Now, people who make their own porn and don't store it securely, that is a whole different issue.

ElijahDProphet

Xenuite

Warpigeon

ocp

CrashTECh

I can't comment directly on what went down with this guy at his work -- for a few different reasons -- including that the situation remains more beneficial for us if I don't divulge what I do or do not know, as it may include information that this guy may or may not know. I can say I do not know whether he was fired or not.

Anyway, I went after THIS guy because he was leaking our album before it was released, but after our promo copies were sent out by our label 23db Records. Neither his address, nor real name, matched any names or even regions for promo copy recipients.

The best I can tell, someone on the 23db Records promo list (they get free advance copies to review) must have leaked our album, this guy found it (or had an arrangement with said promo recipient), and immediately uploaded our album to at least 3-4 different sites, Russian sites included.

Anyway, I figured if I could get this guy's attention it might get the leak's attention.
Vigilantism maybe, but you reap what you sew.

Jessica
[sd6online.com]

jjblackshear

krylonultraflat

The HZA.

Like I've always said, read the fine print before you sign. I know the intake form at my old job had the phrase "Your machine is on my bench on my network and I can do whatever the fuck I want" translated into legalese, and we ALWAYS had the customers signature on that. I'm willing to bet Best Buy and all the other repair shops do the same.

Like benpopken said, if your really that worried about it, send it in with a wiped drive. I did that when I claimed a warranty on my laptop, because I didn't want someone looking at my stuff. It's YOUR job to protect your private data, NOT the repair tech's.

NorCal

Think back about 10 years. You ever go to a friend's house and say, "hey, this looks like a good CD, lemme copy it from you." BAM. That's it, there's no conspiracy, there's no rage against the machine, there's no Linux hippie subculture! It's just laziness and public interest. You like what you hear and you don't feel like going out and buying the CD, and you know how to work a tape recorder.

Fast forward to now. People are a lot lazier and a lot more open. Here's a computer with a mother load of music and porn... I think I'll copy it from you. Why? Because you don't feel like buying the CDs or buying porn like a regular sleaze ball and you know how to work the [Ctrl] 'C' and 'V' keys! Before you had to like the CD, now you take for granted that you or someone else will like the music you're copying from the computer!

The problem is people not taking care of their data. You don't send your pants to the cleaners with your wallet inside and think you'll get it back, right? You don't mail someone cash and think they won't steal it right? Most of the time, you don't even park your car without taking all your stuff out, even if you don't live in THAT KIND of neighborhood.

Consumers have to be educated on how their data is vulnerable and how to protect it, because no amount of certification, job ethics, or regulation will protect their data and themselves from their own ignorance.

rawsteak

Denada

Case in point :
But even drive encryption on your home computer is worthless. Because, again, these are trained computer professionals with years of college schooling and nothing better to do than crack whatever encryption or protection you've set up.

Bullshit. You telling me a washed up CS grad working at GeekSquad can crack TrueCrypt volumes. Right. If that was the case they should be working at the NSA.

I think this guy was embellishing just a tiny bit to say the least.

enroper

"There are certain ethics involved that if your willing to steal information, may it be porn, software or mp3s leads you down a path where later on ethically you have lowered yourself to be open to breaking other laws and ethics." -YZERMAN

Another thing failed to mention in a lot of these articles is whether or not the porn is of the actual person or not (if its the person yes that is unethical but see my last comment as to why that shouldn't be the focus of the problem). If some dude brought in a computer and had hot girl on girl porn what exactly is the difference between that and downloading it off the internet? Its not like that isn't where he got it in the first place?

That comment above is kind of comical because I guarantee the business itself is actually doing real unethical stuff not even comparable to what essentially amounts as making a photocopy of someones playboy magazine.

ehlaren82

Government regulation? Vigilante busts? heres a better idea...increase customer awareness.

Yah, thats right, people need to learn and realize that you DONT PUT CRAP YOU WANT OTHER PEOPLE TO SEE SOMEWHERE WHERE THEY CAN SEE IT. Do you seriously expect the Wal-Mart photo tech to not notice the naked pictures he just developed or make his own copies? Would you let somebody you don't know into your house to fix something then leave for 6 hours?

Anytime you make documents available, whether they be financial, personal identification, or homemade porn pics, to a place accessible by other people why would you not expect that somewhere, sometime, sooner or later someone is going to try to copy that digital information.

Even if every computer tech stopped stealing peoples porn right now there is still going to be problems cropping up for entrusting your easily accessible personal data to anyone except yourself. This whole argument on consumerist is missing the point. Just vilifying techs at Best Buy and computer repair techs in general will NOT stop this from being a problem.

ehlaren82

Maybe you should head back to class to learn how to make shit up. Having one of my majors in philosophy (what a waste), and taken every ethics class under the sun, I assure you that you are wrong. Stealing mp3s in no way necessarily equates to further ethical breaches. And because it could (and I suspect does) just mean they have a different/higher threshold on what they consider morally wrong than you do, it means your point is wrong. Good day.

enm4r

Unfortunately the dude goes way off into some crazy mp3 tangent... and the two concepts are not similar. Nobody's been convicted of mp3 sharing yet, at all. Chances are, it would never last if the RIAA actually went to a full trial, even if they targeted the right person, so to put it on the same scale is ignorant of the law and projecting their own misguided morals on others.

The grabbing of someone's data on their computer... I don't think there's a question about the legality of it, but what's the punishment? Losing your crap job? If for some reason you REALLY think that the right solution is busting all the "young punks" into some zone of fear and getting them convicted of whatever charges you can make stick, then go ahead and actually promote that agenda.

Otherwise, start educating people on how to properly secure their data, because it's a good thing to do even without taking it into a computer shop with all the lovely viruses, trojans and other fun ways that people can gain access to your computer.

Instead, you're just complaining about a problem and offering zero solutions while at least somewhat recognizing that it won't go away.

And it's been around a lot longer than 8 years, but like everything else the advent of broadband and cheaper long-distance networking has enabled like-minded people to share their favorite things much easier.

There were people making and sharing child pornography well before the internet, but they just didn't have easy ways to get it from Toyko to Tallahasse. Same goes for people sharing music (used to be cassette tapes!), movies (VHS in the mail!) and everything else that we now do at the speed of light. It took a while, but you could get the same thing accomplished before this magical internet that keeps this website kicking.

So, it kinda makes people look rather foolish when they try to put a timeframe on something that's been going on for a long, long time.

masterdave

Ben, I love your blog and have been a reader for a long time. I do understand where you are getting at from all of this but you really seem to make a strong effort paint the whole industry as encouraging things like this. While low wages do add to the problems, most of these people are the outliers.

You seem to skirt across the much more important issue of people just being responsible for their own data. With all the identity theft around, full access to all personal documents on a computer should never happen in the first place

miburo

gorckat

There are certain ethics involved that if your willing to steal information, may it be porn, software or mp3s leads you down a path where later on ethically you have lowered yourself to be open to breaking other laws and ethics.

I am not trying to be self-rightous so I will fully admit I do my own downloading of mp3s and movies at home, but when I was a tech working on other peoples machines it didn't matter how much money I made I didn't take information off peoples hard drives without their personal consent because they were paying me to work on their pc.

The big qualifier here is I was not being paid my $7-12 a hour to steal their data.

When I steal data at home it's on my time and my dime and I accept the risk involved with that personally.

yzerman

Dervish

We were a small shop so I dont think something like that would have gone unnoticed!

xhan

hoosierdaddy812

RandomHookup

The idea of taking your hard drive out before going to a repair shop is ridiculous. 99.9% of the repairs I did were software repairs, which sort of need the customer's OS configuration and files in order to find the problem!

My advice: find a local shop, not a chain, and be as explicit about your problem as possible. That was my biggest pet peeve!

Also, don't leave your porn on your desktop, please. I really don't like seeing that you have a tranny scat fetish.

theantidote

Ben-M

EtherealStrife

You can be against copyright and still respect people's privacy.

mind

Any (ANY) modern encryption utility (like TrueCrypt) that's properly setup means there is NO chance the post-pubescent wanna-be cracker will be able to snoop your data (porn or otherwise).

vonskippy

I treat every person's computer as sacred, their private data has no value to me, but I can respect that it will most likely have great value to them. I will ask them where it is located or have them show me. I will not go browsing around for things of interest, it wouldn't be much different than looking through someone's house just because you thought it was ok because they let you in the front door. You wouldn't want a plumber to go and snoop around your bathroom and in your medicine cabinet would you? It is the same breach of trust and complete disrespect that these people show.

Many do not realize that you can do a lot without a college degree and are more likely to be hired with a list of certifications which do not require you to have a degree to get, just the money to do so. Sure they take some studying and hard work, but it is worth the effort in the end. That is probably the issue with some of these people, they don't want to put the effort into something, so they settle for the simple, low paying job.

ShadowFalls

I don't know. A 4-year comp-sci degree and these people are working in retail for $9.50 ? I wouldn't have even considered taking a job like that out of school -- and I went to a second-tier state school.

Somehow I'm guessing these are the people who posted all of their comp-sci homework questions verbatim on the internet and blindly submitted whatever answers they got.

I think 'Hashand' has acquired an inaccurate view of the IT industry if he thinks one needs an MA or PhD or 10 years on the job to get anywhere. Perhaps this is how the industry is perceived by employees in computer repair shops, but this is certainly not the case in the IT industry.

Shadowman615

I think the best way for people to solve this issue is not to use "services" like this but find the local kid, who you know, and pay him what you would at something like Geek Squad.

"Whole Home Network Installation" $199

"Add Device to Existing Network" $159

"Operating System Install" $129 (in store)

If you pay the talented local kid half that in cash, i would expect way better service than any other place you could find.

endless

ctech_05

c'mon. bonded computer repair personnel?!? i've seen 12 year olds that are more computer savvy than some sys admins & there's thousands of friendly neighborhood computer repair ppl that work out of their home for beer money. yes, please require a gov't merit badge for these ppl to fix your computer for $50. & lord knows we need more vacant mom & pop computer shops on main street.

but please, hire a few thousand "experts" w/ fat benefits to shuffle some papers on my dime.

where's all the outcry for personal responsibility on this comment thread?

interesting convo on IP though.

mac-phisto

Also - what is the big deal with stealing people's porn? Do that many people have homemade porn sitting on their harddrives, or are they just embarrassed that someone found their hand job stash? I would be much more worried about financial data, and personal records that could lead to ID theft.

samurailynn

ctech_05

Darkest Daze

bohemian

Yes, if you take the least minimum courses required in a Computer Technology "degree", whilst spending your time either partying it up with your fraternity or moderating IRC chatrooms - that doesn't make a good professional. Sitting at your computer 23 hours a day doesn't make you an expert.

I took courses in C++, Python, Computer Architecture, Compilers etc, with projects that really pushed my intellectual and analytical ability to the brink, and though I may have cribbed about them at the time, I can now see the fruits of my labor every time my managers express their happiness over my solutions. I don't even work in IT anymore (I quit my first job after 2 years of being management's personal bitch, and took my skills to work in finance for a hedge fund), yet everyday, I see how my engineering degree helps me do so much more at my position.

Just because "geeks" start waving a Linux flag, it doesn't give them any credibility regarding computers in my book. At the end of the day, any idiot with a Dummies book can learn how to re-arrange your desktop icons or upgrade your anti-virus, but it's a college degree that enables one to really SOLVE a problem.

It's really easy to always blame capitalism and the economy for low-paid workers (and not without fault), but just because you couldn't be bothered to study in college and now have a shitty job, doesn't mean you commit unethical and illegal acts - especially to YOUR CUSTOMERS - the reason you get paid anything at all. There's a saying about this kinda stuff in India about such people - "You're cutting a hole in the same plate you are eating in"

wreckingcru

It has always been the case that brining in you homemade porn could either get you busted, or, more likely, that the technician would knock off a few extra copies for himself. In a few cases, this kind of stolen porn has wound up on the internet.

The clear moral is to keep that stuff locked up and away from people who work in back rooms.

Skeptic

CharlesJBarry

My husband wasn't thrilled about the time he took in my lap top with a hottie shirtless Spike wallpaper on it. I guess for him it was like having to wear a purse.

*giggles*

bleacheddecay

inboulder

goodkitty

Televiper

If you treat your employees like child-slaves, that's exactly the type of people you're going to have after the smart people get fed up.

Scuba Steve

It is up to the business owner to curb these problems, don't allow these sort of culture's to exist, and it is the customers job to attempt to protect themselves. If they store all of their files in a secure drive with TrueCrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/), and not Windows fake encryption, and don't use a password that is used elsewhere on the system, for no cost at all, they can protect them selves. Additionally, if they see these abuses they should challenge the business manager/owner directly, and scream it from the tree tops, this is how you will force their business to change.

uriahsw

Ben Popken

And will someone PLEASE FIX THE VANISHING COMMENTS? This is the first story I've been able to actually comment on in ages because the comments and the comment box keep vanishing.

Buran

Most computer geeks, male anyway, would just not even dare to snoop.

superlayne