BitCurator This Week (February 24th)

The BitCurator team will be participating in a number of outreach activities this week, including talks by Cal Lee at the Personalized Access to Cultural Heritage (PATCH) conference, Alex Chassanoff at the International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC 2014), and Porter Olsen at MITH’s Digital Dialogues lecture series. Details for each are listed below. Check back next week for follow-up posts on each of the different venues.

Cal Lee

“Up Close and Personal: Individual Digital Traces as Cultural Heritage and Discovery through Forensics Tools”   PATCH 2014–Monday, Feb. 24th at 10:30 IST.

Alex Chassanoff

“Integrating digital forensics techniques into curatorial tasks: A Case Study” with Sam Meister of the University of Montana. IDCC 2014–Wednesday, Feb. 26th at 3:00pm PST.

Porter Olsen

“What Falls Out: Preserving our Digital Heritage with BitCurator.” MITH Digital Dialogues–Tuesday, Feb. 25th at 12:30 EST.

BitCurator 0.7.4 Now Available

The latest release of the BitCurator environment (0.7.4) is now available on our Release page (https://github.com/BitCurator/bitcurator-distro/wiki/Releases). We’re continuing to provide download options on our existing host and via iBiblio. Direct links and MD5 checksums can be found on the Release page.

This release includes the following updates:

– The mounting scripts have been fixed to mount disk images – without asking for authentication – from all locations.
– The desktop now includes a folder named “Shared Folders and Media” that points to the /media directory. When users adds a host shared folder, it will automatically appear in this location with an “sf_”  prefix.
– ClamTK is now linked in the Additional Tools folder.
– The filint tool is also now linked in the Additional Tools folder as a convenience for keeping the VM clean.
– The ficlam scripts, which run ClamAV scans during a fiwalk run, are now in the /Tools/ficlam directory, and there is a slide showing how to run them in the Quickstart guide.
– A dd command-line launcher has been added to the Imaging Tools directory

Our updated Quickstart guide can be found in the Documentation folder on the BitCurator environment desktop.

As with previous releases, this environment is built on a 64-bit version of Ubuntu and may be unstable on certain 32-bit host operating systems, or host hardware with less than 4GB of RAM. Please don’t hesitate to post here if you have questions!

Call for Proposals: BitCurator On-Site Visit and Training

The BitCurator project has funds for a limited number of on-site BitCurator training and workshop visits. We are requesting proposals from collecting institutions (libraries, museums, and archives) who are interested in having a member of the BitCurator team visit their institution to conduct a workshop and/or provide hands-on training for archivists currently working with born-digital materials. Priority will be given to institutions who are already working with digital collections and wish to add BitCurator to their workflows.

About the BitCurator Project

BitCurator, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is a joint effort led by the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (SILS) and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) to develop a system for collecting professionals that incorporates the functionality of many digital forensics tools.

In Phase I (November 2011 – September 2013), the BitCurator team developed the BitCurator environment, a highly customized Linux distribution that includes both existing open source digital forensics tools and custom tools developed by the BitCurator team. The BitCurator environment stands out from other digital forensics environments (CAIN) and commercial software suites (FTK) in that it was designed specifically for use by memory institutions.

In Phase II of the BitCurator project (now ongoing) we are continuing to develop the BitCurator environment while simultaneously working to build a community of BitCurator users who will help sustain the project into the future.

Scope of Site Visits

Site visits are a chance for you to learn more about the use of digital forensics in digital curation and receive hands-on training from a member of the BitCurator team. Site visits might include visiting a library, museum, or archive, or attending an event such as a professional conference or workshop. We also welcome proposals to visit area institutions that may include any of the above.

There are three main objectives to the BitCurator site visits:

  1. Educate digital curation practitioners (considered broadly) at the host institutions/events about the BitCurator project, its goals, and development thus far

  2. Provide hands-on training in the BitCurator environment for one or more digital archivists at the host institutions/events

  3. Work to develop digital curation workflows that include the digital forensics tools in the BitCurator environment

To achieve those goals, the BitCurator Community Lead, Porter Olsen, will visit the host institution for one to two days, depending on the pre-arranged itinerary.

Proposal Details

Please submit your proposal by emailing it to Porter Olsen at: polsen at umd do edu. Proposals should include the following information:

  • Name of the host or hosts (proposals involving multiple institutions in the same location are strongly encouraged)

  • Type and name of the host institution or event

  • Date on which you would like to host the visit

  • A brief description of existing digital curation efforts currently underway at your institution

  • The outcomes you would like to achieve as the result of a BitCurator site visit

  • Any opportunities for public demonstrations or discussions of BitCurator (ex: guest lectures, speaking engagements, workshops, etc.)

You may also wish to include details regarding the digital or hybrid collection(s) you are working with at your institution. Such details might include:

  • Name of the collection

  • Types of media in the collection

  • Hardware being use to process the collection

  • Current digital curation workflows

As noted, the BitCurator project has funding to cover travel and lodging at the host institution; however, cost-sharing is welcome, and may impact our ability to accommodate a given visit.

Submission Details

Please submit your proposal to Porter Olsen via email at: polsen at umd dot edu. Submissions will be reviewed on an ongoing basis, but all site visits must be conducted before September 15, 2014.

BitCurator 0.7.0 Now Available

The latest release of the BitCurator environment (0.7.0) is now available on our Release page (https://github.com/BitCurator/bitcurator-distro/wiki/Releases). We’re continuing to provide download options on our existing host and via iBiblio. Direct links and MD5 checksums can be found on the Release page.

This release includes the following updates:

  • File Export tab added to GUI. This new tab runs fiwalk and uses the output to generate a tree-style hierachy of the file system in a new window. This allows you to safely navigate through directory and file contents and export file items without having to mount the file system.
  • Removes bugs affecting the operation of the fiwalk and annotation tabs in the BitCurator GUI.
  • Updates The Sleuth Kit to 4.1.3.
  • Now includes ClamTK, a graphical front-end to the Clam virus scanner. ClamTK simplifies the process of scanning mounted file systems and regular directory contents.

Our updated Quickstart guide can be found in the Documentation folder on the BitCurator environment desktop.

As with previous releases, this environment is built on a 64-bit version of Ubuntu and may be unstable on certain 32-bit host operating systems, or host hardware with less than 4GB of RAM.