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Online Revenge
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Jun 01, 2006 12:35 AM
from the wipe-the-hard-drive dept.
from the wipe-the-hard-drive dept.
Many people have submitted this story of a broken laptop purchased on e-bay. The buyer gives a little lesson on why you should always clean your hard drive before you sell a computer.
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Sector encryption (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sector encryption (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sector encryption (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Sector encryption (Score:4, Funny)
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karma (Score:4, Interesting)
I honestly love when ppl's stupidity overrules their lack of honesty and it bites them.
Re:karma (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone commits a crime, the law should not protect them from the repercussions of that crime. If we take the article at face value, the guy in this story intentionally sold a non-functional laptop. Because the laptop was non-functional, he erroneously assumed that his porn collection was inaccessible. If he had been selling a fully-functional laptop, he wouldn't have made that assumption, and he wouldn't have had a trouble. The direct cause of his current predicament is his own attempt to defraud another person.
If you've ever tried to reclaim money through a small claims court, you know how farcical it is. You can get all the judgements made in your favour, but you still have to pay out for anything you want done. Send out the sherif to repossess goods? Pay up. Need a locksmith to get into the place where the goods are kept? You need to foot the bill. And there are no guarantees that when you do all that you'll find anything able to be sold, especially if your complaint is against a company. You'll have shelled out $300 and all you'll have to show for it is an unenforcable judgement.
On the issue of vigilante justice: yes, it's bad. But people generally only take the law into their own hands when the authorities aren't holding on to it tightly enough. A recent story on the news over here was that of the manager of a hotel, whose rooms had been broken into over 60 times in the last year. On a number of occasions, he filmed the thieves as they robbed him, and handed in the tape to police. There have been no arrests in connection to any of the robberies. When it comes to a choice between vigilante justice and no justice, you don't have to be a genius to guess what people will decide to go for.
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CFNM (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks Amir!
John.
and the seller... (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you read the full story, you'll see that the seller gives a little lesson on how the law views vigilantism on the internets. Hint: Police are involved.
Re:and the seller... (Score:5, Informative)
It's still purely a civil matter as reported by the register and the defamatory site is still up. Score one for vigilantism on the internet.
Unless of course this is one of those things that falls under libel in Britain because it damages his reputation even if it does end up being 100% true.
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Re:and the seller... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:and the seller... (Score:5, Informative)
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Yawn. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yawn. (Score:5, Funny)
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Wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
Melodrama != Angst (Score:5, Funny)
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Boot and Nuke (Score:5, Informative)
You can use something like Darik's Boot and Nuke http://dban.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] for deleting the content permanently.
Why is this on the front page... (Score:3, Informative)
Eraser w/Nuke Disk Option (Score:5, Informative)
just in case anyone is interested... (Score:5, Informative)
Note the feedback (Score:5, Informative)
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How to make sure your data is not readable (Score:5, Insightful)
A. run the Harddrive through a Powerfull Degauser (a rapidly changing electro-Magnet)
B. Shred the Hard drive into pieces less then one square milimeter in size.
However this system may be hard to come by for most of us, and tends to harm the hard drive.
Writing a set of zeros on a sensative file is much better than deleting it but not necessarly
enough, because:
a. your OS may decide to move your file to another location on the disk.
b. Even after writing once or twice over the data, It still may be recoverable, especially
if you use constant zeros(or ones).
Writing random data several times is a better method, but is most be done over the entire
hard drive and in sevral passes over the entire hard drive,
since modern harddrives have a cache mecahnism(as well as one in the OS), so If
some one writes over the first sector of a hard drive 20 times, chances are the hard drive
actually got something physiclly written to it only once.
several tools for securly deleting data available on the net, I would not trust
my good reputation on any tool which securly deletes specific files but only on
those which wipe your disk clean,
these too may not protect you 100% becasue modern hard drive have a feature to correct(re-Map) bad-sectors automaticly, With this feature if the hard drive fails
to access a certain sector sevral times it will stop using it and send and use
a diffrent secotr instead(reserved in advance for this purpose and not normally accessable).
The damaged secotr may still contain private data after hard drive is wiped clean.
In short if you want to be truely safe use the Degause and shred Method.
Don't be paranoid
Me.
Re:How to make sure your data is not readable (Score:5, Informative)
Drop it in an electric furnace and let it melt.
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Re:How to make sure your data is not readable (Score:4, Funny)
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Has this guy got much legal defence? (Score:4, Interesting)
Its like someone selling a house then going back 6 months later trying to reclaim property they left behind.
I don't think we should be applauding this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now in the hands of the police (Score:5, Informative)
It MIGHT not have been a scam by the seller (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm with the minority with this one. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I need to do some soul searching but I think what the buyer did was outstanding. Yet, at least at my moderation setting, comments are running 5 to 1 against the buyer.
Maybe it's because my home has been broken into 5 times by neighborhood kids. Or, that a box of checks was stolen and someone wrote $2000+ against my checking account. Or, that I've had my CC number stolen and everything from kitchen appliances and plane tickets were charged to my account. Maybe it's just because I'm sick and tired of the scum inhabiting this planet. But I think what the buyer did is great and we need more of it.
The light has been shown on this Amir guy for what he is. Public humiliation is a sensible, non-violent form of deterrent and socially acceptable. The police publish the names of "Johns" arrested for solicitation for all to see. Even the Bible supports public humiliation as a deterrent. The Bible says on judgment day all will be known and nothing hidden and exposed for all to see. Our (USA) and (English) early judicial systems used public square stocks and humiliation as a formal sentence.
The buyer has done his due diligence. All the documentation is there. The seller took 2 months to ship and only after repeated requests. The seller also agreed to refund the money once called on the fact the laptop was junk but then reneged. The seller was given multiple opportunities to correct the problem. He just wasn't interested because he knew he was scamming the guy.
I saw one post "If the guy kills himself, what a loss". A loss of what? The world would loose a scamming criminal who doesn't think twice about stealing other people's money? That's a loss I can bear.
Maybe, just maybe, this Amir guy will learn a valuable lesson from his fellow brothers that so far his religion has failed to teach him. Maybe Amir will pull his life together, get some morals and become a valuable member of our society. Maybe, just maybe he's been given a second chance to come clean and make it right.
JMHO
-[d]-
Re:Sick (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't blame anyone for exposing a scumball after the scumball tried to screw him.
And why are the police getting involved, anyway?
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Re:Two possibilites.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Two possibilites.. (Score:4, Insightful)
1:) All the people here talking about deleting contents of your harddrive get the point wrong. This guy sold his laptop because it broke and he was too stupid to consider mounting the HD in an other PC and moving the contents before selling it. The HD was still fully functioning, and it took the buyer no effort to get the contents of it, which he was eager to do as he was screwed by buying a broken laptop which status was mentioned as "refurbished".
2:) The buyer is an unreasonable dick, because he could have known that this was not a serious seller. The buyer posts screenshots of the e-bay auction, that make this clear here [blogger.com] and here [blogger.com]. Just read the text the seller wrote, and you know that this is a no-go. Still, the buyer goes on ranting that the seller described himself as a businessman, yeah, idiot, did he really believe that?
Nasty people will try to screw you when selling material over the internet (and not only there), and stupid people will get screwed at obvious scams. Any interference by law representatives or even the media is just a waste of time in this case.
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Re:Not so funny when/if the seller commits suicide (Score:5, Funny)
I believe the word for that would be "hilarious."
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Re:Not so funny when/if the seller commits suicide (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Not so funny when/if the seller commits suicide (Score:4, Insightful)
The Thai's spolied a good laugh by letting him off with a fine, spoilsports!
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Wisdom foolows, pay attention! (Score:4, Informative)
He will. The personal data protection laws in the European union (of which Britain is a member state) are extremely serious. The guy used the data without authorization and by making it public, he has become a criminal. He is very lucky if he aviods spending actual time in prison. I am sure the civil penalties will make him bankrupt anyhow.
Just yesterday, the EU supreme court crushed the EU-USA airline passanger data exchange agreement because it does not adequately protect EU citizens' privacy rights. If Sheik Osama is not enough excuse for rights treampling, that 375UKP certainly cannot be enough as well.
Also, the british mentality values privacy of the individual over anything else. The guy who posted someone else's details in public made himself anathema from the community of gentlemen and may have difficulty finding a job or gaining university admission by showing such moral definiencies in handling details of others' personal lifes. Also, the guy who posted the photos on the web is obviously homophobic based on his comments, which is a big no-no in liberal Europe and gayness is well established in britain since Oscar Wilde.
Not to mention the gross violation against the other people seen in those images. That is not "collateral damage", that is pure wickedness. I hope some of those people will also sue the avenger guy and make him feel the pain of having to pay half of his wage for penalties for a hundred months to come.
Finaly the guy who posted the photos online violated the most basic rule of civilization as we know it: presumption of innocence. Where is the proof the laptop was indeed sent in already faulty condition? What proof is there the damage did not happen while being rudely transported by the postal service, etc.?
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say hello to the 1950s for me (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you posting that from the Victorian era?
We now have Big Brother as one of our most popular TV shows (attention seeking nobodies stuck in a house and monitored live 24/7), the most CCTV in Europe etc...
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Re:Wisdom foolows, pay attention! (Score:5, Funny)
ha
ha
ha
*cough*
CCTV
*cough*
ha ha ha ha ha
Can I have something of what you've been smoking? Apparently it's some very good stuff!
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Re:Wisdom foolows, pay attention! (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that pimpy neoliberal nerds of America do not make law in Europe (yet). Certain unalienable things cannot be sold, just like you cannot sell yourself to slavery.
Even when the law allows you to voluntarily provide your data for handling to certain private economic entities (like marketing agencies), the data recepient must have an established corporate legal framework and EU-compliant privacy protection charta approved by the authorities. The laptop buyer certainly meets none of that.
Europe, especially continental Europe is very paranoid about personal data handling. We have gazillion paragraphs to protect people over that. Personal info databases of separete functionality must not be connected just for ease of operation, but for a compelling need, approved by 2/3rd parlamentary vote or supreme court decision, and many other restictions like that.
The avenger guy will be held responsibly almost as seriously as if he had found state secrets on that laptop and uploaded that confidental info on the open web.
Look at from this viewpoint: the photos the laptop buyer uploaded allege that the seller is homosexual or at least bisexual. In the Holocaust, same-sex people were the third largest minority group persecuted by the nazi (after jews and gipsy). That was a mere 60 years ago. Hope you understand why we think such data better not be handled, collected, traded, disclosed by anyone in Europe or anywhere in the world. The data privacy situation in the USA is frightening for any european.
BTW, if this reported event happened in Switzerland, the laptop buyer would have been murdered two dozen times already. That country values absolute privacy over justice, truth or honesty due to its entire reliance on banking, much of which is very dirty (dictators, drug barons, arms smugglers, world politicans, speculants, spies all keep their fiscals there).
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Unverifiable? Let's give it a go... (Score:5, Informative)
For your viewing pleasure:
Personally, I think it's quite a leap to claim extortion. I'll let you guys make your own judgements, but if you ask me, it seems like nothing more than a legitimate ebayer pissed after getting tooled over by a run-of-the-mill ebay scammer. And hey, who wouldn't be? Call me crazy, but I think the blog is great. Not only does spikytom get his own creative revenge, we all get a laugh out of it.Parent
Re:Unverifiable? Let's give it a go... (Score:4, Interesting)
Amir's last name is Tofangsazan.
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Re:Unverifiable? Let's give it a go... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, the one piece of positive feedback showing on Amir6626's eBay profile [ebay.com] is from nicktofang [ebay.com], who seems to share a name quite similar to Amir Tofangsazan. nicktofang also has mediocre feedback, is no longer a member, and started with one piece of good feedback from amir6626.
Certainly looks fishy to me.
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Re:Extortion (Score:4, Interesting)
He simply stated that it was broke.
No pictures of the broken item, no description of what was broke. Just a statement that the ram and DVD-Rom was wrong, again, -hear-say.
For all I can tell, it was missing a charger which can lead to all sorts of assumptions.
The extortion part comes in to play with the statement that boils down to you pay, it goes away.
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Revenge Blog Has Enabled Google Ads (Score:5, Insightful)
http://amirtofangsazan.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
Note the allegedly scammed buyer has enabled Google ads on the web page he supposedly set up solely to extract revenge. Decide for yourself whether this impugns his credibility as a purported victim.
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Re:Revenge Blog Has Enabled Google Ads (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:The Register's new market: tabloids (Score:5, Insightful)
They just reported it as it is, someone claims to have been cheated out of a working laptop, now he has posted stuff from it on the net and gets himself looked into by the police... Oh and theres a website for you to look at.
Why is that not proper reporting? They don't even take sides - which is highly unusual for The Reg.
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Re:The Register's new market: tabloids (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate digging into the big bag of cliche counter-arguments, but here's a case where this one definitely fits: How would you like it if someone displayed your entire personal life (simple or shocking as it may be) in a deliberately disparaging fashion? Or perhaps (we don't actually know in this case), they make a bunch of crap up about you. I knew a guy who's personal and professional reputation was destroyed by a false allegation that was spread freely before any proper investigation was made. The case against him was tossed out in court, but his personal business (bike shop) never recovered and he had to close down and leave town. Assuming that he was innocent, as we have every bit as much reason to believe as the judge did, is this in any way just? Did those who spread the rumor contribute in any way to the betterment of society or did they harm it?
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Re:The Register's new market: tabloids (Score:5, Insightful)
The Register contains lots of biased articles. While it does contain decent articles, its usually better to get them from the source, such as securityfocus. This, to me, doesnt make it a news source, it makes it a blog with news in it. (However i have to say i am an avid fan of the BOFH)
secondally, The police are now investigating. I suspect this is due to the content of the comments, some of which seem to bring out some very nasty sentiments - a lot of which were unrelated to the issue, rather than the content of the blog, itself, however.
While i think the owner should have kept more control over it, perhaps restricting posting, i dont think they have done anything wrong. They decided that a public humilliation was a good way of going about this.
If you believe the blog, and i have reason not to, the owner of the blog tried to sort this out amicably. Anyone who has been through EBAY's dispute procedure will tell you its a pile of cr*p, certainly in the uk. Other than cancelling accounts, there is very little they can do other than to refer the seller to the police. I dont know if this happened in this case.
However, its true to say some of the UK tabloid press, have a lot to answer for, and the BBC should make an apology for misreporting and post it publically on their website.
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Re:More trouble for the buyer (Score:5, Informative)
No, truth is an absolute defence in defamation or libel cases in the UK. However, the defendant has to prove it's the truth, it's not up to the claimant to prove it's not.
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Re:Horrible (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming the story is true, the seller deserved a slap on the wrist. The buyer deserves jail time.
It's people like you who are the reason the world is so fucked up. The seller deserved a slap on the wrist... what's with that?
Assuming the story is true, he knowingly ripped someone off and refused to make good with it. That is not slap on the wrist-worthy. Public shame is too good for him. Also, his rampant stupidity should make him a prime candidate for a darwin award but it is unlikely he will ever win one.
Stupid, shonky people are rewarded for screwing the hard working public and when hard working public tries to get a little of their own back then they get in trouble. Fuck that. I spent all of yesterday fighting a court battle because stupid shonky corporation was sending me bills for service that I never requested or used. When the bills went unpaid they sued me! Of course, I lost a day's income and the court only made them pay court costs - no compensation for my time! Screw that.
I say publicly shame the shammers!
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Not True! (Score:5, Funny)
I doubt I'd go for Vlad's solution to the homeless problem though. He invited them all to a feast, locked them in and burned the building down. Me, I got nothing against homeless people. If you want to be homeless that's your business. So, "yes" impaling, "no" burning homeless people to death. Any successful regime must have compasison after all. Maybe "yes" burning spammers alive too. On the days we're not impaling them. I'm all about choices.
My regime would also replace all organized relgion with a state sponsored one involving smurfs. Non-smurfy activities would be punishable by impaling. Non-smurfy activities like scamming or spamming.
I figure I'm a shoo-in on the next Republican ticket...
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