Judge: It's OK If Best Buy's Geek Squad Nerds Search Your PC for Illegal Content

[tlink]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

There are so many things wrong with this case... I am glad he was fount not guilty.

Just some points I want to highlight.

 

1) Why is the FBI training and incentivize people to search through the private files of other people? Like the article says (but not the OP), Geek Squad employees gets paid between 500 and 1000 dollars for each report they submit. I would not be surprised if some employees are willing to planted evidence on hard drives if they get paid 1000 dollars to do so.

 

2) You need a warrant to do this kind of search. You are not allowed to look through the private files of someone in order to find for example evidence for a crime. So the FBI is using Geek Squad as a proxy to get around the legal requirement for a warrant.

 

3) The judge found the image to not be pornographic. It did not show any genitalia nor any sexual acts.

 

4) Just a thumbnail image in a deleted sector should not be evidence of willingly downloading child porn. It's good that it was reported, but I do not think it should be the sole evidence that leads to a conviction. A perfectly logical explanation would be that he was browsing a regular porn site and the image was a thumbnail in an ad or some video he did not view. This would cause the image to be downloaded to his hard drive, and then deleted once he cleared his history. Being in unallocated space does not mean he willingly deleted it.

I mean, if someone posted a child porn image in this thread then i don't think everyone here should be sentenced for child porn. Only those who willingly and knowingly do it should be sentenced.

 

 

yea a lot is fucking wrong with this case, and i completely agree that the FBI overstepped their boundaries hugely. what i don't agree with is people calling bullshit on the judge's ruling that geeksquad may look trough your files if you give them permission to do so via legally binding contract.

[Orangeator]

1 minute ago, linkboy said:

When I worked at Wal-Mart, I was in the photo lab (this was back in the early 00's, when 35mm was still a thing). If someone turned in some film (or digital pictures) and there was something suspected on it (like child porn), we were obligated to report it.

 

Obviously, that's different since there isn't any allocated space on a 35mm roll of film, but at the same time, a person can't expect privacy if they turn their computer (or film, usb drive, DVD, etc) to someone else.

"can't expect privacy" for a service you are paying them to do? So what you are saying is if a celebrity turns her laptop into geek squad and they recover nudes, it's okay for them to release the photo's because well you turned it over to geek squad, you don't have the right to privacy for what is on that drive. Slippery slope my friend.

[Orangeator]

Just now, tlink said:

geeksquad may look trough your files if you give them permission to do so via legally binding contract.

I agree with this statement here, however, making a copy of that data or reporting that data should be a breach of privacy.

[Jito463]

10 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

I wouldn't let mediocrebuy GLEEKsquad touch my computer with a parsec long pole.

Nor would I (fortunately, I can fix my own computer issues), that's not really the intent of the article, though.  It's more about questioning whether it's an invasion of privacy, for a repair place to look at the files on your computer.

[79wjd]

2 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

"can't expect privacy" for a service you are paying them to do? So what you are saying is if a celebrity turns her laptop into geek squad and they recover nudes, it's okay for them to release the photo's because well you turned it over to geek squad, you don't have the right to privacy for what is on that drive. Slippery slope my friend.

I mean, kind of.....If I look at naked pictures on a TV in the middle of CVS then I can't get mad at someone for taking a picture of the screen. The concept of an expectation of privacy is extremely important when in comes to requesting access to information. 

[Orangeator]

13 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

I wouldn't let mediocrebuy GLEEKsquad touch my computer with a parsec long pole.

" One parsec is the distance at which one astronomical unit subtends an angle of one arcsecond. A parsec is equivalent to 3.26 light years, and since a light year is the distance light travels in 1 year 9.4 trillion km, 1 parsec equals 30.8 trillion km. "

 

Hahaha.

[linkboy]

6 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

"can't expect privacy" for a service you are paying them to do? So what you are saying is if a celebrity turns her laptop into geek squad and they recover nudes, it's okay for them to release the photo's because well you turned it over to geek squad, you don't have the right to privacy for what is on that drive. Slippery slope my friend.

If that were to happen, said employee would be in trouble for breaking the law. It's not illegal to take nude pictures of yourself and store them on your computer. It is illegal for someone to release said pictures without your permission.

 

My point was that if someone turned in a computer (or any other type of media) and it had child porn on it, the person who turned said device in can't claim that said store violated their privacy if an employee reported those pictures.

 

Also, if an employee saw child porn and failed to report it, said employee could lose his/her job and be subject to legal action themselves.

[Jito463]

2 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

6 minutes ago, linkboy said:

When I worked at Wal-Mart, I was in the photo lab (this was back in the early 00's, when 35mm was still a thing). If someone turned in some film (or digital pictures) and there was something suspected on it (like child porn), we were obligated to report it.

"can't expect privacy" for a service you are paying them to do? So what you are saying is if a celebrity turns her laptop into geek squad and they recover nudes, it's okay for them to release the photo's because well you turned it over to geek squad, you don't have the right to privacy for what is on that drive. Slippery slope my friend.

 

It's obvious from the wording that wasn't the intent of his post.  You're arguing a strawman.

[79wjd]

Just now, Jito463 said:

  You're arguing a strawman.

That's what we do best here.

[LAwLz]

5 minutes ago, tlink said:

yea a lot is fucking wrong with this case, and i completely agree that the FBI overstepped their boundaries hugely. what i don't agree with is people calling bullshit on the judge's ruling that geeksquad may look trough your files if you give them permission to do so via legally binding contract.

I'm gonna have to disagree.

It's one thing to accidentally see a private file on a computer you are repairing, and it's a whole different thing to scan through the deleted files of a computer to try and find things.

 

Imagine if it was the average Joe. Do you think GeekSquad should be allowed to scan your sister's computer after nude pictures of her that she might have deleted?

"Oh this girl had a folder called nudes for my boyfriend on her computer and she deleted it before she turned her computer in. I will restore these pictures and jerk off to them tonight!".

That's what this ruling allows GeekSquad to do. It's not just about finding illegal content. It allows GeekSquad to look at any content, including content the consumer has tried to hide for legitimate reasons (such as nude pictures of themselves, medical records, bank details, etc).

[goodtofufriday]

10 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

I can not second this hard enough. They are salesmen, not computer technicians.

For a very short time when I was in between jobs I did staples version of geeksquad. There are the repair techs and theres the salesmen. The salesmen either know just enough about computers to make educated guesses at issues, but are primary trained to sell services. While the actual techs do the repairs/assist customers on the floor. It was very clear from sales numbers, I'd only ever offer the bare minimum of what a CS needed, while the other tech there had a bunch of ripoff nonsense addon servicies. 

 

Any real hdd recovery was sent out to a 3rd party. If the CS just wanted to reinstall his OS and move his files then we handled that. But that was it, simply moving files over. 

[tlink]

Just now, Orangeator said:

I agree with this statement here, however, making a copy of that data or reporting that data should be a breach of privacy.

no it shouldn't because you literally gave them permission to copy that data as part of the drive recovery process. reporting that data absolutely fucking not breaks privacy rules. if i work at a postal company and i find child pornography, without accessing things i'm not allowed to access, i would have to report it, and rightfully so.

[goodtofufriday]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

I'm gonna have to disagree.

It's one thing to accidentally see a private file on a computer you are repairing, and it's a whole different thing to scan through the deleted files of a computer to try and find things.

 

Imagine if it was the average Joe. Do you think GeekSquad should be allowed to scan your sister's computer after nude pictures of her that she might have deleted?

"Oh this girl had a folder called nudes for my boyfriend on her computer and she deleted it before she turned her computer in. I will restore these pictures and jerk off to them tonight!".

That's what this ruling allows GeekSquad to do. It's not just about finding illegal content. It allows GeekSquad to look at any content, including content the consumer has tried to hide for legitimate reasons (such as nude pictures of themselves).

It doesnt allow them to retain any data. As per contracts signed in staples at least we had to delete all data after the machine was returned. So the situation you propose would put both that tech and best buy in massive legal trouble if ever caught. 

[LAwLz]

3 minutes ago, linkboy said:

If that were to happen, said employee would be in trouble for breaking the law. It's not illegal to take nude pictures of yourself and store them on your computer.

Said employee would not be in trouble. In order to search for illegal content, you have to look through legal content too. By ruling that it is OK to search a computer for illegal content, the judge also allows GeekSquad to look through completely legal content.

[Jito463]

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Do you think GeekSquad should be allowed to scan your sister's computer after nude pictures of her that she might have deleted?

That's obviously not what the ruling by this judge was referring to.  Any half-competent lawyer would tell you that.

[tlink]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

I'm gonna have to disagree.

It's one thing to accidentally see a private file on a computer you are repairing, and it's a whole different thing to scan through the deleted files of a computer to try and find things.

but we have no reason to suspect that is how they found it. what is being argued that is the customer agreeing to literally complete access to someone's drive means that they have no right to assume they won't look into the files. its literally required to do the job they where trying to do, recover files. how else are they going to validate if they are doing anything useful?

[Orangeator]

1 minute ago, tlink said:

no it shouldn't because you literally gave them permission to copy that data as part of the drive recovery process. reporting that data absolutely fucking not breaks privacy rules. if i work at a postal company and i find child pornography, without accessing things i'm not allowed to access, i would have to report it, and rightfully so.

Okay when I said copying data you knew I obviously meant keeping backups of the data after the drive was restored and given back to the customer... Also, if you worked for the mail service, opened a sealed box without a warrant or reasonable suspicion then found something illegal that is a violation as opening other's mail is a federal offense. Same with a hard drive in my opinion. If you are doing a data recovery service you should do you best to recover the data. Period. If you happen while doing what you agreed upon and see child pornography you should be able to report. Now here is this case, where they are running algorithms with the intent of finding incriminating evidence without warrant or cause... Which is a blatant work around the law by the FBI and Best Buy. Period.

[Kobathor]

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

That's obviously not what the ruling by this judge was referring to.  Any half-competent lawyer would tell you that.

It doesn't matter what the judge was referring to, it matters how future lawyers can interpret and spin the ruling.

[linkboy]

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Said employee would not be in trouble. In order to search for illegal content, you have to look through legal content too. By ruling that it is OK to search a computer for illegal content, the judge also allows GeekSquad to look through completely legal content.

If said employee were to copy those pictures off of the computer, and take them home, then yes, they are breaking the law. 

 

Viewing said pictures while in the process of doing whatever job they're doing, then no, they wouldn't be in trouble.

[Windows7ge]

If this person is intelligent enough to be a doctor and decides to get involved in less than legal things I'm confused as to why they'd be dumb enough to hand their computer over to a organization when it stops working knowing they had things on there that they shouldn't have. This doctor might just get lucky. The file being deleted means they can't quite say for sure it was him who put it on the drive themselves or someone else.

[Orangeator]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

If this person is intelligent enough to be a doctor and decides to get involved in less than legal things I'm confused as to why they'd be dumb enough to hand their computer over to a organization when it stops working knowing they had things on there that they shouldn't have. This doctor might just get lucky. The file being deleted means they can't quite say for sure it was him who put it on the drive themselves or someone else.

The doctor has a better case than the FBI in this one without a doubt. As there wasn't a chain of custody on this evidence. Any half decent lawyer should win this case with a potential law suit against best buy.

[tlink]

Just now, Orangeator said:

Okay when I said copying data you knew I obviously meant keeping backups of the data after the drive was restored and given back to the customer... Also, if you worked for the mail service, opened a sealed box without a warrant or reasonable suspicion then found something illegal that is a violation as opening other's mail is a federal offense. Same with a hard drive in my opinion. If you are doing a data recovery service you should do you best to recover the data. Period. If you happen while doing what you agreed upon and see child pornography you should be able to report. Now here is this case, where they are running algorithms with the intent of finding incriminating evidence without warrant or cause... Which is a blatant work around the law by the FBI and Best Buy. Period.

we are not talking about anything sealed. they had complete legal access to the drive granted by the customer via oral contract. it was a puzzle in a box and the customer asked them "hey can you put together this puzzle for me?", and they said "yea sure but we would have to open the box is that okay?" and the customer said something like "yes you can open the box". there was a binding contract giving geeksquad full acess to the drive. i don't understand how this is a hard concept to grasp, if you don't want someone looking into your harddrive then don't make a legally binding contract with someone giving them access to the entire harddrive.

[LAwLz]

2 minutes ago, goodtofufriday said:

It doesnt allow them to retain any data. As per contracts signed in staples at least we had to delete all data after the machine was returned. So the situation you propose would put both that tech and best buy in massive legal trouble if ever caught. 

OK, so the employee could only jerk off to the pictures for as long as the computer was at BestBuy. He would need to delete them before handing the computer back.

That does not really make the situation better though.

 

1 minute ago, Jito463 said:

That's obviously not what the ruling by this judge was referring to.  Any half-competent lawyer would tell you that.

That's not what the ruling was meant to be, but it is the unfortunate reality of the ruling.

 

1 minute ago, tlink said:

but we have no reason to suspect that is how they found it. what is being argued that is the customer agreeing to literally complete access to someone's drive means that they have no right to assume they won't look into the files. its literally required to do the job they where trying to do, recover files. how else are they going to validate if they are doing anything useful?

We have no reason to suspect that's how they found it? Did you read the article?

1) The FBI has been training GeekSquad to do this kind of thing.

2) GeekSquad employees gets paid for each filed report they submit.

 

 

That's two pretty strong reasons to suspect that's what happened.

[tlink]

Just now, LAwLz said:

We have no reason to suspect that's how they found it? Did you read the article?

1) The FBI has been training GeekSquad to do this kind of thing.

2) GeekSquad employees gets paid for each filed report they submit.

eh i skimmed it, so im probably wrong there yea, my other points still stand though.

[goodtofufriday]

Just now, LAwLz said:

OK, so the employee could only jerk off to the pictures for as long as the computer was at BestBuy. He would need to delete them before handing the computer back.

That does not really make the situation better though.

The contracts also stipulate that, in the case where backups are being made onsite, they cannot be removed off site and are locked away after closing hours. 

 

These contracts are written by lawyers that have some semblance of what they are doing.