Yeah, He turned him in. Right after he copied everything to a USB drive and shared it with all of his buds.

Who watches the watchers... er, I mean, who ensures that the technicians don't have any stolen child porn on their communal servers?

Proving time and again that criminals are frigging morons.

What kind of idiot takes a PC with kiddie porn into a shop for repair.

Once again, never a problem to tip a story this way :)

I couldn't help but wonder to myself what was he doing to find the child pornography in the first place? He obviously had to have been looking for child porn to find it unless the guy who gave it too him had it in a potentially blatant location such as the root directory (Aka: "C:\").

@Papa Midnight: Most backup and antivirus programs list file names as they go thru the drive. Hell, even regular kazaa porn has names like "hot 15year old teen anal squirt 18 barely legal.mov.mpg"

I honestly don't know why anyone would ever use geeksquad considering recent headlines, save ignorance. The same article mentions a woman now under RIAA guns after taking her PC to these assholes. Better make sure you don't have any risqué pictures of your toddler on that PC of yours, or it's the slammer for you, PERVERT!

The tech must have perused it all to make sure that it wasn't those "REAL TEENS" type of porn that is really 30 year olds.

Not that I would ANYTHING about it! :D

When people bring their computers to me to fix I go through certain directories to look for problems if I think there might be a virus. The reason for this is because chances are, the user installed it from a file they thought was something else, I go and look for anything I recognize. Legally, if I find child porn on a computer, I have to call the police and I would not hesitate to do so.

I read the story but there's no indication of whether we're talking about 7-year olds or 17-year olds. Sloppy, sloppy reporting which does have a bearing on whether 135 years in the slammer is excessive or not.

@cde: I forgot that little tid bit.

@ Timmus its 135 months not years.

As a PC technician I'll point out that this stuff isn't always carefully hidden in a dark corner of the computer. Sometimes it is right in your face. You turn it on and immediately you know it is there. Sometimes you stumble across it when you are getting files a customer requested in a backup. People who store porn-and that's a lot of people-are not always tactful.

And I would report someone with child porn in an instant.

Shame on Consumerist for making assumptions without any manner of thorough details on the subject they're reporting.

@XianZhuXuande: @xtc46: but most likely it was hidden in a directory of pictures which won't contain viruses. Sure its an assumption, but the most likely scenario. What I want to know is how they proved the chain of evidence? How do we know Geek Squad didn't put it on there? Oh, they are probably too stupid to figure out how to make it look like it had been on there for awhile, right.

He was sentenced to 135 months because he was "trafficking" in child pornography by "taking his laptop across state lines." So, to all you sickos out there, be sure to use an in-state Best Buy.

Lots of classic pornos are classified as child pornography because the actresses in them lied about their age (damn you Traci Lords!). Being an adult porn connoisseur can get you years of jail time. :-\ If you have an extensive collection of porn you definitely want to keep up to date on the latest child porn classifications.

Ha. I knew of this guy in my highschool that had childporn on his computer and brought it to a repair shop. He obviously got caught, and was kicked out of school (expelled?). I remember seeing him cry in the hallway of the morning he had to leave.

The local Sun paper published his name, even though he was a minor. It was so awesome. I think his name was Hartsgrove.

Whether or not Geek Squad did something bad, I'm glad this guy's in the slammer. I won't go so far as to say "Way to go, Geek Squad!", but I'm glad things turned out the way they turned out.

The dude was a motivational speaker with an interesting history, based on these comments.

The dude was a motivational speaker

Reminds me of Patrick Swayze's character in Donnie Darko

@mconfoy: Few things are hidden when you are copying or gathering data. But elaborating on this point is irrelevant; we don't know what type of pornography was on the computer (16 year olds or 6 year olds) and we don't know how GeekSquad found it. But we do now, that in absense of any worthwhile facts, this story has been spun as an attack on GeekSquad. Bravo.

Exposing genuine problems -- that has merit. Creating negative stories when we are filling in the blanks, assuming as we need in order to create something provacative: such 'information' serves nobody well (but it can hurt people).

@XianZhuXuande: I concur. I could even have been pictures that he took of his 16-year old girlfried when he was the same age.

@MCONFOY: Yeah, something tells me the situation went kind of like this:

Geek: "Man, this guy has nude photos of my [adult] girlfriend on here! This calls for some geek-style retribution..."

[copy child porn to dude's computer]

[quick call to the improper authorities]

[cackles of geek laughter]

[end of humanity as we know it]

@XianZhuXuande:

@timmus:

So somehow, if it was 17 or 16 year old porn, it makes it better/right/different? Under age porn is under age porn. If you want legal 16 year olds, go to canada.

Dude, that's a great way to set someone up. Holding a grudge against some customer who was rude to you? Upload a bunch of kiddie porn onto the their hard drive, call the cops and then sit back and laugh.

I wish I worked at Best Buy.

@louisb3: quis custodiet ipsos custodes

@guroth: "Kiddie Porn Dungeon"

Dunno about this. Our techs treat data like the customer's children (... anyway...) - you give it back to them just like you found it. NOT IN YOUR POSSESSION. It doesn't belong to you, so keep your damned mouth shut. I don't care if they find kiddie porn, pictures of your wife, or photos of a murder.

First, since there's no chain of evidence, how in the hell could anyone ever prove, beyond a reasonable doubt (or a [stupid] guilty plea), that ANYTHING 'found' on the machine you checked in belongs to you? Maybe you work for a school district and checked the machine in under your name. Maybe you checked the machine in for a friend, because you told them you'd take a look at it and couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

Hell, maybe you just bought the machine and it had problems - maybe you stole it!

Once the files are there, it can be extraordinarily difficult to find out where they came from - if not outright impossible. Filesystem dates can easily be forged.

I was a technician for Gateway Computers. During my tenure, we reported a laptop that had child porn on it to the authorities (I have no idea what happened, the police came and picked up the laptop, and it's owner never came back to pick it up). And I for one am glad we found it. Some of the stuff is not well hidden, and when you run a virus checker, sometimes files pop up as infected. By the name of the file, you know something is wrong.
Also, you signed a sheet saying we had access to anything we needed on the computer. If that means your my documents area or MP 3's, so be it.

@cde:

A bit yes. I have harsh views on child molestors or child pornographers (blindfold and a bullet) but there's a difference between a 17 year old that states she's 18 and a 7 year old.

The guy probably had a naked child as his desktop. :P

He probably had a naked child as his desktop image. :P

@XianZhuXuande:

How is that spinning? He took his computer in for repairs and got 10 years in prison. Hell, for all we know, they could have put those images on his computer. I don't think some tech needs to be rifling through my files to put in another power supply. I know our "Big Brother" government has given them permission to do so, but I don't have to like it. Regardless if he had child porn on it, or images of a murder he committed 20 years ago. If you house sit for someone, do you go through their panty drawers and read all their financial documents hoping to find some tax evasion or spousal abuse? Hope not.

For the record, I have no problem with this.
Many people assume that people interested in porn create super secret folders that no one can see or access full of their porn.
They don't. And when you bring a computer in, techs look for problems, such as viruses. There are enough viruses in video and photo images downloaded from the internet to warrant them looking at any photo or video files.
If they find kiddie porn, they SHOULD report it. It is against the law.
They certainly don't need it coming back at them if the kiddie porn owner is caught later and the prosecution can prove that a tech looked at it and did nothing.
If you bring your car in for repairs and they find a brick of Cocaine, shouldn't they call the police?

With every bad thing there's a good thing they say. Geek squad folks are sneaky porn thieves, and thus they find scumbags.

@XianZhuXuande: "As a PC technician I'll point out that this stuff isn't always carefully hidden in a dark corner of the computer. Sometimes it is right in your face."

If it's a home computer for personal use and what you use it for is porn, why WOULD you hide it away in a corner?

Usually it does not occur to you until AFTER it breaks and it's too late to move the files somewhere less obvious until after the tech sees it and saves it!

I had a friend this happened to with confidential client financial documents. It put the fear of God into me w/r/t file protection on my home computer, which honestly I hadn't really thought about because, "who's going to be looking at my old budgeting documents on my crappy old home desktop?"

Oh, right ... the guys who have to rescue it when it dies.

I'm not advocating child porn, I hope all those freaks burn in hell, but.. how is it legal for a tech squad to report you for it? I mean what happened to consumer privacy and all that crap? Does the utilitarian good of reporting pedophiles override individual privacy? (If it does, I have no problems since I'm not a pedo but it does kinda lend itself to a slippery slope argument about other goodies they might find on your computer that can get you in trouble.)

@timmus: "Minor females changing into swimsuits" sounds like teenagers, not small children. Not that it's right or anything, but I think 10 years is excessive for having -- not creating -- teen porn.

@Hinomura: "mean what happened to consumer privacy and all that crap? Does the utilitarian good of reporting pedophiles override individual privacy?"

Generally, yes. In most states (probably all of them, but I haven't looked), even doctor-patient privilege, which is an ACTUAL LEGAL PRIVILEGE, is overridden by mandatory reporting of any reasonable suspicion of child abuse in any and all forms -- including pedophilia.

Consumer privacy is a much weaker "right" than doctor-patient privilege. I don't know how the law works w/r/t people who aren't mandatory reporters (in my state, teachers, doctors, social workers, etc.), but if I owned a company that developed photos or in other ways came into contact with client photographic or videographic media, BY GOD my employees would all be required to report child porn on penalty of being fired and turned over to the cops.

Since possession of kiddie porn is a crime, it's one of those things that pollutes people who come across it accidentally, and I would REALLY not want to find out if "developing client photos" fell under the heading of "possession" for criminal purposes. Call the cops and get that trash out of your hands as fast as humanly possible. And of course cooperate as much as possible to get the scum-sucking bottom-feeders of humanity who peruse kiddie porn for kicks into as much jail as possible.

I have significant problems with overreach. Teens having sex w/ each other, documenting it, then being charged with child porn. Especially if Black (there is some poor Southern kid that is in jail for more than 10 years because he had oral sex with his (White) girlfriend). That's obscene. Or kids playing doctor (which - who hasn't?) being convicted as sexual predators forever (that's happened too).

And, while child porn isn't going to get you on the fastpass to Heaven, I think kiddy porn shouldn't get you in jail longer than rape convictions, which is the case. A sense of proportion is lacking there.

Adults preying on kids, throw the book. But the authorities go nuts on this, which is evil.

I assume the guy's lawyer was able to address issues like whether the pictures were of the guy's 16 year old girlfriend from when he was 16, the chain of custody problems associated with the porn being found in someone else's custody, and the like.

The guy got 135 months. That generally suggests that he wasn't getting much of a break for it being a difficult case. He pleaded guilty.

I think this case is a clear message for kiddie porn consumers everywhere! If your computer breaks down, ditch the old one and buy a new one!

Actually, our store was doing a backup like 4 days ago, and the video folder had files like "14yo...", "16yo boy...", etc. We shut down the system and called the police.

Police took the computer, after verifying what it was. (we took no part in it) And that's pretty much all I care to think about that subject.

The computer wasn't in a state where the user could of removed their porn before bringing it in for service. I'm a bit surprised that so many people here think there's a problem with reporting child pornography to the authorities. Isn't child porn "wrong", or at the least, "mildly offensive"?

Given the ease of gathering porn, why even bother keeping it on your HD? stream it or just delete it when you're done with it. Come on people, common sense here.

I can't believe that so many people here think that a computer with child porn shouldn't have been reported. The excuses of "maybe someone else put it on there, maybe they looked at it or copied it too..." none of that is relevant. It's not Geek Squad's job to say "Maybe the person who brought the computer in didn't download it." It's the POLICE'S job to investigate it and find the person responsible, whether that is the person who brought the computer in or not.

Um: The Geek Squad folks had no choice--none whatsoever. They would have been in violation of Federal law if they failed to report immediately on discovery of child porn (That also applies to corporate geeks).

And to follow up: If the GS folks had place the files on the computer, forensic analysis by the law-enforcement investigators would easily have discovered that. (I'm a trained and experienced forensic investigator.)