Co-op Report 2

This page exists for satisfying the requirement for the University of Guelph's co-op program requirements for the 2024 Winter term

Preamble

Due to the sensitive nature of digital forensics, I cannot disclose much of the details of what I worked on.

TL;DR

Working at a larger company, I learned the importance of communication and documentation. I also learned the importance of understanding the business case of the company and how to align your work with the business case.

History

Magnet Forensics started in 2011 with the aim of providing tools to help law enforcement to investigate digital forensics. Since then, it has grown to be a company with more than 400 employees worldwide. Over the last few years, it merged with several other companies such as the Swedish company of Grayshift, and the American company of SentinelOne.

Context

Axiom is the flagship of Magnet, which allows for law enforcement to ingest data from various sources, such as hard drives, mobile phones, and cloud services. The data is then analyzed to provide insights to the investigators.

What did I do?

In short, I implemented a few features in the main product, Axiom, and I also helped with general bug fixing and documentation.

Feature Development

With an update to windows, one of the data it can be extracted in the past were no longer possible. I was responsible for reading the updated documentation, looking at competitors' offering, and implementing the feature in Axiom.

I was also working with my team to update support for parsing one of the most popular applications in the world.

At the end, I worked on ingesting data from a new source, it led to me think about the larger role of the product and the philosophy of databases.

Bug Fixing

To get me warmed up about the codebase, I was tasked with fixing a few bugs. Ironically, one of the "bugs's" fix was only one line long but due to back and forth with product managers, it took almost 2 months to get merged.

Communication

One of the things I learned at Magnet Forensics was the importance of communication. I had to work with a team of developers, testers, and product managers to get my work done, so I had to make sure that I communicated effectively with them.

I also had to communicate with law enforcement agencies to understand their needs and requirements. This was a new experience for me, as I had never worked with law enforcement agencies before.

Swell time with Windows

Due to how the world of normies mostly run windows, the software is designed to run on windows, hence it was developed on windows. Indirectly, I realized the genius of the Unix philosophy, and the importance of having a good shell. File locking is mandatory on windows, and this is the worst design ever, it especially doesn't help when the drive is mounted over the network and the network is slow.

Conclusion

I had a great time at Magnet Forensics, and I learned a lot about digital forensics, communication, and the importance of understanding the business case of the company.