NationStates Jolt Archive

Okay...maybe not that last part.

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/07/06/1916207.shtml

"Consumer-advocate blog Consumerist ran a sting operation to catch a Best Buy Geek Squad member searching for and stealing media files from a customer's computer. The article includes the story with screen captures and a video of the technician's actions. From that piece: 'Reached for comment, Geek Squad CEO Robert Stephens expressed desire to launch an internal investigation and said, "If this is true, it's an isolated incident and grounds for termination of the Agent involved." This is not just an isolated incident, according to reports from Geek Squad insiders alleging that Geek Squad techs are stealing porn, images, and music from customer's computers in California, Texas, New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere. Our sources say that some Geek Squad locations have a common computer set up where everyone dumps their plunder to share with the other technicians.' A related story from a former Geek Squad employee details the decline of the Geek Squad and Best Buy ethics in general."

Well, it's certainly interesting.

If you're too computer illiterate to fix your own problems and don't know anyone who knows a damn thing about computers who will help you with them then maybe you deserve to have your porn copied by the technician you bring in.

I'm just surprised any of their customers noticed this at all.

Noes! The be stealin mah porn!

Why get pissy if someone copies your porn--unless you're starring in it and are embarrassed, I mean.

If you're too computer illiterate to fix your own problems and don't know anyone who knows a damn thing about computers who will help you with them then maybe you deserve to have your porn copied by the technician you bring in.

I'm just surprised any of their customers noticed this at all.

I'd tend to agree with you point of view were I in a more foul mood today. This is not the case, however. Even computer illiterates ought to have the same privacy rights as anyone else, so sacking the guy is absolutely fine with me.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Apparently it's not just for programs anymore.

And this is why you put your porn (Book of Shadows, collection of trashy romance novels, Super Secret Diary, 1.5 gigs of pervy slash, etc) onto CD before you let some stranger paw about in your computer. Jeesh, we're so much more casual about letting people into our computers (which contain, on average more personal info than just about anything else we own) than we are about letting them into our house.

its a good thing I never use the same porn twice thus negating the need for such worries

...

am I right in assuming nobody else does this?

Theres nothing im ashamed of on my computer so I dont really care what people do.

HOWEVER

What those employees do is:

- violating the customers privacy, obviously quite naughty and bad.

- in SOME cases breach of copyright (yeah thats another isue I know)

And i think in light of those 2 points it creates risk of employees stealing financial information from those computers and other private material they could potentially use to blackmail the customers with.

BUT in light of that if I were one of those employees Id be loading up on anything and everything I could get my geeky hands on and selling pirate copies to my freinds so......

who downloads t3h pr0n?

thats what google image search is for...:D

I'd tend to agree with you point of view were I in a more foul mood today. This is not the case, however. Even computer illiterates ought to have the same privacy rights as anyone else, so sacking the guy is absolutely fine with me.
Oh yeah, I'm not saying that the guy shouldn't be fired, but I think that one aught to expect this sort of thing and that if you were really concerned about keeping your porn to yourself you'd learn a thing or two about your computer so you could fix it yourself.

Of course I learned the hard way about letting people have free access to my computer while I'm out of the house for a while. I left one of my exes in my room for a couple of hours while I went to work. I opened the folder with my movies and tv shows so he could watch some stuff while I was gone (it was a long distance thing) and while I was out he'd gone through my computer, he was digging through private correspondances that I'd saved there, found some pics of me with one of my friends from years ago et c. Then denied finding any of this (even after I was like... "Ok, MS word tells me that the following documents were opened recently..."). Yeah, it was hard for me to leave a boy in my room with my computer for more than like two minutes for a while after that.

Oh sure, it's just stealing your porn and MP3s right now, but how long before it turns into outright file snooping and maybe shutting down your anti-virus to install a few trojan horses and rootkits?

Noes! The be stealin mah porn!

funny, but it's missing the cat pic.

funny, but it's missing the cat pic.

Don't post a fucking cat pic. They're way over done, and screw over people with dialup. Why can't we let Ifreann's genius stand by itself?

Don't post a fucking cat pic. They're way over done, and screw over people with dialup. Why can't we let Ifreann's genius stand by itself?

One pic is one pic. Do you think i'm involved in some weird conspiracy against people with dial-up? No. It's not my problem they can't get a decent connection.

No, this post details for any silly movie-plot you might believe to exist. Just normal white text.

Use UNIX. Multi-user operating systems prevent people from snooping in your files. Of course, you would have to give a technician root privileges, so watch him!

I know what they did is wrong, but what do you expect leaving someone alone at your computer with the privileges to view any file?

Noes! The be stealin mah porn!

MEMES ARE ALWAYS FUNNY AMIRITE

Good for the techs, I say. Smart people.

If you're too computer illiterate to fix your own problems and don't know anyone who knows a damn thing about computers who will help you with them then maybe you deserve to have your porn copied by the technician you bring in.
Agreed. Do you see what they charge people for? Nothing any barely competent dipshit couldn't do now that everything is plug and play and comes with step by step instructions.

I'm just surprised any of their customers noticed this at all.
That's what I want to know. You are paying some idiot $80 to install a PCI card but you notice them stealing porn from your computer?

All they're doing is copying your porn and music files? Meh, they are welcome to it. I'm happy to share.

who downloads t3h pr0n?

thats what google image search is for...:D
Images? That is so 90's.

Of course, you would have to give a technician root privileges, so watch him!
While he's looking at my porn? I think I'd rather not.

If you're too computer illiterate to fix your own problems and don't know anyone who knows a damn thing about computers who will help you with them then maybe you deserve to have your porn copied by the technician you bring in.

I'm just surprised any of their customers noticed this at all.

You're such a geek for thinking that anyone who doesn't know anything about computers is an idiot. :p