IT Repair Installs Webcam Spying Software 606
Vapon writes "A lady noticed her computer was running slower after she had brought her computer in to be repaired. She took the computer to a second repair shop where they found that one of the problems was that her webcam would turn on whenever it detected her around and was taking photos and uploading it to a website. The repair technician that installed the software has done this to at least 10 women and has photos of at least one undressing."
If you've got nothing to hide... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If you've got nothing to hide... (Score:5, Funny)
Are you fucking serious? This is a joke, It has to be, no one could be so stupid and still type. I have lots to hide, everyone does, especially when using a PC. How about whacking it to pron? How about P2P piracy, how about copying from wikipedia for an essay? How about uploading stupid comments as an AC?
Except now you've posted it on the internet that you do these things so you don't have to hide it anymore. (and yes I'm joking for you morons that can't tell)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If you've got nothing to hide... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If you've got nothing to hide... (Score:5, Funny)
First question is... (Score:5, Funny)
Does this count as being a private dick [slashdot.org]?
Second question is... (Score:5, Funny)
Will anyone dare to click on a link labeled "dick"?
Re:Second question is... (Score:4, Funny)
WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Why on earth would he go to all this trouble when there's any number of friendly Filipino women out there willing to do the same at a low-low cost?
It's a valid question (Score:5, Interesting)
I see it got modded off-topic, but it seems to me like a valid question. What the heck was this guy thinking? Or the recent story on The Register [theregister.co.uk], where a 47 year old techie got jailed for a similar stunt, except he also tried to blackmail a 17 year old girl into underessing in front of the camera. (Which is how he got caught.)
I mean, seriously. What. The. Fuck.
Didn't these guys find enough photos of naked women on the internet? I mean, seriously, how did that train of thought go? "Man, if only I could see some photos of women at least partially undressed... Nah, surely nobody publishes something like that. I guess I'll just have to bug someone's web-cam." Or what?
Or was it just a psychopath's power game?
Since the story is about him, it doesn't seem to me offtopic at all. No, seriously, I want to know. What goes in the head of that kind of idiot? How do you recognize one?
Re:It's a valid question (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the time in cases like this it makes them feel much better knowing that they have some kind of power over the victim. He could have of course found regular porn, but maybe in his mind regular porn is too boring?
Re:It's a valid question (Score:5, Insightful)
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hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that a majority of men have watched or are watching porn, and the numbers are steadily rising for women too, I'm not so sure. Chances are half the guys at the office, the taxi driver if you use one at any point, at least one of the clerks at the supermaket you visit, maybe even one of the doctors who've treated you, etc, are into porn. If porn taught that, you'd notice it.
Plus, I don't know... I thought porn was about _sex_. I don't get the mentality that it's all some kind of (preferrably male) plot and power game. There _are_ people of both sexes who enjoy sex, as just that. Not as some form of power game or currency, but as just, you know, two people having an intimate moment and some fun too.
So, really, I don't get it when I hear it that porn is somehow teaching males to exert power over women. (Read your quote too, if you don't know what I'm talking about.) Or that anything that happens in there is only for the male's pleasure. Apparently regardless of whether it's one on one, two guys on one gal, two gals on one guy, or just two lesbians and no guy involved, it surely is only a depiction of something where just the guy gets any pleasure there. Apparently even if what's portrayed is one guy going down on his SO, it's still only for the guy's pleasure. And apparently demeaning, abusive or otherwise unwanted and unwelcome for the woman, if it involves sex in any way.
Women are occasionally known to have orgasms too, you know?
Plus, it's a depiction of an act which isn't just natural, but millions of married people are doing it right as you read this. And that's not even counting the unmarried ones. Is it really that much worse and harmful than a depiction of someone being beaten up, shot, stabbed, burned alive, or the other stapples of TV and movies? I mean, if people take what they saw in movies into the real world, wouldn't it make more sense to worry about those who watch war movies?
But, anyway, anyone who thinks that any kind of sex is inherently demeaning or submissive for the woman, well, at least do us guys a favour and don't marry :P
Re:hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, really, I don't get it when I hear it that porn is somehow teaching males to exert power over women.
Well then, my friend, you're just not thinking it all the way through.
Woman has spent EONS perfecting her control of the male's life via sexual gratification. Huge layers of our social structure are based around the notion that sexually-powerful women get to select the most worldly-powerful men. The very notion of monogamy is centered around a single woman being a husband's source of sexual gratification - and, as they say, if momma ain't happy, ain't NOBODY happy.
Porn short-circuits this. When a man wants sex and the woman would rather use it for leverage, he can say 'fine bitch - be that way' and break out the porno.
INTERNET porn makes it an order of magnitude worse by allowing you to consume a HUGE amount of porn anonymously, and often at little to no cost. So for a lot of men there's little to no risk involved in 'betraying' their controlling woman and getting gratification from another place.
In short it isn't about the act of looking at porn giving power to men. That part isn't true. But few are willing to state the opposite argument, that is in fact true - that sex gives power to women - so this reverse-argument gets made by proxy...
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Right. I've read that elsewhere, but it doesn't seem to track in the real world. For example, what explains the correlation between polygamist societies and women's power/rights/etc? Most, if not all, polygamist societies are male-dominated, are they not?
"Better to be the king's mistress than a peasant's wife."
Many women would find it better to have control over her man, any man, than to have to constantly compete for power amongst many other women. Particularly as she ages and the new wives keep getting younger and younger.
Again, it just doesn't track with r
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Chances are half the guys at the office, the taxi driver if you use one at any point, at least one of the clerks at the supermaket you visit, maybe even one of the doctors who've treated you, etc, are into porn.
Half? I'm not sure I can name a single male I know who isn't into porn. Even my 68-year-old father is, as well as my girlfriend, my roommate's g/f, and my friend's g/f (enough to weird him out, actually).
Re:hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Ahem... know many married people do you?
Re:hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
I hope you understand the futility of trying to explain sexual relations to those on slashdot.
There's more than one kind of porn, you know (Score:4, Insightful)
O.K. Then riddle me this: why do _women_ watch porn, if it's strictly about men having power over them? Depending on what study you want to believe, even a _lot_ of women. One study claimed that 87% (yes, eighty-seven percent) of women aged 25 to 39 watch porn. I find that a bit _too_ high to believe, but there you go. Another claim, and from an ACLU activist woman no less, claimed that 40% of porn rentals in the USA are women, for a total of some 160 million videos per year. An erotica magazine claimed the same 40% women among its subscribers. So, you know, us men barely score 50% higher than women in porn rentals (60% rentals by men, vs 40% by women.) Go figure.
So, you know, why _do_ so many women watch it then? Some even pay for it (e.g., rentals.) Go figure. You'd think that something that blatantly and obviously about power over women, wouldn't turn so many women on. Are so many of you gals secretly masochistic, or what? Or maybe it's not that clear cut at all that having sex is some kind of humiliation and torture?
No offense, but I'd like to see some statistics about that "most popular" claim. Just how much of you find on the internet, doesn't say much about how many people watch that, let alone make it their primary motive there. Catering to niches can be sometimes disproportionately more represented.
Point in case: gay porn. Pretty much _everywhere_ you turn, you find gay porn thumbnails, although only 10% of the population are gay. A lot of us males actually lose erection at the sight of that, and, at least in the USA, I get the idea that a large segment of the population is outright homophobe. But judging by availability on the net, you'd think the majority of the people get off on male homosexuality. Sometimes extrapolating from an unrepresentative sample gets you that kind of thing.
At any rate, even so, the vast majority of porn _I_ found doesn't involve any pain or humiliation. Maybe because I'm not looking for that kind of thing. There _is_ plenty of it on the net, but not a majority by any reckoning, and, again, there's actually more gay porn than that. See the previous paragraph.
Just repeating it doesn't make it true. There's more than one kind of porn, you know? Much as I hate to rain on your self-righteous parrade (ok, ok, I don't), but not all porn is about punishing anyone in any way.
That may be so, but prostitution doesn't necessarily involve violence either. Pretty much everyone who goes to a brothel here (yes, they're legal), goes there for a fuck. You _can't_ get abusive to the gals there, any more than you could on a woman on the street, because the cops then want to get in the act. And they're as unionized as anything else here.
So basically again you're projecting your own androphobe ideas there, and have to see humiliation and abuse because that's what you already decided to see. In practice it's a bunch of women who do that of their own free will, same as any other job, and are decently paid for it.
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Horseshit.
Many happy, well adjusted couples watch porn together, and it's not even remotely about a power game. Therapists recommend porn to people -- it's a perfectly normal part of sexuality.
There is lots of porn which is very much about a bad power dynamic or doing whatever you wish to a woman
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Yeah, but just look what it's done to your typing!
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Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
Catching them would be impossible if they didn't try.
Not true. He already has the bullet with the person's name, so he could just read that and then try to track down that person..
Link to video? (Score:5, Funny)
Not that I would watch it, of course.
Re:Link to video? (Score:5, Funny)
I am concerned about the validity of this story, and I agree that seeing the video would help lend credibility.
undressing? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:undressing? (Score:5, Funny)
I need to see a naked girl to shit in a cup/i>
You can't shit in a cup without seeing a naked girl? Not to mention the other two items.
You have issues.
Oblig. South Park (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oblig. South Park (Score:5, Funny)
Once I read this I don't think I can go back to my lunch.
Speaking of technicians doing things.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lesson. Whenever taking your machine into those places, write down the serial numbers. Unfortunately, if you buy a new machine, repairing it yourself is not an option if you want it done under warranty.
Extended warranties are rip-offs - no exceptions.
Extended warranties are rip-offs - no exceptions. (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you own an iMac, mine is in the shop (AGAIN!) for yet another circuit board and possibly new video card.
So that was the best $169 I ever spent.
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Re:Extended warranties are rip-offs - no exception (Score:5, Informative)
Apple's warranties are absolutely worth it. The three year extended warranty is dirt frickin cheap compared to any repair you might need down the line. Hard drive failed? Replaced. Keys fell of your keyboard? Replaced. Little rubber feet come off the bottom of the laptop? Here's a sheet of extras, just in case they come off again in three years.
Seriously, if you buy a Mac, buy the extended warranty.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you think Apple is losing money on the extended warranties?
(They could still be worth it; spending $250 now may well make a lot more sense than facing the possibility of spending $500 tomorrow; the point is that Apple sells them because they are profitable for Apple, so on the balance, they aren't profitable for Apple customers.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Profitable for apple" could mean that they aren't making a profit on the warranty and repairs themselves, but they cover the costs easily in the profit of the pc and the customer is so happy they buy more apple stuff later.
"Not losing your customers to the competition" can have a value too. It's a bit too indirect for most modern companies unfortunately, they seem to instead prefer to give all sorts of incentives to new customers and allow their existing customers to be drawn away by their competitors' new
Re:Extended warranties are rip-offs - no exception (Score:5, Insightful)
Keys fell from your keyboard but you are still seriously recommending that people buy from Apple ? Are you joking ?
Let's see... as a former IT guy, I've worked on thousands of computers over the last 20 years. A few dozen have had a key or two break/snap off (typically a well-worn one like a space bar, command key, letter "s", etc.). Probably five or six of those were Apple systems; the rest were mostly a mix of Dell, Sony, and Toshiba. Seems perfectly reasonable that it would happen now and then, even to the best of hardware.
Re:Speaking of technicians doing things.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Did the swapout comp at least work? I knew a guy that took his PC into "BigBoxStoreA" for repair becuase the thing 'squealed' and then stopped. They returned it a few days later stating they couldn't find the issue and ultimately determined the mobo had fried. He took it to a different repairshop for a second opinion. Turns out a mouse wiggled his way ontop of the HDD and chewed through the IDE cable; squeek; crash. BigBoxStoreA didn't even open the case, LAME.
Heck for ranting on terrible repair shops, someone else I knew bought a computer from BigBoxStoreA (Yes, same company) which bust in a week. He took it back, they neglected to repair it for two weeks and ultimately voided the warranty on the HP machine because they were not licensed to repair those PCs.
I got more, and I'm sure everyone else does. Computer repairmen are becoming the new age Mechanics. Yes, they can do it, some are sketchy, and a lot will rip you off. The simple answer is to learn on your own and know exactly what to look for.
Re:Speaking of technicians doing things.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cars, like computers, require a certain level of knowledge, and the required tools.
PC's have come to the point where they don't even require tools. I always bring my phillips screwdriver with me to fix a computer, and have realized that I rarely use it any more. The tools required are more likely anti-virus and anti-spyware cleanups, followed in popularity by hard drive replacements (and data recovery tools), and CPU fan cleaning.
For a car, there are more tools required, but the parts on different cars do the same thing. They may not be interchangable, but they look similar, and act identically.
Despite the "complexity" of the computer system, that's usually the rarer of parts to fail. If you can just follow a simple flow chart, you can repair a car. Does it start? No. Does it get air? Fuel? Spark? No. Repair the source for this component.
People have mystified the working of an automobile so much that it seems like black magic, but as we work on computers, others see our work as black magic too. Oh my gosh, you type on the keyboard, and stuff happens? Wow. It's not that dissimilar to turning a wrench and making a car work again. You just have to understand the underlying technology, and the rest falls into place.
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The problem with cars is that they have gotten so complicated, and so proprietary, and require so many specialized tools, that it makes it almost impossible for the owner to diagnose and fix problems. Computers seem to be the exact opposite.
Ironically, what most people find complicated about a modern car is the computer. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Speaking of technicians doing things.... (Score:5, Insightful)
so are "optimizations"
Never take your machine to one of those places, no exceptions.
That all depends on where you bought it in the first place. If you built it yourself, you have nothing to worry about.
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Great idea! Can you tell me how I can build my own laptop?
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Sorry, taking a bunch of modular components and sticking them into a laptop chassis (10 minutes work, 15 if you're clumsy) doesn't count as "building".
Your "what I really meant" followup doesn't change the fact that your previous post was glib nonsense. Less lip, more thought.
Re:Speaking of technicians doing things.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, what sort of non-modular pieces would you like to use when you build your computer? Transistors? Atoms?
Last time I checked, power supplies, motherboards, video cards, CPUs, RAM, hard drives, modems and network cards, etc. used to build a desktop computer are relatively modular as well...
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Extended warranties are rip-offs - no exceptions.
Trust me on this: not buying the extended warranty on an Apple product is a good way to get it to break after 91 days.
Woman? (Score:5, Funny)
"The repair technician that installed the software has done this to at least 10 woman and has photos of at least one undressing."
I believe the correct word is womans, duh it's plural.
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Dude, Taco posted the story, so it should have been "tens wimman's".
Re:The plural of woman is women (Score:5, Funny)
Give the guy a break. Slashdotters have a hard enough time with the concept of "woman". Now you expect him to get the plural right?
Credit where credit is due... (Score:5, Informative)
pedant alert (Score:5, Funny)
She took the computer to a second repair shop where they found that one of the problems was that her webcam would turn on whenever it detected her around and was taking photo's and uploading it to a website.
Vapon and Taco, meet Bob [angryflower.com].
I got nothing to fear (Score:5, Funny)
A webcamera is one of the things that I will never again attach to my computer. I rigged up a webcam to my computer once so while I chatted with some chicks they could see me. My sister used my computer while I was away for a week. Looks like she would just invite some random lusers to use the webcam.
Well a message popped up one afternoon and it was from some luser telling me I was cute. I ask him how he know he said my webcam was on. Then he ask me if I would get naked for him. And it was a guy.
Camera in box.. box back to store. Now when some chick wants a picture I just direct her to a website where I have a picture of J. Random. Hunk.
Works for me.
Why can't people understand WHY he did it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Gotta love sensationalism (Score:5, Funny)
From TFA: "Marisel Garcia is one of eight or nine women in the Gainesville, Florida who is a victim of a Webcam Spy Hacker voyeurism scandal, orchestrated by Craig Feigin."
Not a victim of having her privacy invaded, not merely being spied upon.. but a full-fledged Webcam Spy Hacker Voyeurism Scandal. A WSHVS. Dear god, WHAT HAVE WE COME TO? I think I'll found a WSHVS victim anonymous.
More information (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Interesting)
Depends on the state and its laws.
A few years ago...in L.A. we had a guy that was sneaking video cameras into peoples' homes, and video taping them doing pretty much everything.
Turns out, they could not prosecute him since there was no law on the books against it. He got off scott free, but, they did pass a law down here making it a crime.
I dunno what the exact wording of the law was, but, if it specifically mentioned video taping equipment...the computer trick might be legal?
Anyway...it depends on the states laws as to if this will be illegal or not. Unless the Feds try to get in on it...if they try to argue that the signal over the internet might cross state lines or something....hmm.
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking as someone who actually RTFA...
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Funny)
Speaking as someone who actually RTFA...
Pfft.. party pooper! Way to end the discussion of slashdot lawyers with your "facts"!!
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, a while back, when video recording equipment first got small and cheap enough for people to purchase, scum started using it to spy on women. This was back in the 80s and 90s, and it turned out while there were laws against recording conversations, which could be legally used to nail some of them, if they recorded just video (Which all of them immediately started doing.), there was actually no law against it.
But that was back in the 80s and 90s, and there were enough well-publicized cases of this happening that they changed the law.
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's illegal to secretly record people, especially in their own homes (reasonable expectation of privacy). If you install a little camera in your neighbor's ceiling, you can bet you'll end up in jail. This is the same.
On top of that, there is the computer hacking, not performing the correct service (after all, by "fixing" the computer he made it slower)
And while there is no "right to privacy" explicitly state in American law, the Supreme court essentially created it in rulings during the later half of the 20th century (I want to say this was Roe v. Wade, but it may have been before).
Even if there is no criminal case (which, as I stated above, I'd be quite sure there is) she could always go civil. After all bugging someone else's computer and posting pictures of them undressing on the internet without their knowledge is definitely something you could get a civil judgment for. If that isn't intentional infliction of emotional distress, I'd be pretty surprised.
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Funny)
Supreme Court decision "Griswold v. Connecticut"
I'm having trouble remembering ... which Vacation movie was that one again?
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Funny)
Supreme Court decision "Griswold v. Connecticut"
I'm having trouble remembering ... which Vacation movie was that one again?
I think it was "The National Lampoons Right to Marital Privacy Regarding Illegal Restriction on the Use of Contraceptives in Connecticut Vacation"
You didn't see that one? ;)
-Taylor
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Insightful)
A little offtopic but I don't understand why people say there is no explicit "right to privacy" in American law. I wonder if this was a talking point invented for some political reason at one point that filtered out into the mass consciousness somehow.
Anyway, Amendment 4: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The word "privacy" is not used but this is a right to privacy in a large sense, isn't it? That the government can't search you, can't search your house, can't go through your papers, without a warrant?
This particular case is more of a civil action since the government didn't do it, but I find it a little unreasonable to say there is "no" right to privacy or that the Supreme Court "created" all our privacy rights, when there is clearly at least some privacy explicitly written in the Constitution.
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The constitution doesn't grant anything. It enjoins the government from taking certain actions.
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Absolutely backwards. The Constitution grants powers to the government. Anything that's not in there, they can't do.
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Poorly worded, but not absolutely backwards. In the context of personal rights, the constitution doesn't grant anything, it simply makes statements about things that the government cannot do (just read the bill of rights if that still sounds stupid, it says stuff like 'the right of blah shall not be infringed' not stuff like 'the government can give money to religious groups but only in the context of community blah').
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:4, Insightful)
Who the hell modded this insightful?
Amendment I: The government CAN NOT restrict religion or speech
Amendment II: The government CAN NOT restrict citizens from keeping arms
Amendment III: The government CAN NOT quarter soldiers in your house
Amendment IV: The government CAN NOT search and seize your affects without a warrent
etc.
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:4, Informative)
Amendments are still part of the constitution, so you can't just magically exclude them. Also, the 'main body' has limits listed in them as well:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section9 [cornell.edu]
"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."
"No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
And so on. Please stop acting like an expert on things that you are completely wrong on.
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Informative)
This is true. The founders believed that we have inalienable rights, which means that they are granted by God, not the government. The government is not allowed to try to take them away.
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:4, Insightful)
For those that don't believe in God, the same rights can be dervived through logic.
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That is false. Explain how logic can explain the right to free speech, to pick an example. Without proof, I'd be hard-pressed to believe that such rights are anything other than axioms.
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Interesting)
For those that don't believe in God, the same rights can be dervived through logic.
I'm going to need a derivation before I believe that. If we set up a set of goals (happy populace, efficient society, etc.) then we can derive a set of rights that we should have in order to achieve those goals. But a set of unalienable rights that all humans do have derived through logic? That seems a little tough.
We can infer a lot of rights that the founders believed that their God bestowed on Americans based on documentation that they left behind. We can define rights that we believe that we deserve and should defend (or possibly fight to acquire or take back). But I defy you to illustrate how simple logic can spell out a set of rights that all humans do have without invoking some kind of divine standard. And, assuming that these rights are not divinely inspired, did these rights also belong to all societies in the past? What about foreign societies? Or can you logically derive what set of unalienable rights that modern Americans have that would not apply to Europeans/Chinese/cavemen?
I'm all for logic over superstition any day. But the idea that the rights that the founders believed that their God bestowed on Americans could be exactly replicated through simple logic while supporting the notion of why they are unalienable as opposed to why they should be unalienable just seems nonsensical.
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:4, Informative)
> For those that don't believe in God, the same rights can be dervived through logic.
Which is unnecessary, as they were postulates.
"We hold the these truths to be self-evident:"
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Informative)
The Fourth Amendment provides for security in persons, papers, effects and so forth from the government. Even if you construe it to be a privacy provision, it's not binding on Joe Sleazeball's Krazy Komputer Krepair Kshop.
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like Joe's is a KDE shop... where would I go for Gnome support?
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I've just reviewed my vest pocket copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and I do not see any qualification of the Fourth Amendment to limit its scope solely to intrusions by government.
Maybe I'm just blind?
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The no explicit "right to privacy" crowd are the anti-Roe v. Wade crowd. They've done a very good job of inserting that meme into the public consciousness, and it has certainly helped them in the "war on terror".
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:5, Interesting)
As you correctly noted, the word "privacy" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. What you are talking about is what is sometimes called a "reasonable expectation of privacy," and is largely non-controversial (at least it's not controversial that it exists; the extent to which it exists sometimes is). It means that the government can't do certain things without sufficient cause.
The controversial "right to privacy" (which I'll tell you up front I'm not a fan of) is something the Court found in the "penumbras" of the fourth, ninth and fourteenth amendments in Griswold v. Connecticut. And it has nothing to do with the government searching your home. It has to do with whether, and to what extent, the Supreme Court can import into the Constitution, via the 14th Amendment due process clause, certain rights that existed in English and American common law (including a vague, ill-defined "right to privacy") in order to overturn state and federal statutes. The current jurisprudence has basically devolved into "if you can convince 5 judges that the law is not fair, it violates the common law right to privacy, and is therefore unconstitutional." This has led to very inconsistent, unprincipled jurisprudence that depends more on the judges' personal whims than what the Constitution actually says.
The way it should be is the Court should leave states alone to make laws---even stupid ones---regardless of whether they personally agree with them. For example, the law in Griswold was a law passed by the Roman Catholic majority nearly 100 years earlier that forbade use of contraceptives. In his dissent, Justice Potter Steward (correctly) called it an "uncommonly silly" law, but (correctly) concluded that it was nevertheless constitutional. Justice Hugo Black, my favorite judge of all time, in his dissent commented, "I like my privacy as well as the next one, but I am nevertheless compelled to admit that government has a right to invade it unless prohibited by some specific constitutional provision. For these reasons I cannot agree with the Court's judgment and the reasons it gives for holding this Connecticut law unconstitutional."
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The Constitution told the Federal government what it could do and said it couldn't do anything else. It had very few limitations on what the States could do. In fact, it was always intended that the states would be the primary guardians of civil rights, and that they would be primarily responsible for making and enforcing laws. One of the big fears of the Anti-Federalists was that the federal government would get too powerful, and start telling the states what to do, thus infringing on their rights to go
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:4, Interesting)
> The reason is that the Roe v Wade decision rested on the idea that
> we have a right to privacy and anti-abortion laws violate it.
Except that almost every serious scholar now admits the Supreme Court was simply finding a justification for a decision they had already made. Roe is horrible Constitutional law and nobody uses it as an anchor for an argument anymore since it is only a matter of time before a future court revisits it, the outcome of which revisit is totally unknown.
Note that I'm not trying to open up an abortion thread here, even well respected pro abortion scholars admit the weakness of the reasoning in Roe. When it falls abortion itself will simply get tossed into the political arena where it should have been decided thirty years ago and nothing much will change.
Re:Lawsuit! (Score:4, Funny)
not performing the correct service (after all, by "fixing" the computer he made it slower)
I always figured it would be a federal offense to install Norton software.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps what I say next will end this 'privacy' argument once and for all, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
First you are combining two separate ideas, the common argument that the word 'privacy' is not in the constitution is true. HOWEVER, you say that privacy is never explicitly stated in any law, this is wrong. There are certainly many privacy laws that various states have that use the word privacy. Such as privacy laws to protect your medical records, financial records, some court records, etc.
Yes
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Well, privacy wasn't a concept back then, but neither were webcams. I figure that if they had known that, in the future, it would be possible to install a camera to spy on really hot chicks undressing, Ben Franklin at the very least would have added a special constitutional amendment about how "Congress shall make no law abridging the right of nerdy guys to install cameras that spy on really hot chicks undressing", so maybe it's not illegal after all.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
He could very well fall under federal wiretapping laws. (Although in this case all he has to do is bribe enough Congressmen to grant himself retroactive immunity.)
Sue the webcam maker (Score:4, Insightful)
> I smell a lawsuit.
You want to know who I'd like to sue? The idiot who designed the webcam. They all have a light that is supposed to let you know when it is on. But of course it is just software in the windows driver and can be disabled by any idiot with a hex editor. THAT is the crime here.
You should be able to trust that light. That mofo should be hard wired to go on whenever the CCD is charged or when data is actually being sent. And it should have a delay (a simple capacitor would do) to make sure it stays lit for at least 1.0 seconds anytime it is triggered to stop single frame caps being hard to spot.
The light's specific purpose is to notify the user and it is obviously DEFECTIVE. A mandatory recall or two would drive the point home to the hardware makers about putting vital safety functions into the driver.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Sheesh. Allow me to quote TFA:
One of the new problems was that the computer's built-in camera light came on every time she was near the machine.
The sleazeball did no such hex-editor hacking, so far as we know. The light on the camera worked just fine. This is, in fact, what clued her in.
Re:Sue the webcam maker (Score:5, Insightful)
This is stunning...
Aside from the fact that you've had a wee rant about an article you didn't read, anyone who is capable of hacking a piece of software with a hex editor is more than capable of shorting a circuit board or even, y'know, damaging the light (especially if it was already in his hands for technical repairs).
And on top of all that, why the hell should the webcam maker be sued? Did they provide any guarantees that the webcam could not be hacked? Was it sold as completely secure and unbreakable? No? Then why are you so keen to drag lawyers into it and try to punish a private enterprise for the criminal behaviour of some asshole in an unrelated transaction? How about we don't try to make every single corporation and business run around nannying people in case some idiot with an ambulance chaser tries to make a quick buck?
Re:Shoot him (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm it seems I landed in a pub. Have you ever driven beyond the speed limit? I suggest you be shot as well.
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So let's say we take your advice. Death penalty! Suddenly this guy has nothing to lose. What happens when the police come for him?
Having a gradient of ever more severe punishments for ever more severe crimes is a good thing. You never want to be in a situation where a criminal at large is already certain of getting the maximum possible punishment.
Re:Shoot him (Score:5, Insightful)
We can't keep wasting tax dollars on court cases for stupidity, which is exactly where this case will go.
You should move to North Korea or China if that's the sort of country you want to live in. I prefer to live where you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and where the punishment fits the crime.
I'm sick of you assholes trying to turn my country into MORE of a police state. Shoot yourself for treason and save the government the trouble.
Re:Oh for the love of Pete . . . (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not really.There are people out there who will pay for any sort of lewd photos (it's a corollary of rule 34), and where Feign's going he's probably going to develop a taste for that sort of thing anyway.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
From the original article [arstechnica.com] at Ars Technica: