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The OC Weekly reports on the case United States of America v. Mark A. Rettenmaier in which a California doctor is charged with knowingly possessing child pornography. The defendant came under investigation after he brought his computer to Best Buy's Geek Squad for service. A technician there discovered an image of an unclothed girl (which the defence asserts is not child pornography) in unallocated space of the computer's hard drive.
According to the defence attorney,
[...] records show "FBI and Best Buy made sure that during the period from 2007 to the present, there was always at least one supervisor who was an active informant."
The OC Weekly story says that:
[...] the company's repair technicians routinely searched customers' devices for files that could earn them $500 windfalls as FBI informants.
Best Buy has issued a statement which says:
"Best Buy and Geek Squad have no relationship with the FBI. From time to time, our repair agents discover material that may be child pornography, and we have a legal and moral obligation to turn that material over to law enforcement. We are proud of our policy and share it with our customers before we begin any repair.
"Any circumstances in which an employee received payment from the FBI is the result of extremely poor individual judgment, is not something we tolerate and is certainly not a part of our normal business behavior.
"To be clear, our agents unintentionally find child pornography as they try to make the repairs the customer is paying for. They are not looking for it. Our policies prohibit agents from doing anything other than what is necessary to solve the customer's problem so that we can maintain their privacy and keep up with the volume of repairs."
Additional coverage:
- later OC Weekly story
- BBC News
- Engadget
- Washington Post
- Washington Post
- ZDnet
- Network World
- RTTNews.com via NASDAQ
- SFgate
Related: How Best Buy's Computer-Wiping Error Turned Me into an Amateur Blackhat
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @03:15PM
Fuel the disposable consumer culture, Eth! Don't ever repair anything. Always throw it away and buy another.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 14 2017, @03:59PM
Tell that to somebody else. I've had my well-worn running shoes for 4 years, my lappy (bought refurbished) for 10 years, and my desktop (also bought refurbished) for 4 years. My printer and acoustic guitar are aged hand-me-downs. A lot of my books are also used, my copy of Animal Farm still has the library stickers and stamps on it.
The only reason why I need a new desktop - which I will build myself this time - is to run VMs and do Android development.
Oh yeah, and I've been working in the electronics industry for around 15 years, and have seen everything that can go wrong, and have knowingly and unknowingly shipped product of dubious quality. RoHS anyone?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @04:07PM
refurbished [] refurbished
You bought refurbished so you could recover all that juicy shemale porn from the previous pervert.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Sunday January 15 2017, @12:14AM
...acoustic guitar [is an] aged hand-me-down
Do you think acoustic guitars (or other acoustic instruments) can positively alter sound quality with age and/or playing? Just curious about your opinion.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 15 2017, @12:54AM
I don't notice a goddamn difference.
You probably have been exposed to lore stating that maybe the nitrocellulose lacquer will loosen up and crack, and/or the wood will age, or some such nonsense. The same nonsense that touts Stradavarius violins as the best-sounding instruments made ever.
I've read plenty about luthiers touting the benefits of their instruments, and over the years I've come to believe the people writing those pieces are no better than food critics. If they make good pieces of guitar it's from blind luck at worst and good playing from their endorsers at best.
My attitude about acoustic instruments is that they sound as good as the person who plays them. My nylon-string, for example. You get my nylon-string shitbox alongside a top-shelf model with a white spruce top and real gut strings, but they both sound the same.
Musicians are sentimental fools. They can extoll the virtues of their favorite boxen (yes, like computer scum, guitarists refer to their axes as boxen, and specifically jazz boxes [wikipedia.org]) but ultimately it comes down to the human aspect: how you play, and how well you play helps too.