CD and DVD Forensics

Back in 2006 I worked out a deal with a technical book publisher known as Syngress to get the book “CD and DVD Forensics” published.  It was an educational experience and a little exposure into the publishing world.

After eight years there is finally a second edition of this book coming soon.  No, it isn’t going to be published by Elsivier – they acquired Syngress late in 2006.  Their book selection process seems to be a little different than it was in 2006 and all I know is that we aren’t going to be working together.  The new book is likely to be available through Amazon unless big things change in the next month or so.

This new edition of the book is a complete rewrite of the original with lots of new material and somewhat of a new focus.  The original book had some requirements placed upon it by the publisher and while these made sense at the time, these requirements no longer exist.  A lot of the space in the first edition was dedicated to reference material for the CD/DVD Inspector product.  This has been changed to be more task-oriented than simply reference material and there is a lot less of it.  This does mean the new book is going to be about 1/3rd the pages of the first edition, but it doesn’t mean there is any less useful content.

As far as the content is concerned, there is more information about file systems than there was in the original book and I think the section about evidence handling is more useful.  There is also a new chapter about understanding hidden data on optical media.

Moving into the world of self-publishing means that there are a number of services that I get to work out for myself, such as a cover design, copy editing and reviewing.  If you would like to review the book, please contact me directly.  If you would like to be a “technical editor” for this second edition, please let me know as well.

I will be reaching out to some existing customers about bulk purchase of the new book but if you would be interested in finding out more about this, please contact me directly.  The likely publishing method for this will be print-on-demand as well as making the book available in various electronic forms, so if I can put together a large print run it will save all of those participating quite a bit over the standard pricing.