Supreme Court Declines Case Over Techs' Right To Search Your PC 485
An anonymous reader writes "A few years back, a guy was arrested for possessing child pornography after techs at Circuit City found child porn on his computer, while they were installing a DVD player. The guy insisted that the evidence shouldn't be admissible since the techs shouldn't have been snooping through his computer — and a lower court agreed. The appeals court, however, reversed, noting that the guy had given Circuit City the right to do things on his computer — including testing out the newly installed software (which is how the tech claims he found the video). The guy appealed to the Supreme Court, who has declined to hear the case, meaning that the ruling stands for the time being. So, basically, if you hand your computer over to someone else for repairs, at least in some jurisdictions, they may have pretty free rein in terms of what they're allowed to access on your computer."
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:From a different perspective (Score:3, Funny)
that may be. but you live in australia; which is entirely populated by criminals, as everyone knows
Re:From a different perspective (Score:5, Funny)
that may be. but you live in australia; which is entirely populated by criminals, as everyone knows
Not only that but we also have rodents of unusual size [wikipedia.org] to contend with.
Re:Mandatory car analogy... (Score:3, Funny)
well well well (Score:3, Funny)
I dont work at CC .. but a larger "repair centre" in canada ...
We have, as part of our SOP, child pornography related rules. They call them "criminal images" in the verbage, however, it is the same. I have yet to "find" something criminal, but to my knowledge, no one goes "fishing" though a computer to look at a persons data. I think true repair techs don't really care WHAT is on someones computer, just get paid your paycheck to fix the thing. IF we are testing a burner and need to use data from a system (ie pictures folder) again .. drag drop, dont care what it is .. test .. label DVD "test burn" give to customer when they come to pick it up.
After doing this for 20 years now .. I can tell you what you ALWAYS will find on a computer that comes in for "repair".
1. Lime/Frostwire - the bane of my job - and telling a "customer/uneducated person" that those types of programs make it more likely to get a virus, they immediately ask you "well, how else can I download free stuff" - my response " you can't"
2. Some sort of torrent client - see #1
3. expired/outdated or no antivirus - which leads to #4
4. massive amounts of spyware/malware/virals
This is my daily grind. Trying to inform the public that just because you CAN do something doesn't mean it makes it A: legal or B: not harmful to your computer environment - "You mean downloading all that porn got me a virus? You mean my limewire folder has massive amounts of trojans in it? ---- but I paid for it ....
Sucker # 12,488 line up please ....
Re:Reading comprehension (Score:3, Funny)
Re:From a different perspective (Score:5, Funny)
Well, the way I've usually heard that:
Australian immigration official: "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"
Traveller: "Is that still a requirement for getting in?"
Re:Justice... (Score:3, Funny)
Here's the keys to my house. Please clean my rug. If you find my porn/drugs/kidnapped child then it will be unusable in court.
Re:Reading comprehension (Score:3, Funny)
Or I could just leave everything rather useless on the internet. Ctrl+T to a new tab and google it within less than a second. Furthermore, I also get other fun and useless stuff related to whatever useless stuff I was looking for. win-win
Re:From a different perspective (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mandatory car analogy... (Score:2, Funny)
If I had 100lbs of cocaine, I'd just buy a new car, screw the garage.
http://www55.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=100+pounds+of+cocaine [wolframalpha.com]
I'd mould it into a sphere of radius .2 metres.
Re:well well well (Score:3, Funny)
You mean downloading all that porn got me a virus?
Practice safe downloading. Put a condom on your network connector.
Re:From the tech's point of view (Score:3, Funny)
somewhat related... I once worked as a network admin for a small company, as part of my job I was responsible for making sure all important data was properly backed up, We had network shares that were automatically backed up, and all work was supposed to be stored on those, however I knew full well that the president of the company never used the network shares, and had lots of important information scattered around his hard drive. Now had it been anyone else in the company I would have considered it his problem, as I had made it quite clear, many times, that anything to be backed up HAD to be on the network shares. Problem is, I also knew full well that if he lost any data, he would hold me personally responsible.
So I had to go through his machine and figure out what stuff required backing up, and what did not (we were pretty tight on space for the backups, and I wasn't going to come in to the office at 3am to change the tapes!)
looking through his hard drive in amongst videos of him doing training presentations and such, I came across videos of his wife (who also happened to be the VP and therefore my boss)... yes, THOSE videos... the ones without clothing, and with occasional whipped cream and cherries...
I have to say, it was very difficult to look at her the same way after that!