Computer forensics

Dear Mouse,

The unemployment benefit is supposed to last for 12 months on the condition that before the first six months are over, the recipient has undertaken training or continuing education that can boost his/her marketability in the industry sector he/she wants to rejoin.

Brochures of the county's regional occupational programs on the short term courses available for a minimum tuition fee are found in the reception area. These trainings, which are credited as college units range from business, healthcare, services, computer and other areas for people who are considering change in career.

The fee is very minimal for a 36-week training duration. I got interested on Information Technology Courses that include Digital Media and Animation, Art and Multimedia. These are the same as the 3- unit credited college courses that are offered in state universities' extension classes as certificated program at a much higher matriculation fees.

It is not because I am going to pursue this as a career but simply to become a smart blogger. Di ba?

But if I can enroll and finish one course that I find interesting and exciting, I am going to pursue this as a career change or a second job --a certificate of completion in Computer forensics. The course offers 13.5 units that may be completed in two semesters.Upon completion of the program, a student will be able to discover, extract and preserve digital evidence consistent with computer forensic protocols in the industry. Parang CSI ano?

Take a look at the subjects: Network Analysis and Defense;Search and Seisure;Network Security Fundamentals and Network Security Firewall.

Aah some would say, it is a complete turnabout from my career. But it is not. My previous employments entailed sleuthing too; finding evidence of fraud and or reconciling events and transactions in order to check their conformity to generally accepted standards.

My first audit assignment in my first job right after college was the discovery of the collusion between the cashier and bookkeeper of one of our client companies. They pocketed collections and “doctored” the receivable ledgers of the clients. The term we used to describe this practice is LAPPING. It is not a laughing matter for clients whose payments were applied to other client accounts. Exciting job but it did not bring steak to the table and a complete set of Estee Lauder cosmetics in my dresser. The credit went to the seniors. I was just a junior.

The second big assignment caused a suicide on the suspected fund malverser even before I can submit the final report of the audit.

Do you think I feel guilty of what happened ?

No, he was not my suspect. My little grey cells did not doubt him a bit.

The third was the expulsion of the husband-wife-executive officers of a foundation who were found to have diverted the grants and donations they received thru the organization to their private accounts. That's the problem if the wife is the CEO and the accountant is the husband and another interested party is eyeing the position. A special audit can be requested by the Board.

This led me to become the apple of the eyes of the CEO who replaced the couple. Neat? Yeah.

Here in the States, I found the cause for the classy lifestyle of our manager –pocketing the cash collections that were paid directly to her. She turned over check payments only.She was so adept in covering up different accounts that the management and the clients victimized never suspected what’s going on. Billing statements were never sent at the end of the month. She dealt with the clients directly although there were salespeople assigned to territories.She gave me a hard time though when I started going over the different individual client accounts. The receivable specialist who handled the receivable accounts merely posted what the cashiers reported as receipts. She was not an accountant; she was just someone who took a one semester computer applications to accounting course and enhanced her resume by giving out false references.

Job satisfaction was low especially if some close friends of the fired manager treated you like a pariah. Every time you send a query regarding unclear transactions, they suspect that you are after their asses. I can see knitted eyebrows whenever I dropped by their cubicles.

All right so these work experiences may not qualify me to take up the course as I do not fall under the category of law and police enforcements. Not even my previous employment with a doctor of pathology whose collections of evidences for litigated cases were kept in their refrigerator side by side with their meats and vegetables may convince the institution to include me in the list of the first batch of students.

If it is necessary to prove how I am fascinated by the type of work that graduates would have from this course, I would rent a U-haul truck to bring my 40 volumes of Agatha Christie, collections of cases of Sherlock Holmes, Poirot and Watson tandem, John Grisham’s best selling novels, Mary Higgins Clark’s stories of sleuth couples and if this not enough, I would ask my friends from the Philippines to send me old Darna stories and a DVD of VOLTA movie (not pirated of course.

Otherwise, I would enroll in the import/export international logistics specialist course. Makapag-import na lang ng mga productong Pinoy.

The Ca t