Forrest Cook

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A detective based in Arizona working in digital forensics

Current Position

Oro Valley Police Department - Digital Forensics Detective

Career

2021 - Present: Cellebrite Contract Trainer
2018 - Present: Digital Forensics Detective
2012 - 2018: Plain-clothes assignment
2006 - 2012: Patrol Officer

Profiles

Hobbies

Tinkering

I have a small collection of Raspberry Pi, Arduino and ESP32 gadgets lying about in a “good intentions” pile… Waiting for the day I finish a project. I’m also learning FreeCAD and 3D Printing lots of definitely useful things.

Photography

I’ve enjoyed taking pictures ever since my first 1.3MP digital camera in college. I like landscapes, wildlife and macro. I currently edit in ON1, not lightroom, because I refuse to pay software subscriptions.

Python

I have a few pet projects that keep growing in scope, I write about them here. I have written parsers and scripts for several unsupported applications in order to investigate cases, it’s a lot of fun when I get it to work!

Climbing

I started rock climbing in highschool, took a long break so that I could get old and frail before I started up again. Having a lot of fun, trying not to break myself.

Contact

Email: forrest@forrestcook.net

I grew up in the before times, where hose water sustained us until the sun set, when we returned to our homes for dinner. The internet joined our house as a teenager, I started tinkering with websites and coding shortly after.

Fast forward more years than I will put a number to, I joined a municipal police department where I was afforded the opportunity to view computers and the data we create with them in a different light. I have been learning in the digital forensics space for several years now, I hope I never stop learning… I will certainly never be “Done”. This is one of the most interesting fields I have come across, with so many avenues to arrive at conclusions. Critical thinking to evaluate observations, creative problem solving to address new challenges and curiosity to dig in to new topics are all traits that I believe are important in order to stay relevant in this field.

I am putting these thoughts and projects together because I also believe that this community thrives with cooperation and openness. I have learned a lot from others who have shared online; I would like to think this blog might help give back in kind.

As I come across interesting topics to write about, I will try to do them justice. If you find any of the work interesting or want to contribute/collaborate, I am happy to hear your thoughts and critiques.

Between work, second work, IACIS peer review, Graduate studies, python hobby-coding and family time (maybe also sleep) - my posts here may be infrequent. Check back periodically though, because I have some fun ideas in the hopper just waiting for the time to explore them.