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Consumerist Catches Geek Squad Stealing Porn
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jul 06, 2007 04:22 PM
from the downside-of-a-hired-gun dept.
from the downside-of-a-hired-gun dept.
mekane8 writes "Consumer-advocate blog Consumerist ran a sting operation to catch a Best Buy Geek Squad member searching for and stealing media files from a customer's computer. The article includes the story with screen captures and a video of the technician's actions. From that piece: 'Reached for comment, Geek Squad CEO Robert Stephens expressed desire to launch an internal investigation and said, "If this is true, it's an isolated incident and grounds for termination of the Agent involved." This is not just an isolated incident, according to reports from Geek Squad insiders alleging that Geek Squad techs are stealing porn, images, and music from customer's computers in California, Texas, New Jersey, Virginia and elsewhere. Our sources say that some Geek Squad locations have a common computer set up where everyone dumps their plunder to share with the other technicians.' A related story from a former Geek Squad employee details the decline of the Geek Squad and Best Buy ethics in general."
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Your Rights Online: How Best Buy Tried To Whip The Geek Squad Into Shape 476 comments
The Consumerist site is featuring a follow-up to their Geek Squad porn collectors story, a feature we discussed back in July. According to Consumerist, Best Buy set up their own rigorous internal investigation to catch the culprits soon after these revelations became public. At that point, of course, employee morale went out the window. Draconian interrogation methods were apparently used, and innocent employees lost their jobs. "There were three Geek Squad members fired from my store including myself. The first two were fired for burning a non-copyrighted CD for another employee on a non company issued blank CD-R. I admitted in my interrogation that I was aware of this, and that I stopped these events after that occurrence. I was fired for being aware of this non copyrighted CD being copied. To quote, I did not provide the proper example of leadership. Keep in my mind I removed over 100 illegal tools and pirated discs upon my arrival as supervisor, as well as some remnants of an internal porn scandal."
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The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Insightful)
bottom-of-the-IT-food-chain to have ethics? Why are they any different
from a parking lot attendant or car wash guy? Because they're techies?
Don't kid yourself.
Heck, at two companies I've worked for (both big-name, publicly traded),
they've caught (and fired) one or more sysadmins reading other people's
email.
Sadly, The Ethical IT Guy is on the verge of becoming a quaint holdover
from the previous century.
Encrypt it, or lose it.
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Insightful)
All persons should aspire to live their lives ethically. Rather than have those who do be the exception, it ought to be that those that don't are the exception.
Parent
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Funny)
You're more likely to get yourself compatible organs for transplant by shooting some guy on the street, than finding porn that matches your own tastes on a random computer. Even if you get really lucky, there's bound to be more than a handful of images there that will turn you off at the wrong moment.
But then, who am I kidding... one can't really expect good taste from some random Geek Squad employee.
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Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate relativistic points of view. Some things are just not ethical. There are some things that could be quibbled over (grey areas, mostly), but this isn't something people should be debating. It is very widely consider wrong to steal stuff, kill people, invade people's privacy by looking through all their documents and photos without permission, etc. This is not something that needs to be up for debate.
As for the idea of "why can't we assume most people are nice", I generally do. But you still should be cautious for two reasons. First of all, despite what I'd like to believe a great many people just aren't ethical (and the constant stream of stuff from politicians, sports, stars, and other "role models" isn't helping).
Second, "God helps those who help themselves." Just because someone else shouldn't do something doesn't mean you shouldn't do something to try to prevent it. If the cross-walk sign says go you still check for cars right? Other people should stop, but they may not... so you look anyway. Whether you should have to or not, you protect yourself.
That people do this doesn't surprise me. That low paid people who are trained for 2 hours and given little oversight do this surprises me even less.
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Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Funny)
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Bush's Law (Score:5, Funny)
Bush's Law: As an online discussion concerning ethical behavior grows longer, the probability of a mention of George W. Bush approaches one.
Parent
Re:Then there is "entrapment". (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheers
Parent
Re:Then there is "entrapment". (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing like that here -- it's a computer with stuff on it, and their job is not to grab that stuff, it's to fix the computer. End of story.
How about a folder called "Music"? Can they steal from that because it's labeled as such?
Living ethically is a lot easier when you have enough ethics to avoid doing bad things for reasons better than "I might get caught."
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Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, the smell of fresh irony in the morning ( afternoon ).
You act ethically because you hold yourself accountable for your actions. I do a good job because I want to, because at the end of the day I feel good knowing I did the best I could. Not because if I work hard I'll get a "staff appreciation pin". Kudos from employers come and go ( or often are non-existant ).
I think that's the problem with this country: Too many people expect their managers to help them with their self-esteem. No one other than yourself should have any hand in that.
Parent
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not to say that it doesn't happen, but we don't have to pretend they are doing an ethical or good job.
BTW, I am an ethical IT guy. I don't want to see other people's stuff. I don't look for it either. But some people are so sloppy with their computers they do the equivalent of leaving porno mags or money in the driver's seat. Even then, I really don't care, as long as it isn't something clearly illegal which would put me in a bind I never wanted to be in. I don't think I'm rare. You are correct, you just won't be finding me working for Best Buy or other bottom of the barrel job. But I would imagine that there are enough ethical people starting out in such a job.
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Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Interesting)
We had a policy about porn, if the printer doesn't want to print it, then you wait till someone else (willing) is in to do the work. If the printer is under 18 (we had a couple in my district, mostly on summer jobs) then you had to wait. If it was illegal (animals, etc.) then you better not have used your real name 'cause the cops are coming. If it was Child porn then we beat you up while the cops are on the way (really happened, cops didn't arrest our guy, but told him to hope the CP guy didn't realize he could press charges).
We had one issue where the girl looked a little young, so we gave the guy a chance to have her, with ID come in and she could pick up the photos. She showed up, and the ID was good (honestly didn't look fake), thing is, her hair was noticeably shorter in the pics and she had turned 18 only a week? before. we let her have the photos, for lack of proof that she was underage, but it made my stomach churn.
-nB
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Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oblig Car Analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
My car has some niceties I have added on myself. While I certainly do not take my car to just any mechanic, there are some (rare) exceptions when it cannot go to my usual mechanic (i.e. warranty work I had done in the past). An example of once such feature is a very loud stereo system. I actually take the electronic toll pass, change, and especially the amplifiers, and sub woofers out of the car before taking it in because I know the volume would otherwise be maxed out when I get it back from the shop. I simply do not trust just anyone outside of myself and my close friends to have those items within their reach. Furthermore, I am also careful, as with anybody else, to only hand them the keys they need to operate the vehicle, and do not provide them with my house keys or keys to anything other than the car.
People need to take the same types of precautions with computers. If possible, back up your files elsewhere (i.e. optical media, portable hard drive) or consider using a network storage device (many home network storage devices are available now with RAID, and are not terribly high in price). Just as you would with a car, take out any money and private/personal belongings and put it elsewhere for while it is in the shop. Also, use different passwords for your logins than you use for your email accounts and the-like, as this is synonymous to only providing them with the key/keys they need.
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Best Buy had ethics (Score:5, Funny)
Well, OK (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt that these guys are obtaining and distributing files that couldn't be obtained for free using a good BitTorrent client (albeit also illegally). I mean, sure, most managerial types agree that you shouldn't do that stuff at work, but aside from the misuse of on-the-clock time, is it much different than a bunch of college roommates using a shared network directory for their downloads?
Stealing homemade sex videos and that sort of thing from customers' computers is another matter. That would be a pretty major invasion of privacy and should be grounds for substantial, per-case lawsuits. I suppose it would be hard for a corporate overseer to distinguish between "legit" and privately owned media in that situation.
Home videos? Private diaries? Love letters? Stay out, Geek. But "media" . . . as a customer, what have I lost, exactly? To be honest, I'd rather have a competent technician solve my configuration problems and help himself to my MP3 directory than have to waste time with ignorant first-level servicepeople in a tightly overseen, "theft-free" big-box environment.
Re:Well, OK (Score:5, Funny)
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Share your new iTunes DRM free folder? (Score:5, Interesting)
How much would it suck to get sued for thousands by the RIAA because some highschool/college punk snagged a copy of your iTunes folder? They have files with your digital signature sitting on a P2P server, and they only have to show that given a preponderance of the evidence you are likely guilty.
-Rick
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Not just an isolated incident. (Score:5, Interesting)
This wasn't something I ever did, mainly because I had my own pornography to look at and never came across anything even remotely interesting in any other way, but other "Agents" would do it on a routine basis.
Thoughts from the TGIFA part of my brain (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, sympathize with the perps here. Who would begrudge the Best Buy Geeksquad drudges some cheap thrills? Besides, if they're busy sharing porn, that makes it less likely they're doing something awful to the innards of Auntie Mae's PC... I would hope.
My real feeling on this, though, are that it's all part of Best Buy's sales model. They can get a lot of customers to purchase an additional 120-gig hard drive if it comes preloaded with porn.
Also, did you notice they now sell tissues and lotion? It's all about synergistic product lines, folks.
I've done it. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Backup customer data (read: customer's porn, music, movies and various documents. Occasionally saved games)
2) Copy over WinXP syspreped mini-image, wiping hard drive.
3) Fix partition table.
4) Run through XP mini-install.
5) Grab any straggler updates.
6) Copy back customer data.
7) Delete crap we don't care about from backup.
8) At the end of the day, copy porn, music and movies that don't suck to my laptop and clean the image/backup server.
(In case you didn't realize, 90% of repairs are people who got so much spyware and viruses that a wipe is just faster. Especially with the mini-image (which is just a copy of XP/2k, fully updated, with all the various media players and firefox, that's been syspreped and shrunk down to the minimum (with ntfsresize on Knoppix). On first boot, XP will auto resize the fs to the maximum if the fs is smaller than the partition.))
This was some time ago (read: long enough ago that the statute of limitations applies), but I see no reason that it doesn't still work like that. I mean, come on, it's faster than bittorrent.
Re:I've done it. (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope you never apply for any sysadmin position anywhere, until/unless you lose that kind of attitude.
Seriously - that's 100% pure asshattery on your part (and I don't give a shit what files were involved, or how clueless the person storing 'em there), and may well explain why you don't "run" a shop these days.
If you can't prove yourself worthy of a position of trust, then GTFO out of this business. We have enough problems with pry-happy vendors, corporate espionage, and the incidental script kiddies - we have precious little tolerance or room for pathetic little asshats who would compromise their own professional ethics just to get his or her movie and pr0n fix.
At home, w/ friends, or at a LAN party (that is, if the others are into sharing), or elsewhere... go for it; copy your ass off with nary a peep from the likes of me. But at work? Shitting where you eat? Sibling's right, there is no statute of limitations on douchebaggery.
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As a former blue-shirt... (Score:5, Interesting)
I am always surprised when I see stuff like this -- shock and astonishment that retail PC techs aren't complete pros. That's not to say that there weren't some good techs there -- there were. But there were also bad techs, because the management at a story like Best Buy knows about retail sales and (hopefully) customer service. They cannot tell the difference between a good tech and someone who can just talk like a good tech, but they do know that, if we were really great techs, we wouldn't have been working at Best Buy. Other posters have mentioned bad behavior as a natural result "bottom of the food chain" and "low-paid" employeees.
We weren't the bottom of the food chain. The sales floor guys were - especially in the computer department. They wanted our jobs. I routinely had guys in their mid-twenties give me shit because I was 16 and had a better job. I wasn't making more than they were since I was seasonal, but that was okay with me. I was making decent money for being 16 in 1996 (about $8 an hour, I think) and the job was as tied to merit as it could have been. If I fixed computers well and quickly, I got a good review and customers left happy. Since a lot of our customers expected to have a miserable experience dealing with us, it was actually a pretty good feeling to make somebody's day and fix in an hour what they thought they'd have to come back for in a week.
I only worked summers and over Christmas, so every time I came back, I had to "prove myself" again as the other full-time techs had invariably either been fired or else moved on to better gigs. For every full-time guy there who knew a lot and showed me a trick or two, there was a guy there three times my age who didn't know anything other than how to reinstall windows, and who resented the smartass 16-year-old who made him look bad. Most of these guys lasted only a couple months, but every now and then you'd get somebody who could weasel their way into the job and manage not to be a bad employee even if they were a bad tech. The fact is that a lot of the "repair" jobs we got back then were really basic. An un-scientific analysis of what I remember the job was like saw maybe one or two machines over an 8 hour shift that actually needed hardware work we were capable of; the rest were OS issues, software problems, driver problems, or else they were hardware issues that we had to send out to our service center. The bad techs just sent more stuff out to service, which wasn't really encouraged since we got a happier customer and probably a better profit margin for our store if we fixed it in-house rather than sending it to a regional service center.
At the end of the day, though, we had a lot of autonomy. The second summer I was there was the best one -- they'd fired all but one of the other techs and (for whatever reason) had a hard time replacing them, so it was just me and this one laid-back dude fixing just about everything, and since we were both pretty good, we got the same amount of work done with half the manpower. The managers rarely enforced the "regional" policies as to how we were supposed to do things (if there even were any) so long as our numbers were good.
Best Buy as a company has about as much oversight of their techs as Honda or VW have of their dealership techs. They're hired locally and monitored locally (if at all). They can try to set some standards for who to hire (realy easy things like A-Plus certification) but it doesn't change the fact that it's a low-ish level job unless you're a masochist and you want to use it as a stepping stone to management.
So I'm not surprised by any of this, but I don't really hold Best Buy responsible unless they knew about it and did
Re:Whoa... whatever happened to 'it's not stealing (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Whoa... whatever happened to 'it's not stealing (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone wants to copy my \music\mp3 directory, more power to them. But, as another person posted, if they go into my \documents\creative_writing I'd be a bit ticked. I'll admit that. Mostly because unlike the music directory, none of the stuff in there is for public consumption. Also, the mp3 directory is 100% reproducible from public networks. It's already out there. Them taking a copy of all my mp3s is just a way for them to save time and bandwidth. My personal files, on the other hand, aren't.
Of course, as a use case this isn't likely, because I wouldn't buy a computer from Best Buy, let alone entrust them with repairing my box. (And of course, I can fix my own damn computer, so...)
This isn't a matter of stealing or copyright or anything like that. It's an invasion of privacy. Best Buy is giving you a contract (both social and written) saying that they respect you private data, and that you can trust them. If their employees root around in stuff they shouldn't, that's a breach of privacy.
Plus, it's a chance to lay down a strawman beat on Best Buy, and who wants to pass up that opportunity?
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