Ikohn4ever
07-05-2007, 03:27 PM
The Consumerist's 3-month sting operation snared a Geek Squad technician stealing porn from our hard drive, and we've got the work-safe video and logfiles to prove it.
UPDATE: Uploaded higher-rez screenshots.
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.
We took it to around a dozen Best Buy Geek Squads and asked them to perform simple tasks, like installing iTunes. Most places were fine, sometimes doing the job right on the counter, sometimes even for free.
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).
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 Squads have a central server set up where everyone dumps their plunder to share with the other technicians.
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?
http://consumerist.com/consumer/investigations/video-consumerist-catches-geek-squad-stealing-porn-from-customers-computer-271963.php
video of it in link
i wouldnt take my comp there anyway, but i bet a lot of naive people get their "home movies" taken
UPDATE: Uploaded higher-rez screenshots.
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.
We took it to around a dozen Best Buy Geek Squads and asked them to perform simple tasks, like installing iTunes. Most places were fine, sometimes doing the job right on the counter, sometimes even for free.
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).
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 Squads have a central server set up where everyone dumps their plunder to share with the other technicians.
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?
http://consumerist.com/consumer/investigations/video-consumerist-catches-geek-squad-stealing-porn-from-customers-computer-271963.php
video of it in link
i wouldnt take my comp there anyway, but i bet a lot of naive people get their "home movies" taken