What do you do for a crust?

well im sure that most of you are people (i hope) and at some stage during our lives we have to work. That made me wonder what do you guys do for a living? Are you all programmers, office workers, etc.

We'll to get started, I work for SiteCubed.com with Mitchell and the other guys. I help manage the sites you see before you, as well as support for our products and programming new products/updates. As well as that, I also write articles and do odd jobs.

Please let me know what you do for a "crust"...?

hmm.....what do I do? There's a question I get asked a lot.... it varies depending on who's asking...!! ;-)

my mum says "matt does nothing but sit on his bl**dy computer all day and doesnt help around the house"

when some lovely ladies ask me, I reply "I own a web development solutions company" ..... which always goes down well... pitty they dont hey?!! eheh!!!

As for the reality..... I get up, go to my computer and make websites / help with other websites for people... I am currently helping a client (www.fassbex.com) organise a conference he's holding in march.... so that's something different.... the trouble is I need to learn all about Financial Shared Services and other stuff!!

...my parents keep saying to me "get a proper job"........ one day..... one day.

I am a full time graduate student at my university. I teach two courses of CS 101 there as well, and then I work part-time at an ISP. Keeps me busy. Ben, you guys work full time for SiteCubed.com? I thought you guys worked full time at separate places and then got together after that to work on devarticles stuff . . . and then never slept.

Nup, we work on SiteCubed full time. but we still dont sleep. Well at least i havent slept for the last 2 days, just working etc. But i enjoy my job so its all cool

my ultimate job would be the guy who gets to screen movies to assign them a rating....

I bet they get to see some really wierd things..... I just think it would be cool to see all the movies before they are released ANYwhere.... and to get to decide if anyone can see them!!

...just a thought!!

that or the manchester united mascott........ "fred the red".... that'd be frikkin quality!!

At first I worked as a student in Swinburne Uni (Melbourne) before I passed all my exams (pheew!) and being officially fired from it as a holder of Marketing and management degree (whatever that means....)

I worked for a computer store who can't pay too much... ($10 per hour) for marketing job initially but I was asked to maintain their site... in which I didn't know anything about... So, I had to read up and found PHP... and now, I am doing my own business buliding websites for people.

I'm actually a student right now as well.. I work for a telecommunications company for wireless phones while I go to school.. it's all good for me because they pay me back for my schooling

I'm double majoring in Network Information Technology as well as Criminal Justice.. one day I want to do data forensics for the Feds..

Nicat23,

That's an amazing field to get into... I read an article about a month ago in a local computer paper (Toronto Computes) about computer forensics... It sounds like an amazing job!

Have you read up on it at all?

Sorry, kinda OT:

nicat23 - Once your done with your course, perhaps you could explain to me how the Feds can get files off a HDD that you've since written over, then formatted. Apparently they have tool that can do it? I don't understand how it's possible and would to know how it's done.

stumpy: it's very easy... the software that is used to "Format" a drive actually does not wipe the information... it is just a pointer for the operating system saying that you can use this portion of the drive to write on.. it doesn't erase anything

and there are some instances where the drives have been burned in a fire, that you can actually recover information from, because while the drive cannot read because the heads are all burnt to crap, the information is still there and can still be analized <sp?> by reading the magnetics on the platter.. There is commercial software out there that lets you recover infromation from formatted drives called easyrecover pro... its quite interesting stuff

And there is some software that the US government uses called Encase that does case by case analysis of the drive to gather all of the pictures that have been on the machine, url history <Yes, when you clear your history it really isnt gone> or whatever type of file they are searching for... because when you wipe a file.. it says you can use this portion of the disk to write to... well.. when you write another file to that section of the drive, it doesn't ever use all of that sector again, so there is always a footprint, or a fingerprint of what kind of file was there previously... so even if you low level format the drive <The head comes down and actually scratches the surface of the platter> it is still recoverable.. the only way that you couldn't get data from it is if the platter was melted completely..

And Frankie: Yeah, I have read up on it.. my dad worked for the local government here in texas and showed me some of the stuff that he learned on his training about data fo21re0nsic <sorry, the cat said hi> forensics.. hes the one that turned me onto this field actually

Yeah - I know about normal file deletion and formatting, but I've heard that in the forensic data recovery world, there is some software that can recover files off a disk that has been filled with zero's (the whole drive)? i.e. the original data has been written over.

Apparently the only way to fully secure a drive is to write the entire drive with zero's and one's in alternating patterns, at least 6 times!

It seems that the magnetic platter leaves some kind of footprint, even though new data is on top of the file. Interesting stuff. Anyone got a physics degree here?

Yeah, the Department of defense standard for wiping a drive is to wipe it with all zeros, all ones, and random data. each in the very minimum 6 times

the best way to format a hd is formatting it several times, then filling it up with 0 & 1's several times, then put ur hd in the oven for 10 min, then in the freezer (this re-aligns the heads from the heat).

Don't laught tho, as it does work.

Defence has a policy of detroying any Hard Drive with sensitive data if it is to be removed from its secure area.

I've put sledge hammers through many a Hard Drive in my time... its a big company... they can afford it!

any one else care to tell us what they do?

how would a small stick of C4 placed on the HD do? Would the resulting explosion guarantee destruction of the data?

I saw this thing on A&E about the FBI HQ and how they have this huge forge at the basement that they use to destroy all the files & documents that get put in the trash. Would a HD getting incinerated at high heat work? Interesting stuff this data forensic is...