pedophiles deserve to rot in hell, but i think that is bull sh*t if someone can go through my files and turn me in for illegally downloaded movies or music. it should still be part of some sort of understood privacy policy. i mean what if i downloaded pictures of marijuana plants, and get turned in. all i got to say is the tech better hide for a long time.

Well, that goes without saying that if anyone finds something that is highly criminal content they should report said person to police. And they should then proceed to the removal of his testicles with a rusty ax.

...Aha. Code X.

@IrisMR: why stop with the testes?

So let's say I let a plumber or repairman into my home. Is the court saying I have no "expectation of privacy" in such a situation and would have no recourse if, say, said repairman was found rifling thru my wife's underwear?

@num1skeptic: well, that's not really a good analogy. It is not illegal to have pictures of pot plants. It *is* illegal to have pictures of child porn.

And for those who want to invoke an argument about privacy or right against self-incrimination when your car's black box shows you were speeding at the time of the accident, as courts have said before, you have the right not to have to give evidence incriminating yourself. However, you do not any inferred right to prevent such evidence from *being given*.

@kepler11: yeah the pot plant was bad example, but the music and movies are what i'd be afraid of getting turned in for. did you see how much they fined that other woman? and i have hundreds of gigs worth.

@num1skeptic: wouldn't have to look hard to find my music collection, it only takes up %95 of my drive space. lol.

@ancientsociety: It is not the plumber or repairman's job to be rifling through your wife's underwear. It is the job of the computer guy to be rifling through your hard drive.

If you stashed a whole load of cocaine behind the kitchen sink, then yes, the plumber might have legitimate a reason to call the police.

Well duh.

@ancientsociety: Bad analogy unless your wife's underwear is in the sink.

The problem with all this of coarse is not that any of us should expect privacy when we hand off our technology to third parties. Courts have settled that years ago. The question is the chain of evidence. Would it not be possible for one of the techs at an electronics store to load the stuff themselves and then call the police. Such stuff has happened.If possible, everyone should be wiping their hard drives before sending anything out! Never ever give anyone a clue as to your income, passwords or your politics. Its no ones damn business. The courts really do not know how any of this stuff works and You are guilty until proven innocent.

When I was in school to be a network / PC guy, I remember a conversation like this coming up - with the conclusion being something like it is NOT ok for us to go snooping through a computer we are repairing, BUT if we did happen to come across something illegal (like kiddie porn), then we needed to alert the proper authorities right away.

This is the logical conclusion of these types of laws:

[www.pbfcomics.com]

@num1skeptic: The difference with music and movies is that the person working on your computer will likely not care about that.

They are legally required to turn you in for the other stuff.

Solution A: Learn to fix your own computer and don't worry about BestBuy going through your files.

Solution B: Flash drives are teh bomb.

i've heard of techs stealing valuble software (especially when working on business p/c's) for their own personal gain.

The key phrase is this: ""If a person is aware of, or freely grants to a third party, potential access to his computer contents....."

If you are keeping illegal activities on your computer, then the onus on you to delete it, before freely giving it to a stranger.

@kepler11: Agreed. Plus, you've got to be pretty stupid to leave the kiddie porn on the machine when you know it's going out into the wild, so this guy should be convicted of just being stupid. This reminds me of the recent story of the bank robber (I think it was a bank robber) who drove his car to a police station, thinking it was the last place anyone would look for him. Some guys just aren't that smart.

Interestly enough this doesn't just apply to illicit activity, but (as always) the people who do borderline activity give society reason to debate the ramifications of the law.

For instance, what about pictures of your mate? or business plans? or that invention you are working on? or how bout your credit card numbers? How bout nonvaluable information that you just don't want others looking at.

Ironically this is the basis usually for Attorney-client privilege [en.wikipedia.org] - that to have privacy, even if potentally incriminating, serves a higher purpose.

Also as a note, many statutes do not consider the use of child pornography when determining intent. For instance reporters [www.ktvu.com] having it without an intent to do a lewd act or ironically Borders selling the book "Lolita" could be convicted [www.chicagotribune.com],0,3834789.story.

The guy who was caught is named, "Kenneth Sodomsky."

@kepler11: No, it's his job to only look at what he has to look at to fix what is wrong.

Haven't we been over this countless times with the Geek Squad stories?

@Curiosity:
www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/printedition/wednesday/chi-porn31oct31,0,3834789.story

[www.chicagotribune.com],0,3834789.story

let's say, for the sake of my analogy, that I am a mafia hitman that does not know how to fix my BMW. And during a job, when the guy still in my trunk, my car is making a weird noise and I happen to be near a dealership. I take the car in and I say the noise comes from the engine, and they open the trunk.

I can't say in court that because I didn't allow them to open the trunk, it is illegal to be charged with kidnapping /murder (is up to you how good I am as hitman).

I dont know if this is a good analogy, but I just wanted to feel like a hitman driving a BMW for 5 seconds.

@zouxou: too funny.

isn't sodomy illegal? i think there's still and old law in the books of indiana that says it is........
so delete all your gay porn buran. lol. ok sorry i just got to give you a hard time because of the way you trashed me a few days back.

Back-up your files, keep them in a safe, if something bad happens to your computer and you can't fix it yourself, wipe the hard drive, junk it and buy a new one.

If you can't do the above, you shouldn't own a computer. If you can't do the above and you're a child pornographer then you get what you deserve.

As someone who's worked in the IT industry for more than 13 years, let me point out a few things.

1) The person who brought in the computer had no legal expectation of privacy. Anyone who watches Law & order probably knows that the police can't just search his hard drive without a warrant. However, the technicians, being the custodians of his machine, did have legal access to his hard drive, and can present the data to the authorities without a warrant (hence the recent ruling)

2) The fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution protections you from unreasonable search and seizure from government agencies, not private parties.

3)The Third Immutable Law of Computer Security states: "If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it's not your computer anymore"

Whoah whoah whoah. What if I find a laptop with trade secrets on it and sell it?

From the Case:
"Pennsylvania has adopted the theory of abandonment, which applies as long as improper police conduct did not induce a defendant's desertion of his personal property. Pursuant to this legal construct, when an individual evidences an intent to relinquish control over personal property, he or she has abandoned a privacy interest in property and cannot object to any ensuing search of the item by police. Abandonment revolves around the issue of intent, which is determined from words, acts, and all relevant circumstances existing at the time the property is purportedly deserted."
The court goes on to say:
"The issue is not abandonment in the strict property-right sense, but whether the person prejudiced by the search had voluntarily discarded, left behind, or otherwise relinquished his interest in the property in question so that he could no longer retain a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to it at the time of the search."

@James: That would never happ... oh, wait.

@calvinneal: Of course chain of evidence is a problem here. If you have a good lawyer then you will try to keep the evidence out on other exclusionary grounds. Further, though I don't know that much about computers, I think there is a way to tell when images were loaded on to your computer. So if the tech guy load the pics it will be easy to exclude by showing that the computer was not in your possession when they were loaded.

so is animal porn illegal? just askin because i'm taking my pc in soon and that chick doing the horse is my screen saver.

and why are there cats in the picture above? they are arousing me. <-- sick joke!

@num1skeptic: Actually sodomy is not illegal anymore. The US Supreme Court struck down these laws as an invasion of privacy:
[en.wikipedia.org]

@dysthymia: If you locked the trunk, and gave them a valet key, then I would guess that a good lawyer would argue that they didn't have permission to look in there. Repair shops aren't the police and can't go breaking in, and even if they think something is fishy they have to have probable cause and call the police.

If they break in, can't they be charged with destruction of property and/or trespassing?

Everyone who talks about how to ensure that no one will ever find their kiddy porn is now being investigated.

I understand that a person sexually violating an animal is illegal. But what about an animal violating a person?? [break.com]

@num1skeptic: "and why are there cats in the picture above? they are arousing me. <-- sick joke!"

Kitty....porn

i like the 60 minute specials where they coaz the pedophiles to bring condoms and go in the house and get naked. then in comes the cameras, and waiting outside are the police. hilarious!

@scoosdad: hilarious!

Note the Opinion can be found at COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA v. KENNETH F. SODOMSKY [www.superior.court.state.pa.us]

Not saying the court is in the end wrong, the theory of abandonment seems to fly in the face of the traditional notion of bailements.

BAILMENT - A legal relationship created when a person gives property to someone else for safekeeping. To create a bailment the other party must knowingly have exclusive control over the property. The receiver must use reasonable care to protect the property. Mr. Justice Story says, that a bailment is a delivery of a thing in trust for some special object or purpose, and upon a contract, express or implied, to conform to the object or purpose of the trust.

It seems that then to let anyone carry your luggage to your room would allow the police to search it.

@num1skeptic: Interesting that you should bring up sodomy here - the supreme court overturned all the state sodomy laws in 2003. The basic justification for overturning those laws was that consenting adults have a right to privacy when it comes to what they do in the bedroom.

I used to work for Gateway and you wouldn't believe the amount of crap the techs took off of people's computers. They had plenty of home brew content as well. So make sure you backup and delete all remnants of you/your girlfriend/your naked dog before you ever take your compy in for repair!

@Curiosity:
Bailements do not seem to come up in 4th amendment right to privacy cases. The direction of the courts (at least in Pennsylvania where this case occurred) has been if you give your property to someone to hold for you there is no right to privacy.

So stick the porn in a password protected directory. That should constitute a expectation of privacy even if you give your computer to a 3rd party.

@TWinter: i didn't bring it up, the guy's name was kenneth sodomsky. but still i give you points for trying.

besides i can tell you from experience, its not smart to gay bash on this site.

@num1skeptic: Reformat... Reformat long and reformat hard.

@