Every so often, a case turns up that sticks with you for reasons you don’t expect ……
This one came from an old-fashioned seaside sweet shop. The family made some of their sweets by hand, including rock. I grew up near the coast and had often watched it being made through the shop windows, so it felt oddly nostalgic.
The problem was serious though. A trusted employee had left, and the owners believed he had taken their special method for making rock and used it to start his own rival business online. The family was devastated and wanted to know if there was any proof.
They had one computer, some CCTV, and records from tills and alarms. My job was to work out whether the former employee had accessed the system and, if so, how the data might have been taken.
In the unallocated space on the computer, I carved out fragments of deleted files and found partial data that included an email address the business didn’t recognise. It had the ex-employee’s name in it, but that alone wasn’t enough. A little open-source work showed the same address listed on a local football site as a contact for a casual team. That connection was the missing piece. Along with details about the emails, and some data from Windows Desktop Search we had some interesting pieces of data that gave us insight into what and when the activity occurred.
The family approached him with what we’d found, and the case was settled out of court. No drama, no headlines …. just a fair outcome and some relief all round. They even offered to support his online business for a share of the profits.
For me, personally, this case had a bonus …. they let me have a go at making rock. It’s hot, heavy, and surprisingly hard to roll, but I loved it!!!!
