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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: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday June 14 2015, @04:33AM
In my Ex-Day-job, we were occasionally asked to analyze hard drives for the Police.
They were from seized computers, and this was before there were standard forensics software packs available.
Arrive in a sealed bag, chain of custody signature tags and the whole thing.
(Got the job because of personal friend of D.A, and assistant chief, in a small town).
One drive they were looking for child porn, - non found even in erased sectors. lots of pics of the guys wife, ahem,,,
Another they were looking for erased documents, - embezzlement case, found plenty, and the guy also had a BSDM fetish and the pics to prove it.
Back then, you could jumper drives for write protect, which we always did, before mounting the drive under linux. (Any change after the date it was seized can be challenged by a knowledgeable lawyer).
You can't always do any more. Some drives don't have write protect jumpers any more. These days you often need a special harness [sharkoon.com] to disconnect the write circuit, and even that can't prevent all changes on some drives.
Other than that it was a revolting job, and I'm glad we got out of it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bradley13 on Sunday June 14 2015, @05:50AM
Chain of custody? Evidence tags? Nah...
Back in the dark ages, when I was a college student visiting family, one of the in-laws was a Secret Service agent. They had a case of credit-card fraud, and had a computer that they thought contained a bunch of stolen credit-card information. I needed to find it, extract and format it and print it out. So he asked me if I could help. So he sat me in an office with the computer; I fiddled, found the data, wrote a program to decode and sort it (it wasn't encrypted or anything) - all of this directly on that computer.
Being a naive 19 or 20 year old, it didn't occur to me what a absolute idiocy that was, I mean, I was all flattered and working for the Secret Service, gee, golly whiz. Given that I wasn't even a CS major at the time, and just programmed for a hobby, it's a miracle I didn't destroy the data by accident.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.