Tools and first-week setup

The tools a Digital Forensics intern uses and how to set up your workspace in week one.

These are the main tools for Digital Forensics tasks. You do not need all of them on day one; the Level 1 tasks tell you when to install each one.

Set up your workspace

Create a free GitHub account if you do not have one, with a professional username, and set up your LinkedIn profile: every task is submitted with a LinkedIn post.
Create one repository for the internship, for example digital-forensics-internship, with a README that says who you are and what the repo holds.
Keep one folder per task, named with the task number and title, so mentors find your work quickly.
Commit small changes every day with clear messages. Your daily work report uses these commits as proof.
Never commit passwords, API keys or personal data. Put secrets in a .env file and add it to .gitignore.

Task	What to do
What digital forensics is	In a repo named forensics-internship, explain digital forensics, its stages (identify, preserve, analyse, report) and where it is used in India (police, courts, companies).
Law and ethics	Explain the IT Act, the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam rules on electronic evidence (certificate under section 63), consent, and why you only examine data you are allowed to.
Chain of custody	Create a chain-of-custody form and fill it in for a practice USB drive you own.
Hashing for integrity	Hash files with MD5 and SHA-256, change one byte and show the hash change, and explain why hashes prove evidence was not altered.