Stacey Edwards has been a vocal member of Twitter’s #DFIR community (tweeting as @4n6woman) for at least two years, and was part of the original Forensic 4cast episode that started this blog series rolling. She’s contributed to the SANS Computer Forensics Blog, which was well received within the community. Until recently employed in the private sector,…
Author Archives: christammiller
Forensic Femmes 1: Alissa Torres
Welcome to the inaugural Forensic Femmes blog post! As I wrote many months ago, the purpose of this series is to highlight the many contributions women are making to the DF/IR community, whether we know them or not. My first guest is Alissa Torres, who recently joined Mandiant’s team as an incident handler along with…
Writing for the community
If we’re connected on various other social media sites, especially LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook, you may have noticed that I have a new job. Although I haven’t shuttered Christa M. Miller Communications, I’ll be devoting time only to very limited projects. At heart this blog has always been about how DF/IR businesses can better interact…
Authenticating your content: The power of voice
When I was regularly writing fiction, one of the most talked-about topics on the listservs and message boards was: How do you establish your voice? The reason it was discussed so much is that voice is incredibly difficult to define. It’s the thing that makes writers sound uniquely different, what distinguishes Dennis Lehane from George…
The process of social content creation
Those of us who use Twitter on a regular basis often find ourselves fascinated by the speed of our streams. New content gets shared, retweeted, discussed on an hourly basis; it’s impossible to read and digest it all, so we filter it, judging an entire blog post by its headline or the hashtags used to…
20 ways to connect after a conference
This week I’ll be at my first DoD CyberCrime conference in Atlanta. Following on two HTCIA conferences, two Techno Security events (together with one Mobile Forensics Conference), and a Police Leadership Conference, I’m looking forward to meeting a somewhat different crowd. And yet, also a little apprehensive. Early on I learned that conferences are alternate…
Book review: Uncertainty
As part of an ongoing discussion about contributing to the DFIR community, I’m offering a book review. It speaks to the “fear of failure” noted by numerous forensicators, and the excuses we all make up to avoid pain. Whether you’re a small business owner, a researcher, or someone with an idea you’ve hesitated to put…
Contributing (content) to the DFIR community
Blog posts and Twitter conversations over the last week or so — in particular an emphasis on whether programming is the most effective way to contribute — seemed awfully familiar, but I didn’t realize why until I read Harlan Carvey’s observation, “Some analysts seem to look around, see how some others contribute, and say to themselves,…
Content quantity vs. quality: Selling seats vs. winning championships
Not long ago I was complimented for the writing on a client’s blog. The content was relevant, the quality was good. “And I love how you manage SEO!” my reader added. That part caught me by surprise. The truth is, I don’t focus on SEO in that blog. I know it’s important, and at times…
Brand journalism: focus more on “journalism,” less on “brand”
I’ve been following the personal blog of CSO Online’s Bill Brenner for a little while now. I enjoy his insights into human nature and mental illness, but there are other elements that I appreciate too, in particular his experiences as a newsroom journalist. That’s why his recent post about (pseudo?) reporter Judith Miller struck a…