Two not-very-sharp thieves walked into a Chattanooga Best Buy toting three PCs, and asked one of the resident Geeks to help override the passwords on the boxes. Instead, the Geek, who had heard that a local school had been robbed the previous night, tried logging in, and saw that the username on the PCs was the name of the school. The store confiscated the computers, and the the alleged perps were arrested. The lesson here: reset the password yourself at home, using open-source cracking tools, instead of paying Best Buy to do it for you. Just kidding! We salute this agent for his vigilance, and hope he gets snapped up for a career in forensic PC security.

As reported by the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

A Best Buy employee got suspicious when Justin Hill, 26, and Ivan Hill, 19, brought in three computers to the Hamilton Place store and asked him to override passwords on the machines.

The employee’s sister teaches at Normal Park Museum Magnet’s Lower School campus, so he knew of the Tuesday night burglary in which thieves took computers and vandalized the school, said store manager Tom Huskin.

And sure enough, when the employee logged into the machines, the username was “Normal Park,” said Mr. Huskin, who was working at the time. The machines were confiscated.

“This is definitely a headline for the dumbest criminals,” Mr. Huskin said.

Of course, if you’re a legitimate user, you really can do it yourself at home instead of paying Best Buy. But don’t tell the crooks that, OK?

Geek Squad solves school burglary [Chattanooga Times Free Press]

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