A reader wrote in to tell us that the Western Digital hard drive he recently bought new from Best Buy had hidden dirty pics buried on it. He was running a program to retrieve some accidentally deleted images when he discovered the secret files. Read his story below. [Update: our tipster has written back in to clarify that the HD was not necessarily "brand new."]
Imagine my dismay when, while playing around with folders on my external hard drive (Western Digital 160GB), I deleted all of my personal pictures. Pictures of myself, my friends, my cats, parties and vacations all deleted in one fell swoop. It is times like these when it’s good to have a friend that downloads all of Lifehacker’s suggested applications. This friend turned me onto a little program called PhotoRescue (http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/v3/) for Mac, which I used and it worked in restoring nearly everything on my hard drive, including videos.
Though, perhaps this program worked too well.
Upon examining the cornucopia of recovered pictures and videos I stumbled upon a few gems that were not my own. Unfamiliar Asian faces accompanied my pictures of the Philadelphia Flyers playoff game and concerts past. Puzzled, I examined these first few pictures. The list started with a few anime pictures. I must add, I have not once watched an anime movie or even viewed an anime site on my computer — ever. Scrolling down the list I came across some pictures that perplexed me even more. My best guess at the next few pictures was what seemed like some type of Asian CD artwork, an American Express picture, and a picture of Asian Norton Anti-Virus?
And then I got to the good stuff – naked Asian ladies.
I wish I could say that the pictures on the hard drive were mine; however, I am positive they are not. Believe me, I would be the first to admit if they were.
My question now is, how did these pictures get there? No one else had access to the hard drive and I bought it brand new from Best Buy. Was Western Digital selling refurbished hard drives as new? Were the people assembling these hard drives testing them by loading some porn onto them to test them out? That’s where The Consumerist comes in.
Have you heard any similar cases as mine or do you have any insight into my mysterious HD of porn?
We’re as curious as you are.
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Meh, that’s terrible (that mine came blank).
Lesson as always, only chumps shop at Best Buy (or Sears). Seriously, stop going their if you don’t want to get ripped off, lied to, or cheated.
Or all three at the same time.
I don’t watch anime but I still know that it is called anime and not japanimation (which is apparently quite offensive to the anime fan kidz)
er, that last one was aimed at Applekid
One wonders if this came from Best Buy how in God’s name the pr0n escaped the Geek Squadders.
I’ll bet they are upset with themselves today
I think what is most disturbing about this is the possibility that there was illegal material (eg. underage girls) on the hard drive.
For example if he wasn’t savvy enough to recover the files himself. Brings the computer to a vendor to have the files recovered. Illegal content found – who’d believe he was innocent.
Perhaps the drive was RMA? But then shouldn’t it say refurbished?
I hated that 160 GB so I returned it to get a 500GB HD. I’m glad your enjoying the pictures I placed on the disk.
@Applekid: I think it’s not so much anime he just doesn’t want us to connect the dots that he’s a 4channer.
I seriously doubt that the drive was ‘new’ or ‘refurbished’. New hard drives ship after being servo written, which is equilivlent to a low level format, it is the same with refurbished. So the drives ship with no data at all other than possibly some manufacturer supplied utilities depending on the drive.
The ONLY difference between new and refurbished when it comes to hard drives is that the refurbished drive has been sold, returned, tested for defects, then re-servoed to ensure it will format for the new purchaser.
I strongly suspect that the drive had been purchased, possibly had files erased,then returned and re-sold as new which is a common practice in retail, especially at the big box stores.
Did you know that some hard drives are made in Thailand? The more you know.
But will the secret Asian lady love you longtime?
im not sure why, but, i love this story!
Yeah, that’s way not cool. What if it was child porn, or something else that’s illegal?
If there’s some way to prove that the pictures you uncovered really aren’t yours, then you should call a lawyer to see what your options are. I always knew those big electronics stores re-sold their returns as new, but I never thought it could have an impact like this.
I’m gonna take the advice of one of the previous commenters and make sure I always check the shrinkwrap before I buy new storage devices.. or anything else for that matter, really.
Maybe the Geek Squad’s stash of customer pr0n got leaked out or they just exchanged whatever hard drive they were using with a new one.
At least you didn’t get something worst
@Applekid: I wouldn’t know it by japanimation or anime… I would of just said Japanese cartoons haha. I must be sheltered.
Umm no surprises here, as Best Buy is well known for copying customer porn from the hard drives that it gets its hands on…I’m sure it was one of their standard workbench holding drives resold after a “spring cleaning”…
@Applekid: Mmm, you know, I actually thought the same thing when I read that. It’s like…the rest of the letter is so casual, especially when it comes to the actual PORN, but when he brings up the anime, he tries really hard to assure us that such filth has never crossed his hardrive…
Also, most people would *not* recognize those Cardcaptor Sakura pictures as ‘anime’…mostly because they are manga images, which is a completely different medium. But this guy knew that Cardcaptor Sakura was also an anime.
Oh god I am reading way too much into this, aren’t I? Either way, congrats on the cute photos…
@Consumer007: It’s not just Best (Worst) Buy. It’s a standard practice. I know a guy who raids the dump every week for hard drives from trashed PCs and scans them for porn.
DOD Wipe your hard drives, kids. There are some weirdos out there.
FWIW, if I ever get a used hard drive I always DoD wipe it BEFORE I install it in a system. Not for privacy reasons but for virus checks and to test the drive’s reliability under a strain.
Personally, I think that all computers now come with pornography installed in hidden files- so that when the consumer (or voter, or complainant, or political adversary, etc.,)causes too much trouble, they can be blackmailed into keeping their mouths shut.
Why do you think that 99% of all the shit going on out in the world happens without anyone objecting to it?
Just a theory….
any chance he is going to zip that up and rapidshare it
I have no doubt that stores re-shrink wrap returns.
Often times, I’ve picked up items and you can tell by the type of shrink wrap on it as we have a shrink wrapper at my office. The factory shrink wrap, is always a little bit loose, with the “crinkles” in the corner. Re-shrink wrapped items, you can tell because the shrink wrap is super-tight (due to the heating fan which melts the replacement wrap til it’s fully tight on the item). And factory shrink wrap usually has “fold overs” in the shrink wrap (like the way you fold up the leftover gift wrap on the edges when packaging presents).
And of course, whenever I’ve returned something brand new to the store (especially places like Wal-mart – p.s. I know, I know, I got some video games as a gift from there however
), they look at you like you are automatically a criminal and rip open the new item to make sure you didn’t pull some kind of swap-out on them. Once they find you haven’t, and begrudgingly issue you a refund, I’m sure they just don’t toss that item out, return it to the manufacturer as a defective item (else they would put a “defective” slip on it immediately), nor sell it as an open box item as a discount. I’m sure it just gets re-shrink wrapped and put right back on the shelf.
A lot of the porn stars were concerned about razor burn, but why else do people enjoy watching porn? So they can see everything! When your having sex, you would see razor burn on a girl, so might as well see it on porn. Now this hd porn will make it feel like your really there!