Floppy Forensics: Why you need a Ph.D from USC 20 years later

Dr. Fred Cohen: On June 21, 2005, I received the one and only floppy disk purported to have been originally written in the 1980s that was the key piece of evidence in a legal matter worth at least tens of millions of dollars. The reason I got it was that nobody else could read it. This talk is about how I extracted the contents, how sure I am that what I extracted is what was originally written some 20 years earlier and not a forgery created to win millions of dollars in a legal battle, and why I am that sure. It involves a hundred floppy disk drives, aging computers and long ago software libraries, flux density, electromechanical systems, a custom version of an operating system, a spiral disk, a trip to a military base in the desert that I made when I was a graduate student, coding and finite state machines, a trip to Alaska, and more. It is the proof that 20 years later, the things you learn on the way to getting your Ph.D. are still useful.

Location: Grace Ford Salvatori Hall Of Letters, Arts & Sciences (GFS) - 106

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Annie Yu