This morning the DPC hosted session one of ‘Let’s talk about FRED: Experiences with the FRED Forensic Workstation’
As noted in the event preamble, this event was born on the back of a conversation amongst DPC Members on the DPC mailing list. Someone had asked a question about how other organizations use the FRED Forensics Workstation as they were thinking of trying to make the case to get one for their own digital preservation activities. The friendly and helpful replies included information about FRED use at a variety of organizations along with a call to have a FRED ‘show and tell’ session for Members to discuss this further. As the DPC is guided and driven by our members, it seemed only right to try and provide this opportunity, and with generous offers to speak, we quickly had a full programme.
Session one of ‘Let’s Talk about FRED’ was timed to enable engagement in Europe and also to hear from some speakers in Australia. It was great to be able to facilitate some international sharing of experiences and we really appreciated having speakers and attendees from Australasia attending outside of their usual working hours.
The first speaker this morning was Amy Ibbotson, Collection Management Archivist (Digital) at Queensland State Archives. Amy gave a great introduction to what a FRED is and what it does and also a few insights into how they use it at Queensland State Archives.
Amy noted that FRED stands for Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device, and is a high performing machine used to analyze and process digital files. She described it as an attractive option for handling and processing large volumes of data. You can install multiple tools (for example she uses it with FTK Imager, DROID and Exact File) and it also comes with a built-in write-blocker that allows you to extract digital content without altering it. She also uses the Tableau Forensic Bridge alongside it. She described how it enables you to work with files whilst protecting their authenticity and keeping the original bitstreams intact (as well as important system information such as last modified dates).
They have two FRED machines at Queensland State Archives, including a laptop version which they take out on site visits. One of the key points made about why the FRED is so useful relates to its storage space and processing power. Some of the digital content they need to process (for example whole hard disks or digitised AV files) can be very large in size. Their FRED allows them to extract and store the media (in fact multiple copies of that media) until they have the resources to carry out further processing activities.
Acknowledging that all of the activities she describes could be carried out without a FRED workstation, Amy really appreciates the convenience of having all of the tools in one place as well as the flexibility, the reliability and the performance of the FRED workstation.
Next up, it was really interesting to hear a different perspective from Matthew Burgess, Lead Digital Archivist at the State Library of New South Wales. He talked about how he does digital forensics without using a FRED and described in detail the mix of equipment in their digital preservation lab (which has processed approximately 2500 digital carriers to date).
His setup includes three main workstations running different operating systems and includes ‘rescued’ computers, donated parts and other peripherals such as a Kyroflux and external hard drives. Matthew described the benefits of having system and hardware diversity built into this setup and also how it allows them to keep up to date with ICT requirements. He talked a little bit about some of the costs of this approach, but it was harder to quantify, representing a gradual accumulation of equipment over time, rather than a one off purchase.
The next two presentations were from members who talked about how they made the case for purchasing a FRED. First up, Stephen McConnachie, Head of Data and Digital Preservation at the British Film Institute talked about how a National Lottery funded project has provided an opportunity for investing in a FRED. As part of the Our Screen Heritage project, New Voices from the Archive is looking at collecting the born-digital archives of two influential filmmakers. Though BFI have a very mature ecosystem for the preservation of audio visual materials, the area of born-digital documents is quite new to them and they have been considering what skills and infrastructure they might need to carry out this area of work most effectively.
Investing in a FRED seemed an obvious solution for them, enabling them to buy something off the shelf that includes most of the capabilities that they were looking for. They were able to make the case that the FRED would fill this gap for them with a single device and one-off expense. It was also noted that as the FRED would become a dedicated and single ingest point for the network, this would also be a win from a cybersecurity point of view (increasingly a concern for our sector).
Lastly, Caylin Smith, Head of Digital Preservation at Cambridge University Libraries provided insights into how the FRED was acquired and used at her institution. Their FRED device was purchased a few years ago with project funds that were set aside for hardware as part of their collaborative Polonsky Project with the University of Oxford in 2016-18.
They use their FRED to transfer a range of different storage carriers and we will hear more details on this from Leontien Talboom in session two. They are also exploring how to use it as part of re-appraisal service (looking at legacy carriers and working with archivists to see what is on those carriers in order to decide what should be kept).
An interesting point noted by Caylin is how the FRED can be used as an advocacy tool. Having equipment such as a FRED can be helpful when communicating what the digital preservation team are doing and in making their work more visible.
Both Caylin and Stephen talked a bit about the importance of having a member of staff who can use the workstation. At Cambridge University Libraries a technical analyst job role was created to support this work. At BFI a new digital archivist has recently been recruited to work on the FRED as well as other new systems they are putting in place.
There was also some discussion about the physical space in which the FRED (or other similar digital preservation equipment) sits. Caylin talked about having policies around how the space was cleaned and who had access to the space at what time. There was also some discussion around mitigation of electrostatic discharge and whether particular flooring was required in a digital preservation lab.
In the wider discussion at the end of the session, there was further chat around staff skiills. Given the range of hardware and software involved, how much staff expertise is needed to understand, configure, maintain and set up workflows? The speakers differed in their previous IT experience, with some having little previous experience but finding the FRED fairly easy to become familiar with, and others claiming to have a real interest in old technology. It was agreed that the most important skills were an aptitude for learning and also a willingness to experiment and try things out.
Of course, I have only captured some of the key points made in this post. DPC Members can watch all of the presentations in full by logging in to our event page.
The discussion could have run and run but we will pick it up again this afternoon. Hope to see some of you there!
Disclaimer - the DPC is vendor neutral and this event was not an endorsement of the FRED forensic workstation, rather a space for members to discuss the pros and cons of this solution in a balanced way.