The third annual HTCIA Asia Pacific Training Conference was held successfully in Hong Kong from 2-4 December 2009. Here are some of the highlights from the main conference day on 2nd December at the Microsoft Conference Centre.

Paul Jackson, Chapter President gets proceedings underway:

Ms. Joelle Woo, Director at Microsoft Asia & key sponsor of the event provides a welcoming address:

The event was also suported by the Hong Kong Police and Ag. Chief Superintendent Alan Man (Current Chairman of the Interpol Asia South Pacific Working Group on IT Crime) delivered an opening speech:

Group photo with the VIP guests and Keynote speakers:

Mr. Bernhard Otupal, theAssistant Director of Financial and High Tech Crime at Interpol HQ in Lyon France gets the main proceedings underway with a speech on the current work of Interpol against High-Tech Crime and their coordination of harmonised global training projects:

The first Keynote speaker was Mr. Warren Kruse - Co-author of "Computer Forensics: Incident Response Essentials" - an entertaining and enlightening look at the top ten mistakes made in computer forensics work:

The second Keynote was an innovative and extremely popular presentation by Mr. Craig Ball, a lawyer from Texas USA, who provided a timely and educational look at visualising technical concepts using presentation tools in order to explain evidence in legal proceedings:

Finishing off the morning session was the third keynote speaker Mr. Erik Laykin from Duff and Phelps. He provided a corporate perspective on e-Discovery issues and inspired a lively Q&A session before the lunch-break:

The afternoon was started in style by an excellent presentation from Mr. Nigel Carson; a hugely experienced forensics professional with both a law enforcement and corporate perspective. Currently working with Ferrier Hodgson, his presentation on the pitfalls faced by practitioners proved extremely relevant & informative:

This was followed by an in depth explanation of the importance of thorough forensic analysis of e-mail artifacts in modern investigations. Leading expert and author of the software Intella; Mr. Peter Mercer from Australia delivered the presentation:

Ms. Clara Ho was next up and as the Head of Information Security Risk for HSBC Asia Pacific, she provided an insightful perspective on in-house investigations and forensics work and introduced all to the Chicken Detective!

Providing an unusual perspective of the rapidly evolving work of mobile device forensics, Mr. Kevin Mansell of Control-F Ltd in the UK (former lead trainer to the UK Police) demystified this complex discipline and helped shed light on the challenges being faced by those currently working in this field:

One of the most thought provoking presentations of the day was provided by BJ Gleason from the University of Maryland (South Korea) who delivered a study of the contentious subject of professional qualifications: in light of the need to improve the current state of certifications, this topic opened a debate that ccontinued long into the evening:

The final speaker of the day needed no introduction. Mr. Andrew Rosen, the original author of the software now known as Encase, author of SMART forensics and lead forensic investigator in the Enron case (and notoriously camera-shy) delivered the final presentation on complexities of large scale investigations.

The day was wrapped up in style by Mr. Thomas Parenty and his panel of experts (Drew Fahey, Warren Kruse, Craig Ball and Andrew Rosen) in a lively open forum. Below, the excellent MC (and incoming President of HTCIA Asia Pacific Chapter for 2010) Mr. Richard Kershaw presents the final speaker gift to Mr. Parenty.

With the formal proceedings completed, it was time to head off to the refined surroundings of the 1/5 Nuevo Bistro for a networking function to round off an excellent event in relaxing style: