help with tasks, and many of the tools have graphic user interfaces.

Why attend?

Participants will learn about and get experience using BitCurator environment tools that can assist with various aspects of digital curation, including pre-imaging data triage; forensic disk imaging; file system analysis and reporting; identification of private and individually identifying information; and export of technical and other metadata. They will also learn about tools that are currently available but undergoing significant further development for providing access to data from disk images and redacting sensitive content. Participants should leave with a practical understanding of how to apply these tools in their own institutions and with contacts in peer institutions who are undertaking similar work.