What a fun session we had with digital forensic investigator Shweta A. Chawla yesterday! The children had all kinds of questions, and all kinds of stories. Nearly every child had a story of a parent or relative receiving a call and asking for an OTP or bank details. It just shows you how close cyber crime is to us!
One child said, “We should keep changing our passwords, but it’s difficult to remember them. So I write them in an Excel sheet.” Before Shweta could respond, he said, “The Excel sheet is password protected.”
And I found myself thinking, Do I even know how to create a password-protected Excel sheet?
We spoke of how stories no longer need masked robbers going into banks with guns, and the fact that you are much more likely to encounter a hacker online than a smuggler. Sure, we love our Enid Blyton stories of smuggling and crime, but perhaps stories can reflect something much more accessible – a criminal working from home, just like the rest of us.
Finally, if we create a character who is a digital investigator, what would that investigator’s line of thought be? What questions does the investigator ask to start tracing the criminal?
Character motivations, procedures, forensics, passwords – we learned so much during the session!
This was just the first of three sessions planned for this writing programme. Mark your calendars for the next one, which will be on the last Saturday of May. Registrations will open shortly, but here’s a teaser – we’ll be talking about pirates during this one!
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