I’m often asked about a computer as a language. Inevitably, for most people their first question is ‘why is it so hard to learn?’. Here is your answer, it isn’t. It just needs to be important to you. There are countless great TED talks about learning new languages. A common theme lies around the notion that if you didn’t ‘grow’ up in the language it’ll be extremely hard to learn. Nonsense. When you were trying to sort out social media so you could update your friends on what you ate that day, you engaged, you learned, you participated. You learned about the various platforms and their pros and cons, the login requirements and how to share your media. You began a new route of joining and connecting with friends and likely the occasional threat actor (another topic).
You ventured down the road of how to choose the right filter for your sautéed noodles, changing angles for perspective and I’m sure you’ve considered ‘how do I make people relate to the smell of the picture?’. Weird, but I do know innovators are close to generating that olfactory experience. Now the example of socials may apply to a younger generation (at least younger than me), so let us hit home to those of you who have a more mature technological history. You young kids won’t understand, but there was a time when your VCR (video cassette recorder, a PVR precursor) came with a considerably large physical booklet that had sections devoted to programming the date and time. Imagine that; the date and time wasn’t set automatically. All the steps of planning weekly TV or sports recording relied on this extremely crucial step. If you never mastered this primitive digital landscape, you were destined to not complete recordings of your favorite sitcom or of the annual Disney specials. Somehow, making this statement to historic broadcasters may leave me vulnerable to illegal recordings lawsuits, but I suspect all my old physical tapes are long gone now.
If you consider your participation in social media and changing ringtones on your phone as achievable, what makes pursuing a career in computer sciences different? Moreover, if you binge watch investigative dramas like CSI, then welcome to digital forensics. Try looking up DFIR (Digital Forensics, Incident Response). As you learn more, you’ll see just how different the roles have developed between DF and IR, but that means you get to choose your own adventure.
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For more information about the FOR308:Digital Forensics Essentials click HERE
Here’s the most important statement I can supply to this topic: It doesn’t matter where you dip your toe in the proverbial cyber pond, you’re bound to get wet. When you consider the notion of growing up with language, it’s very likely that your laptop is within reach of you now. How much more immersive do you need/want to get? Educational tools for creating folders and opening apps are easy to locate on YouTube. Here’s the thing; generally, so are your hard questions about ‘how is my data stored’, ‘should I consider MFA (multi-factor authentication)’ or one I hear a lot now, ‘is my data encrypted at rest?’. Of course, the rabbit hole is immensely deep when it comes to computer questions, which I think is amazing because it means we’re always evolving and growing the language of computers. I assure you though, that if you are able to keep up with the Kardashians, you are able to keep up with security trends for responsible computer use. You just need to want to.
If we didn’t continue to generate new computer language, my concern would be that someday you may never smell the basil on the sandwich I bought at that little café mere blocks away from the Eiffel Tower. Now I will admit, the notion is superfluous to me, I don’t social pictures of my food (or hardly at all), but I don’t need to spend much time researching to know most of you have posted your meal picture…at least once…to somebody. Welcome to the experience. Keep thinking DFIRently.
