The DFIR Book Share Challenge (I made that up by the way, but it works for me)

First, hats off to those authors contributing their books to the DFIR Book Share Challenge and participating in this endeavor.

And just as important, thanks to the winners of the books who are fulfilling the challenge of passing the books along after reading them. My high hope is to create positive communications in our community with the books, in that we have a chance to be in the path of where the books will travel; in that we can talk about the content of the books in a manner to share information; and in that we can talk to each other as we hand off the book from one person to another.  Sign up to win a book here:  https://www.social.dfir.training/groups/viewgroup/3-dfir-book-giveaways  

So far, I have shipped out three books in October ( Investigating

If you want a chance to win an author-signed copy of Investigating Windows Systems , be sure to register your email in the book giveaway group:  https://www.social.dfir.training/groups/viewgroup/3-dfir-book-giveaways  

The drawing will be tonight (Oct 31) at 7pm (PDT). I'll notify the winner via email after the drawing. I'll blog/tweet about the winner after confirming that the winner wants the book.

I've had a few questions on this book giveaway, so here goes:

What is the catch?

No catch. The books are free. The shipping is free. It's free (to you). Everything is paid by the book authors (if they donate a book, which they have to buy and ship), and me (to buy the books authors don't donate, and shipping). The only thing that can be considered a catch is that you are limited to winning one book, ever (at least from this challenge). 

How is the winner chosen?

Here is the challenge that I continually give myself: Create a project that benefits the DFIR community and won’t require much effort (on the part of the community) but will contribute to the community by generating positive conversations and sharing .

TL/DR (too long, didn’t read)

The project: Give away DFIR books . Lots of them.

If you want to be in the drawing, sign up here: http://social.dfir.training/groups/viewgroup/3-dfir-book-giveaways .

The details

This challenge goes way beyond just giving away books. There is no secret motive behind the books or the challenge. Simply, I am going to review all of the books in detail. I will be putting the reviews on Amazon, https://www.dfir.training , www.patreon.com/dfirtraining , and anywhere else I can that will make a difference to someone looking for information on the books. I’ll be making video reviews of the books too and demonstrating some of the exercises and topics. Then

What started as a question on twitter, turned into a poll and twitter discussion, has begun to evolve into something interesting: The “ Rapid Peer Review ”.

I’ve had quite a few DMs and emails with several people over the past week on peer reviews in the DFIR world to discuss this topic.

In short, academic reviews take too long to publish and are of limited practical value for practitioners. We need a better system.

During these discussions, Jessica Hyde coined the “RAPID PEER REVIEW” name, so I’m sticking with that.

Since this idea is evolving, here are some of the ideas being discussed, all subject to change:

*  Process should take 30 days or less to be considered Peer-reviewed or rejected

*  Previously peer-reviewed work (as seen in a published journal) would be ineligible

*  Previously written work that has been cited or referenced may be judged as already