Technology Manager Digs Up Digital Dirt
Like a forensic investigator of technological crime scenes, Eduardo Castro sifts through computer hard drives looking for suspicious digital artifacts.
BY BRIDGET CAREY

/The Miami Herald/ Miami, FL - August, 27 2007- When a hard drive becomes a crime scene, Eduardo Castro and his computer forensics team are on the case.

Castro is a 29-year-old technology manager at American Document Management in Fort Lauderdale. The company works with lawyers and businesses to provide various computer document services. One of those is computer forensics -- the investigation of what a user has done on a computer or on the Internet that can be used as evidence in court.

Sometimes the investigation is requested when a company suspects an employee of smuggling secrets. Or perhaps it's a divorce case and e-mails of a cheating spouse need to be found.

Most people assume that when they delete a file from their computer that it's gone forever, but Castro said it can almost always be recovered.

''Just because you deleted an actual document doesn't mean it's gone from the system,'' Castro said. ``Any type of activity you do tends to leave some residual artifact.''

Even for a trained professional like Castro, the investigations take time. Searching through just one computer's Internet history can take up to 10 hours, so just imagine going through three year's worth of e-mails for 20 employees.

''Unfortunately there are times when you have to work an excessive amount of overtime,'' he said.

As computer hard drives have grown, it has been taking more time to sift through each computer. The entire computer must always be searched, because information can be stored anywhere on the drive. ''It could potentially be there for years,'' Castro said.

He said there are many people in the field with a background in law enforcement, but people with all sorts of backgrounds have been entering the growing profession. ''Lately there has been a lot of demand for this,'' he said.

Castro started out as a computer programmer before he found his way to American Document Management, and said he finds this constantly evolving job to be fulfilling.
''You're never going to stop learning because technology is never going to stop changing,'' he said.
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