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
Related Stories
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
Recently unsealed records reveal a much more extensive secret relationship than previously known between the FBI and Best Buy's Geek Squad, including evidence the agency trained company technicians on law-enforcement operational tactics, shared lists of targeted citizens and, to covertly increase surveillance of the public, encouraged searches of computers even when unrelated to a customer's request for repairs.
To sidestep the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against warrantless invasions of private property, federal prosecutors and FBI officials have argued that Geek Squad employees accidentally find and report, for example, potential child pornography on customers' computers without any prodding by the government. Assistant United States Attorney M. Anthony Brown last year labeled allegations of a hidden partnership as "wild speculation." But more than a dozen summaries of FBI memoranda filed inside Orange County's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse this month in USA v. Mark Rettenmaier contradict the official line.
One agency communication about Geek Squad supervisor Justin Meade noted, "Agent assignments have been reviewed and are appropriate for operation of this source," that the paid informant "continues to provide valuable information on [child pornography] matters" and has "value due to his unique or potential access to FBI priority targets or intelligence responsive to FBI national and/or local collection."
Other records show how Meade's job gave him "excellent and frequent" access for "several years" to computers belonging to unwitting Best Buy customers, though agents considered him "underutilized" and wanted him "tasked" to search devices "on a more consistent basis."
Step 1: Put child porn on target's computer
Step 2: Report target to FBI
Step 3: Collect $500 bounty
Profit!!!
Previously on SoylentNews: Cooperation Alleged Between Best Buy and the FBI
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain records related to the FBI's secret relationship with Best Buy's Geek Squad:
Sending your computer to Best Buy for repairs shouldn't require you to surrender your Fourth Amendment rights. But that's apparently what's been happening when customers send their computers to a Geek Squad repair facility in Kentucky.
We think the FBI's use of Best Buy Geek Squad employees to search people's computers without a warrant threatens to circumvent people's constitutional rights. That's why we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit today against the FBI seeking records about the extent to which it directs and trains Best Buy employees to conduct warrantless searches of people's devices. Read our complaint here [PDF].
EFF has long been concerned about law enforcement using private actors, such as Best Buy employees, to conduct warrantless searches that the Fourth Amendment plainly bars police from doing themselves. The key question is at what point does a private person's search turn into a government search that implicates the Fourth Amendment.
Previously: Cooperation Alleged Between Best Buy and the FBI
FBI agents paid employees in Best Buy's Geek Squad unit to act as informants, documents published Tuesday reveal.
Agents paid managers in the retailer's device repair unit to pass along information about illegal content discovered on customers' devices, according to documents posted online by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital rights group sued the FBI for the documents last year after the bureau denied a Freedom of Information Act request.
The EFF filed the lawsuit to learn the extent to which the agency trains and directs Best Buy Geek Squad employees to conduct warrantless searches of customers' devices during maintenance. The EFF said it was concerned that use of repair technicians to root out evidence of criminal behavior circumvents people's constitutional rights.
[...] Another document shows the FBI approved a $500 payment to a "confidential human source" whose name was redacted. The EFF said the payment appears to be one of many connected to the prosecution of Mark Rettenmaier, a Southern California doctor accused of possessing child pornography after he sent in his computer to Best Buy for repairs.
The EFF said the documents detail investigation procedures in which Geek Squad employees would contact the FBI after finding what they believed to be child pornography on a customer's device.
The EFF said an FBI agent would examine the device to determine whether there was illegal content present, and if so, seize the device and send it to the FBI field office closest to where the customer lived. Agents would then investigate further, and in some cases try to obtain a warrant to search the device.
Best Buy said last year that three of the four employees who may have received payment from the FBI are no longer employed by the company. The fourth was reprimanded and reassigned.
Previously: Cooperation Alleged Between Best Buy and the FBI
FBI Used Best Buy's Geek Squad To Increase Secret Public Surveillance
EFF Sues FBI to Obtain Records About Geek Squad/Best Buy Surveillance
Related: How Best Buy's Computer-Wiping Error Turned Me into an Amateur Blackhat
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @02:24PM
Not involved my ass.
Of course the FBI is asking them to look. Perhaps even demanding.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 14 2017, @03:04PM
And It's probably not just Best Buy. Very likely others are involved, maybe even a few small mom and pop repair shops.
(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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @03:12PM
Even if you aren't a pedophile this is a problem for everyone who brings their devices to BBY to work on. These techs aren't just magically able to detect photos that are CP. They are looking at all your photos hoping to find a jackpot. Even if they don't see anything that will get them that $500 prize from the FBI, they still looked at all your photos on purpose.
The FBI is literally paying them to look at every photo on your computer.
Even if every one of them is a saint and none of your photos are actually copied, they are still looking at them and saving them to their spank bank. Nobody should feel comfortable with that kind of privacy invasion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @03:29PM
Without either the drive wiped or pulled for exactly this reason.
A zero wipe is enough for casual observation. If you had concerns about criminal indictment or spook level interest in your digital footprint, then you would want the drives physically destroyed (as is supposedly standard for government hard disks, although may only happen in practice for the more secretive branches.)
Point being: We are about two decades out from when you should trust a corporation with repairing your computers without nosing through your hard disk, and if you don't know how to wipe/remove it yourself, then you should probably have a computer tech on retainer (just like you should have a lawyer!) for handling exactly these situations without having it warrantied with either private information or incriminating information on it. Because either may be used against you in the future unless you follow paranoid enough practices to ensure they are not.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @03:43PM
I worked at best buy many years ago.
They paid me $5.50 an hour. Sales spiffs were not provided to us; the incentive was still in effect and the *manager* would get the spiff or kickback. Once, I won a pizza party from Intel by answering some questions from a 'secret shopper' of theirs, and because of 'ethics' at best buy, I couldn't benefit from it, but the management could. I heard I was a valued worker after they had the party.
Yeah, I guess I am if I managed to get them to have a party that I was forbidden from attending because I was a part-time worker.
Anyway, these scans -- people are willing to work OT to dig through this stuff, and also add to their collection of good pornography pics, pirated music, games and stuff... and they also do this to try to find pictures of people they know (the local best buy services computers of local people...) so they can share it with friends or use for humilation or bullying later, to try to figure out how to get more personal information on people they think are hot in the personal photos they find, etc,
Getting a reward for working with the government is just icing on the cake. The tactic used to be called an "mp3 scan", they probably have a new word for it now... but they also have a false moral (and richly rewarded) imperative to do this. The fact they are actually reviewing and assessing naked pictures found in hidden areas/unallocated areas of the disk drive... there should be a law against invasive software scans.
I should not have to reveal the content of all of my safes (or just expect the locksmith to be allowed to look through everythng I own) just because I have trouble with one of the locks in my house. Likewise, my computer data should be off limits if I bring in the computer with some other issue, and only the applicable data (boot files, driver files -- whatever is related to the problem) should be permissible legally to view by support and service people. If I have a problem with my video card, looking at pictures of naked people stored in unallocated space on my computer shouldn't be something I have to pay for them to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @04:18PM
The part you're missing with your document is that these people are in fact just that - people. The company has policies, ethics boards, and people all up and down the corporate hierarchy who state that the company's policy is something along the lines of "the customer's data is the customer's alone - you will not go trolling through it unless there's a specific problem you've been asked to resolve." Sounds great in principle, but there's a world of difference between the kid doing it for a summer job and a professional whose career is on the line. Kids get curious, and look around for any number of reasons - curiosity, a feeling of power knowing they can do things that others can't, a desire to have a giggle at someone's expense... and they do it. Even professionals with a sense of responsibility will do it if there's enough incentive on the line. They tend to be better at fighting temptation, but nobody's perfect. And that's the thing - to get perfect compliance with the lofty goals stated From Corporate, you need to take the humans out of the picture. Otherwise you WILL get slips - some intentional, some accidental, some just being jerks because they think it's fun.
At the same time, there's the whole Mandated Reporter issue. This may not hold true everywhere, but before Geek Squad was bought by Best Buy (and I worked for them during part of this early period), we were told very explicitly: "You don't go looking for kiddie porn, but if you run across it you're required by law to report it."
I don't know if that's still the case. I suspect it is. So you're right that they shouldn't have been looking for pictures in unallocated space - unless the problem the machine was brought in to solve had to do with data recovery in the first place. But once they run across it, what would you have them do?
My solution would be to fine them all. One fine for the tech, probably under "breaking and entering" or some form of "invasion of privacy" statute. A significantly harsher one for the person with the kiddie porn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @04:33PM
I am pretty sure that BBY techs are not mandated reporters. [wikipedia.org]
That's only a legal requirement applied to certain jobs that actually involve working with children. Like teachers.
That would not stop management from lying to their employees for their own purposes, but it would still be a lie.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 14 2017, @05:52PM
When I was a retail photo lab monkey we were required to report CP, though fortunately I never saw anything I had to report -- though I did see lots of titties and even a creampie.
But that's different, though - photo lab staff have to see every image, and everybody in sight can see the photographs laying around.
I actually worked for a contractor which performed the warranty repair for Best Buy's computers, and every once in awhile I'd get bored and run a search of something like *.jpg - though I did it only a handful of times and didn't see anything I'd be compelled to report there either.
But scanning unallocated space is a whole new level of creepy - how do they know that those files weren't put there by the previous owner, or by somebody who borrowed the laptop, or even the owner's own teenage kids?
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday January 14 2017, @06:43PM
In Canada, Persons who Provide an Internet Service [cybertip.ca] are required to report that stuff. Then delete it after exactly 2 weeks unless told otherwise.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday January 15 2017, @01:11PM
If someone has accessed the hard drive without my permission then I will argue that they planted any illegal material on the drive, not me. Date stamps are trivially easy to change and images being found in a 'blank' or unused portion of the drive looks very much like someone did a simple byte copy of data onto the drive beginning at a sector of their choosing. I can easily produce a hash that I claim I made before handing the computer to the technician - and can guarantee that it will not match any hash someone wants to create now. I know that there are numerous valid reasons for that hash to change but they have to prove that I have committed an offence.
However, I use full disk encryption on all of my drives. Not because of pornography or anything illegal, but because copies of all of my legal documents, my medical records, my military service records etc reside on those drives. Usually I repair my own computers, but if I had to send one away it would be with the original drive and software on it. The first thing I do if I have to purchase an installed system is replace the hard drive once I have activated the software, and then place it somewhere safe for occasions such as this.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @10:28PM
pizza party
So, what's really going on at Best Buy?!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by driven on Saturday January 14 2017, @04:16PM
I've worked on computers for other people in my spare time and pride myself on the fact that I *don't* go digging through their documents. Anyone who does is extremely unprofessional, to say the least.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Saturday January 14 2017, @05:56PM
It's a gray area. General snooping is a bit sick. I agree- I don't snoop- I don't have time for it even if I was curious.
I had a repeat customer who's computer would come in malware saturated- 100% CPU utilization. After the 2nd or 3rd time I started looking more closely at the scan reports and discovered he was visiting some seriously vile websites. The scanner report told me this- I did no snooping. There were .jpg and .mov infected files. I did my best to tactfully communicate that "certain" websites were infecting his machine (thank you browser's handling of evil javascript). Thankfully I did not hear from him again.
But here's a much scarier scenario: suppose a customer has something illegal on a computer and I work on said computer. If he/she gets caught, how can I prove I didn't do it? They could easily say they didn't do it and it was not there when they gave me the machine for repairs. Date/time stamps are easily faked.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday January 14 2017, @06:55PM
Date/time stamps are not as easily faked as you might surmise.
They contain entropy that is hard to simulate.
If you do it badly enough, they may be able to prove they did not have access to the computer during certain times (though clock drift/warping may be an issue).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @11:51PM
Date/time stamps are not as easily faked as you might surmise.
Everything on a computer is easily faked if you have the relevant knowledge. Don't delude yourself.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 15 2017, @12:06AM
Yes. The problem is that most people who try to fake it delude themselves into believing they have the relevant knowledge.
Turns out there are a whole of side-channels with useful data that most people outside of the forensics fields don't even realize exist, much less know how to convincingly fake.
For example - if you use a 2nd computer to access the disk to load the CP and set the timestamps on the CP, you better make sure the logs also show the machine was booted up and running at the time those timestamps say the files were created.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 14 2017, @03:44PM
Correct me if I'm wrong here but isn't anyone the FBI actively employs as informants under the same Fruit of the Poisonous Tree doctrine as the FBI itself, regardless of how many levels of indirection are in place? Like if the supervisor is actively employed by the FBI to hunt up CP and said supervisor offers a bounty of $500 to employees that never speak to the FBI, evidence thus obtained is nevertheless inadmissible?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday January 14 2017, @04:18PM
Unlikely. Isn't that just a "tip", for which the FBI could get a warrant? Worst case they just start watching the person. Well, worst case is that the Best Buy folks start planting photos so they can collect rewards.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday January 14 2017, @05:13PM
I'm wondering if any of these employees have root-kitted computers for the FBI to 'help' them: root-kit it, the FBI gains access to the computer, gathers evidence, stop accessing computer, gathers 'evidence' the regular way, gets a warrant, then 'root-kits' computer, gathers evidence, takes perp to court.
Would ANYONE be surprised if this were the case? I certainly could see it happening.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 14 2017, @06:21PM
I'd think it boiled down to whether the FBI solicited the information or not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday January 14 2017, @08:21PM
Perhaps, I'm not a lawyer. Interesting idea though. It would force them to go through that troublesome parallel construction. As if warrants weren't enough of an inconvenience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @09:15PM
The Fourth Amendment applies any time a the Government wants to violate a person's reasonable expectation of privacy. This includes things at the direction of the government (did the private school choose to search the locker or were they asked by the police?) because they are then acting as an arm of the police. That can be heavily dependent on the facts and, in one case I worked on, required the judge to determine whether the school official came up with the idea on their own or at the suggestion of the officer by parsing every little word in an email exchange to get in their heads. So here, I would think that it heavily depends on the specific facts of what was said, what the expectations were, etc.
Once you get past that, the question become whether or not the contraband in question was in "plain view." This is, again, heavily dependent on the facts of the case. It also depends on what exactly the work was as to whether he could have stumble on it on accident and what the guy was thinking while working.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday January 14 2017, @04:15PM
You're the computer tech. You stumble across child pron, snuff films, human trafficking, or some other crime that you consider to be heinous. What do you do? Dude, you're not a lawyer or a doctor. You haven't sworn some oath to keep shit secret. It's you and your conscience, vs, what exactly? Fear of retribution?
"Informant" sounds such a dirty word. I'll probably just rat the sumbitch out. ;^)
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @05:25PM
You have two choices:
(1) Ignore private data because it's none of your business.
(2) be a nosy shitbag motherfucker like Runaway.
Your choice.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @06:00PM
of course... but why in the fuck are you going through customer files in the first place?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @06:19PM
^ Professionals shouldn't go through private files and shouldn't be encouraged to do so, but if I found evidence of illegal activity I would report it as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @08:21PM
While removing the various malware and viruses that the poor slob got while downloading illicit crap, it sometimes requires you go in and manually remove a file or directory. In the process of doing that, you may find something illicit.
Other times, the perverts are just stupid and set that shit as their screensaver or desktop background.
Other times you are recovering files that were deleted and when checking to see if it all came back, find something that probably should have stayed deleted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @11:28PM
How do you know it's illicit, especially in the case of photos or videos, without looking at it? File names aren't enough. Well, if it's a screensaver or something, then it's understandable.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Sunday January 15 2017, @06:12AM
thumbnails in the file manager, for one.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Saturday January 14 2017, @04:17PM
My start into computers was an inoperable PC, and much research into the subject.(ironically, most of my knowledge comes from online)
The thought of taking a PC somewhere to be repaired would never occur to me. I've always assembled my own hardware, and the experience has benefits that seem priceless.(cheap cases, with even cheaper power supplies, anyone?)
I don't think I am alone here, with a similar past.
*maybe a future SN poll?*
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday January 14 2017, @05:03PM
Not trying to be smug...
Not really sure you're making a point, either.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Saturday January 14 2017, @06:26PM
Good luck assembling your own laptop... If you really know a shop selling suitable parts, please, post a link. I have my home-partition encrypted and bank on that encryption being save enough. I'd never go to tech-support for sw issues, only hw. Therefore if they need to boot, they can use their own USB/DVD/CD, no access to my home partition.
Of course the tmp folder might still contain private information... should probably put that on an encrypted partition as well.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday January 14 2017, @06:49PM
They be like: "Your Windows installation was corrupted, so we replaced it. that will be $30 for the Windows license please"
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Saturday January 14 2017, @08:09PM
Unlikely. Since I keep a backup on usb-disk, I'd not worry too much, but I'd give my software to repair and they'd actually delete /overwrite my data, they would be sued.
Luckily here in Europe most people did hear about Linux, and people working 'in IT' even more so.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @04:45PM
As an owner of a small IT business for more than 12 years I have never been contacted by the government or offered money to keep an eye out for suspicious files. We also don't have time to dig through every hard drive that comes through the door, nor would we care to. I am an advocate of strong privacy rights, a characteristic that has been shared by most of the people who have worked for me. Simply put, we're just not interested in your porn or secret partitions because we're too busy trying to make payroll, pay the taxes, and keep the lights on. Further, I would pit any of my techs against the sharpest Geek Squad tech any day with complete confidence; my team is excellent at what they do because...[payroll/taxes/lights].
My point is that IT is a tough business these days and the small shops are dying. People need help with their computer issues and the small shops are likely to have good techs and no interest in ruining their reputation by helping the FBI conduct witch hunts. The government finds large companies desirable because they can cover many employees with a single NSL or other mutual arrangement whereas the same with a tiny company would only add a few sets of eyes for the same amount of effort.
Support local small businesses in general.
(Posting anon because this is intended to be advice related to the story, not a sales pitch.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @11:20PM
So, anticipating the day when you will be out of business, you have instructed[1] your customers how to:
1) run something other than Windoze.
2) run Windoze in a (gratis and libre) virtual machine--if Windoze is absolutely necessary.
2a) take a snapshot of the virtual Windoze install as soon as that is up and running.
2aa) restore the virtual Windoze install from that backup.
3) keep all data on an easily-detachable drive.
Put the swap partition for Windoze on that drive as well.
...or is Windoze on bare metal simply too profitable for you?
[1] This seems like an ideal seminar to have at the local community college|community center|whatever.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @05:07PM
So there's no reason to open any non OS folders in the process of fixing a PC? The last time I checked, there were no dll's or exe's in the "My Documents" folder. BB just got caught pulling a Clinton.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 14 2017, @11:47PM
You could marry a female child as is fine in the Old Testament (Dt 22,
..
28-29), but no, you demand all pedos be killed.
You white FUCKS turned your back on God and now you are going extinct.