Some informal talks about EnCase

There are some informal talks about EnCase and its future. Looks like version 8 is delayed till further notice and v7.11 and more will roll out, while v6 will silently alive. Also feedback from trenches will be taken into account. Sounds like very reasonable actions after all that atrocities with v7.Again I'll try to push what I've said many times :

• bring back conditions as it was in v6 in each screen
• fixing user interface to be consistent and simple even rethink it, especially for enterprise version
• add automatisation on simple script level, enscript is too complicated for ordinary user
• add logging of user actions for performance monitoring and for legal issues
• document the data structures, fix documentation
• enhance cooperation with other products, like let lx01 or l01 formats for logical evidence files to free for other vendors to use it, do implementation in python to do RW access to logical evidence files
• add libraries to interact with other scripting language, perl, ruby and python
• document the sql data structures used in enterprise version
• fix reporting and especially data exporting in case analyzer

The product portfolio is probably on change again with new titles for old products :) or new repackaging. Tableau devices are coming again in new shapes and with new functionalities what is really a nice touch.

Looks like that somebody take control of situation and instead of soviet style no-step-back policy we have now some strategic thinking and damage control. I suppose there is also some cultural changes based on hard lesson learned during disaster, also a lot of people left GuidanceSoftware since painful story with Encase v7 stared in 2011.  I suppose this is a good mark for anyone in industry to stop a little and start thinking what is going on and why. It is time to admit that even for digital forensic vendors some computer science common sense has to be applied.  There are some rumbling on the horizon and clear signs showing that traditional vendors has problems defining their role and product position.

Strangely BBC had a nice article on corporate problems   "VW and the never-ending cycle of corporate scandals" which well fits into what I mentioned above  about digital forensic vendors
To be honest I've never seen data or study on correlation (never been trying to hard to find it actually ) about IT sec problems and corporate polices, cultures etc. I suppose this type of data and intel should be in insurance companies profiling data for their clients.  Same think can be done for general IT problems, just remember "The Big Unknowns" in Verizon data breach reports since 2008.