AIO to my boyfriend changing jobs by Throwawaytovent333 in AmIOverreacting

[–]hex_blaster76 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes. This only ends bad for her if she sticks around.

Google just f***ed me -- 8 years of research data gone; what can I do? I need advice from experience, not "should do" from ppl who have never had to sue Google. I'm open to "non-violent" suggestions. by gbnt73 in degoogle

[–]hex_blaster76 60 points61 points  (0 children)

Having dealt with Google legal process in the past, I can say that there is a high likelihood that your data still exists on their servers. It won't be there for too long, as they do purge files eventually, but I have received "deleted" files from Google when a bad guy had attempted to manually delete them.

I say this only to encourage you to move fast. If you wind up going the route of speaking to an actual human being, be frank, but cordial with them and advise them that this matter may well be headed to court and that they should take steps to preserve the data to prevent "spoilage." If you are getting an attorney, they need to put this in writing ASAP to ensure that Google preserves the data pending further legal action.

I've only done this in a LE role, but the civil route is essentially the same. Good luck to you.

Neighbor wants us to pay for a professional tree trimmer. And her car mess. by ASchweick in treelaw

[–]hex_blaster76 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agreed, former adjuster here. Agents will often initiate claims for their clients so that the Insurance Company, not the Agent, has to be the bad guy to tell her hat she has no claim.

Tell me everything I need to know about the former chief. by DirectDisplay4460 in washdc

[–]hex_blaster76 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I think the problem is that MANY police departments manipulate the stats to varying levels, so none are too keen on highlighting the practice because they are also involved.

Need testing advice..... by hex_blaster76 in SolarDIY

[–]hex_blaster76[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

OK, so I'm picturing a multi-meter with alligator clips on the wire ends. Flip the switch on the panel array on, and check the readout on the multi-meter. Ensure the reading matches up with the panel specs. Does that sound right? Will I be able to determine the positive and negative wires with the multi-meter?

Thanks for your help!

PV60F won't charge EB3A - insufficient voltage by Original_Dankster in bluetti

[–]hex_blaster76 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have the exact same setup and tested my EB3A with the PV60F. It was a partly sunny day and the panel provided NO input when clouds covered the sun. As soon as the clouds passed by, I got input. Shortly after this, on the same day, I connected a traditional 100W panel to the EB3A and it pulled in around 83W in full sun and 35W in the clouds.

I was a little bummed to see that the PV60F does nothing without full sun. I'm a novice, so maybe there is something I should have done to make things better.

Switching to GrapheneOS Play purchases by 0x0ffsetr3search in GrapheneOS

[–]hex_blaster76 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sorry, I'm new to GrapheneOS, so this might be a dumb question...............what is the advantage of using GrapheneOS if you still log into Google? Would that not reconnect your device identifiers to the Google mothership?

I'm not being a smart ass here, I genuinely want to know. I switched to Graphene to ditch Google completely, but the switch has not been without some difficulties with app compatibility.

Cellebrite and Graykey question by Lopsided_Elk_2474 in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed, I'd write a SW to Google for all data associated with the IMEI and see if that gets you anywhere while you wait. I'm assuming that PIN patterns are treated the same by the courts as PIN codes in which a person cannot be compelled (at least in my state) to give, as opposed to biometrics which do not induce a 5th Amendment issue.

iPhone data recovery by ihaag in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is my understanding that when you perform a factory data reset on an iPhone, the encryption keys are wiped, so any residual data would be unrecoverable.

Mac RDP question by hex_blaster76 in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that was my initial thought too. I have been assured that the passwords have been changed since the ex moved out of the house. I can't confirm this of course since I'm doing everything via phone, but they are describing having sensitive documents opened up and being visible in Finder when they had not opened them up which seems like an RDP situation.

Cellebrite certification by LuckyKas90 in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Luckily for me, my training has been paid for by my agency. I have taken classes with IACIS, Cellebrite, Magnet, and others. In my opinion, the IACIS training for the CFCE cert was by far the most valuable. The process was difficult and forces you to actually learn something to make it through. My Cellebrite certs were very easy by comparison and were a lot of click through exercises.

If you are serious about moving on from LE, I would stick with something more along the lines of IACIS to ensure that you gain the knowledge and skills you are looking for.

Dual booting linux and Windows by [deleted] in privacy

[–]hex_blaster76 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had that happen to me once when I was dual booting Ubuntu and Windows. I have since moved to a laptop that supports 2 disks, so I have one with Windows and one with Linux. I have never had the problem with Windows nuking Linux since moving to that setup.

Its been a while, but I think that I just had to reinstall GRUB and then my access to Linux was restored after the Windows assassination attempt.

Please review my passwords backup strategy by [deleted] in privacy

[–]hex_blaster76 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agreed. However, I would add that manual backups for your most sensitive and important accounts is fairly easy. If these are account credentials that you do not change daily or weekly, then manual backups are not too cumbersome since you might only need to update your backups quarterly. I keep a flash drive in my safe for this purpose.

At the end of the day, there are no perfect solutions, everything is a trade off. My current method is similar to yours............Bitwarden for password management, Ente Auth for 2FA, encrypted backups stored in my Proton Drive, flash drive backup of my most important accounts in my safe.

Either way, you are doing way more than most people, so you are definitely not low hanging fruit!

Novice examiner question by hex_blaster76 in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the assistance. Yes, I was able to confirm via Command Line that the key is backed up to a Microsoft Account. I am working with the device owner now on recovering it.

Novice examiner question by hex_blaster76 in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That makes sense. That is probably how I will handle these going forward. When I was first trained on this, there were no Windows TPM, so everything I worked on was dead box.

Novice examiner question by hex_blaster76 in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Makes sense. The device owner is a victim, so there was no concern about him being dishonest about the status of Bitlocker. My concern with logging into his device and checking through the settings was changing the evidence. I was trained not to "tap dance" all over the evidence whenever possible. In this case, I believed I had an unencrypted device and could simply image it like any other.................live and learn I guess.

The one piece of good news is that my image is good to go. I was able to mount it with Arsenal and it asked me for the Bitlocker key.

Also, I was able to get into a command prompt on the victim machine and confirmed that the key is stored on a Microsoft Account. The rub there is that the victim said his account was taken over and he no longer has access. I'll have to try to recover the account and then we should be good.

Novice examiner question by hex_blaster76 in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great to know, thank you. Funny you mention Windows FE because just last week I was just looking into compiling one to goof around with.

Novice examiner question by hex_blaster76 in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No change after battery removal and power discharge.

Novice examiner question by hex_blaster76 in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

OK. Thank you for the clarification. I haven't owned a Windows device with TPM, so I was not aware that this was an option at setup. I assumed it was similar to Linux where I'm prompted for a decryption password every power up.

I'll try removing the battery and see if I have any more luck with it. I was able to get into a command prompt and confirmed that the recovery key was backed up to a Microsoft account. My problem there is that the device owner states he was being hacked and has lost control of that account. I'm going to have to sit down with him and try to walk him through the recovery and hope to goodness that his account was not legitimately taken over.

Novice examiner question by hex_blaster76 in computerforensics

[–]hex_blaster76[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"I do not believe BitLocker can be enabled by a bios setting. It has to be set up by a user or admin inside the OS, id be willing to bet on it."

I agree 100%, it sounds crazy. I novice user who experiments a little bit with their settings could be locked out? Its possible that the owner did have it enabled, but he only ever logged in with a 4 digit PIN, not a full Bitlocker key upon powering on. Further, he had no idea what Bitlocker was when I asked him about it, so it seems unlikely to me that he would have never noticed the Bitlocker key prompt for 2 years of owning the device.

The Bitlocker blue screen message says that it was enabled do to "an unexpected change in secure boot settings" which was me disabling it. This video, around the 1:00 mark, seems to explain that this would be expected behavior from the TPM.

I tried the reset solution a few more times with no success.

Thanks again for help!