I am wondering how much this has to do with FTK Imager 3. It really hit them (MD5) on two levels. First you have a free mounting tool to go against MIP. Then with the ease of mounting a forensic image for free, LiveView becomes a more of an option as you don't have to worry about it's limitations (DD or having to have buy a mounting tool).
ctinker
Thanks for the update. It's a great tool but expensive for those not in LE so it is great to see there will be new rates in the future. I'll certainly be interest in buying the product if it is similar to the current LE pricing.
Kind regards
Sam Raincock
In addition to the positive comments posted about the usefulness of VFC I wanted to discuss some common misconceptions. FTK Imager has actually benefited MD5 and VFC. Although we always recommend MIP, we appreciate some may find the free mounting tool hard to resist! Also DD images and write blocked physical drives can be used with VFC, it is not limited to mounted images. For some the total cost of using VFC has now been reduced.
Live View is a product provided free of charge for computer investigators worldwide. In fact VFC methodologies were valuable in the creation of Live View http//
Michael Penhallurick is the creator and developer of VFC. Michael has developed many new valuable features including password bypass, restore point forensics and more. All of these, including full commercial support, are only available with a VFC license.
Finally the opinions of experts are vital and greatly appreciated. I hope in the coming months you feel that your voices are heard and not ignored. This was not designed as a sales quote, simply some information that I thought would be useful, so I apologise if in any way I crossed the boundary!
Greetings,
The problem isn't just that one tool goes up by a factor of 2, but that many of our tools are significantly increasing in price. We also need more disk space, more CPU cycles, etc to run these tools. In some cases, not using the tools isn't really an option - if you need to boot an image in a VM, you need to boot an image in a VM.
The cost of doing business is rising pretty steadily and the fees we can charge aren't increasing, cutting into our profit margins.
Yes, we can work smarter, be more effective with existing tools, and use open source tools. The issue still exists….
-David
However, from a business prospective, the more time you spend trying to get another tool to work and testing the less time you have to actually make a living (or your free time out of work). I think sometimes people do forget how certain tools can increase their productivity and hence enable them to make more money because of it.
Hence, I am happy to pay for good software that saves me time 'trying' to get something to work because it simply just works! However, I don't think it will ever go down well when you know you are paying twice the price than another group for it.
Kind regards
Sam Raincock