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We put a lot of trust in big companies, so when they let us down it can have serious consequences.
I recently went shopping for a new computer. I wanted a low-end laptop for light work, and the HP Stream seemed like a good deal. That deal was made even sweeter when Best Buy offered to sell me a returned one for almost 20 percent off. The salesman assured me that it was in like-new condition and that they would honor all warranties. Sold.
I always get a little thrill opening a new gadget. The computer looked like it had never been touched and all the paperwork was still in sealed bags. There was even a slip of paper in the box with the ID of the tech who cleaned and certified the unit.
So it surprised me when I booted up and saw someone else's name and Hotmail address at the login prompt. So much for like-new!
As I stared at the full name and e-mail address of the previous owner—let's call him David—I wondered. Could I get into this computer another way? It was mine after all. And how much more could I learn about him? How bad of a mistake had the store made?
Any similar stories out there Soylentils care to share?
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Informative) by Geotti on Saturday June 13 2015, @08:28PM
Netboot DBAN [wikipedia.org] before you resell a laptop, or at least run through regular system recovery. D'oh, Best Buy!
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Saturday June 13 2015, @09:07PM
Good advice ...
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 14 2015, @11:01PM
Even better advice: smash the mother-lovin' shit out of your hard drive with a big hammer before selling (the rest of) the laptop to anyone. Or use a nail gun. Just sayin'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @10:33PM
http://www.amazon.com/Strongest-Neodymium-CMS-Magnetics%C2%AE-1-Count/dp/B008D3NRX8/ [ amazon.com (Warning: Unicode in URL) ]
Then take the hard drive apart and look at whats inside. There is a tiny crystal worth inspecting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2015, @10:36PM
I actually tried to remove all the crap amazon puts into links. I have no idea why that warning is important, but I apologize if it causes an issue.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 14 2015, @01:20AM
The Unicode character seems to be a registered-trademark symbol: ®
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday June 14 2015, @08:43AM
The URL doesn't actually contain Unicode, but ASCII characters which decode to Unicode. The only system which needs to know how to handle them is the web server; any other system can just treat them as the sequence of ASCII characters it is. That's the whole point of the ASCII encoding of Unicode characters in URLs: It allows systems which have no idea about how to handle Unicode still correctly handle the URL. Indeed, you could enter this URL into a browser from the last millennium, and it would work quite fine (well, except that the browser might not be able to handle other aspects of HTTP which changed over time, and almost certainly would not be able to correctly display the resulting page).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday June 14 2015, @04:48AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday June 14 2015, @08:53AM
Even if that user had used TrueCrypt, and had used a super-strong password instead of an easily cracked one, it still would not have helped, given that that his password got delivered with the computer. The best encryption doesn't help against someone who has your password.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday June 14 2015, @02:16PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday June 14 2015, @03:34PM
RTFA, then you know.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday June 14 2015, @06:41PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈