i iz in yur fyls, steelin yur pr0n
To investigate claims by current and former Geek Squad techies (see "The 10 Page Geek Squad Confession - "Stealing Customers' Nudie Pics Was An Easter Egg Hunt"), we loaded a computer with porn and rigged it to make a video of itself. We captured every cursor movement, every program opened, every file accessed. Everything that the user saw and did, we recorded.
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Then we caught one well-seasoned Geek Squad Agent copying personal and pornographic images and video from our computer to his company-issued thumb drive (see video above, or the logfiles).
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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 Squads have a central server set up where everyone dumps their plunder to share with the other technicians.
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If our techie readers were right about the Geek Squad doing this, then perhaps they're right in saying it happens at other computer repair places as well.
And by the time your computer breaks, it's too late to hide anything you wouldn't want someone to find, and steal for their own purposes. We advise encrypting sensitive files in advance with a program like TrueCrypt (WIN) or making an encrypted disk image (MAC, be sure to skip step 6). Or, you could just keep it all on an external hard drive.
Who knew that when you hand over your computer to a repair technician, you could be giving a stranger a veritable Pandora's box?
- VIDEO: Consumerist Catches Geek Squad Stealing Porn From Customer's Computer
(1) I did this. Steal porn from customers' PCs. One of our more disturbed managers let us get away with a lot of shit because we'd steal him porn. Right now he runs the Best Buy in Long Island City, Queens.
(2) Central server where stolen information is stored for all the techs to share? Not true; though it is a great fucking idea, haha.
(3) No shit it's not an isolated occurrence. People, please, listen... your files are not private if they're in the hands of someone else. Ever. Do not bring your god damn PC to a stranger if you have any reservations about them snooping through your files, because the same techs in my old store who stole legal porn also got a pedophile arrested for downloading illegal porn. When you take your PC to Best Buy, Circuit City or that guy down the block who you kind of know fixes PCs, your files belong to them until the PC is back in your possession... and perhaps even afterward. Whether or not that's right is another matter.
(4) Keeping sensitive materials on an external drive or encrypted on a spare internal hard drive is a good idea.
(5) Who knew that when you hand over your computer to a repair technician, you could be giving a stranger a veritable Pandora's box?
Anyone who's used a PC in the past 20 years? The author of this piece is practically retarded, and way too self-congratulatory, but I found it amusing enough to share. Aaaahhh, technology.