I begin this section of the book by thanking God for His many blessings, without which this book would not be possible. He has blessed me with a wonderful, loving, supportive family, as well as what might best be described as a curiosity and love for digital forensic analysis and digging deeper in that analysis, as well as sharing what I’ve seen and learned with others. I try to thank Him daily, although I find myself thinking that it’s not nearly enough because a man’s achievements are not his alone. In my heart, I know that being able to and being provided the environment to write books like this is a gift and a blessing in so many ways. My hope is that this effort benefits many more than just those who purchase and use the books.
I’d like to thank my true love and the light of my life, Terri, and my stepdaughter, Kylie. Both of these wonderful ladies have put up with my antics yet again (intently staring off into space, scribbling in the air, and of course, there are my terribly excellent imitations taken from some of the movies we’ve seen), and I thank you both yet again as much for your patience as for being there for me when I needed to get away from the keyboard and decompress. It can’t be easy to have a nerd like me in your life, but I do thank you both for the opportunity to “put pen to paper” and get all of this stuff out of my head.
I’d like to thank Brett Shavers, my tech editor, for putting in the time to review what I’ve written. Admittedly, I did not start from scratch; this edition builds on the foundation of writing that was already available in the previous edition, but there were some things that needed to be added, as well as new information in two chapters. It would not have been possible to get this edition through the publisher’s process without Brett’s time, effort, and patience.
I’d also like to thank Corey Harrell for taking the time out of his busy schedule to take a look at the outline for what I wanted to do with edition, and to provide thoughtful and insightful feedback. Thanks for all you do for the community, Corey. Semper Fi, Marine!
I want to be sure to thank everyone who contributed to the DFIR community in some way, through providing open source or commercial tools, blogging, and even just asking questions. There are a number of you who’ve done research and shared your findings with others, written blog posts or papers, and presented some very interesting topics at conferences. I thank you for your efforts and for sharing with the community.
I’m sure at this point I’ve missed some folks, so please accept my sincerest apologies and “thank you” if I engaged with you or read something you wrote, and came away with something that became the seed of an idea that ended up in this book.
Finally, I’d like to thank the Syngress staff for their patience throughout this process. I’m sure it can’t be easy if your job is publishing books, but for those writing the books, authoring is not their primary job, and sometimes not their primary focus. Your efforts in herding cats down a beach is what puts books on shelves.