Inside F3: Building Community And Sharing Knowledge In Digital Forensics
Forensic Focus
Gareth's Rise to F3 Chair
Gareth recounts volunteering on committee tasks, then being asked to take the chairmanship and his goals for innovation.
Gareth Davies, Chairman of F3 (First Forensic Forum), joins the Forensic Focus Podcast to explore how a grassroots, vendor-neutral community has helped shape digital forensics in the UK for three decades. He traces F3's origins in the 1990s, when affordable training and tool-agnostic knowledge-sharing were scarce, and explains why the forum still focuses on byte-level, lab-ready techniques over sales pitches.
Looking ahead, Gareth previews F3's 2025 conference in Warwickshire (Nov 18–20), the not-for-profit pricing model, and upcoming trainings on UAVs, software-defined radio, implants/biomed devices, smartwatch and vehicle forensics, and video authentication/deepfakes. He also discusses international growth (including interest in an Australian chapter) and an open call for volunteers to help run events and keep training affordable.
#DigitalForensics #DFIR #ForensicsTraining #IncidentResponse #VehicleForensics #CryberCrime #DigitalEvidence #DigitalInvestigtion #DigitalEvidence
👉 Visit Forensic Focus at https://www.forensicfocus.com
00:00 Introducing Gareth Davies
01:09 What is F3?
03:01 Gareth's Journey into Forensics
05:35 PhD and Research Work
06:54 Current Role and Responsibilities
09:08 Interesting Cases and Projects
12:27 Involvement with F3
14:41 F3's Global Reach and Community
20:03 Challenges and Future of F3
22:39 Personal Experiences and Networking
24:47 Becoming Chairman of F3
30:50 Upcoming F3 Event Details
35:28 Digital Forensics Teaching and Research
37:30 Upcoming F3 Training
42:38 Challenges in Digital Forensics
45:28 The Importance of Community and Resources
55:04 Personal Interests and Hobbies
57:46 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
🎥 Video/Transcript – https://www.forensicfocus.com/podcast/inside-f3-building-community-and-sharing-knowledge-in-digital-forensics/
📝 Show Notes F3 – First Forensic Forum website - https://f3.org.uk
F3 – First Forensic Forum LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/f3.org.uk/
Spyder Forensics - https://www.spyderforensics.com
Bénédictine - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9n%C3%A9dictine
APOLLO - https://github.com/mac4n6/APOLLO
DFRWS - https://dfrws.org
GCK File Signature Table - https://filesig.search.org
NIST - https://www.nist.gov/itl/ssd/digital-forensics
👉 Follow Forensic Focus here:
RSS | https://www.forensicfocus.com/feed/
YouTube | https://youtube.com/@ForensicFocus
Podcast | https://forensicfocus.com/podcast
LinkedIn Page | https://linkedin.com/company/forensicfocus
LinkedIn Group | https://linkedin.com/groups/693917
X | https://x.com/ForensicFocus
Facebook | https://facebook.com/forensicfocus
Bluesky | https://bsky.app/profile/forensicfocus.bsky.social
Instagram | https://instagram.com/forensicfocus
TikTok | https://tiktok.com/@forensicfocus
Mastodon | https://dfir.social/@forensicfocus
Website | https://www.forensicfocus.com
The AI-powered Podcast Player
