Consumerist Catches Geek Squad Stealing Porn

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."

geek squad != professionals

[SolusSD]

Geek Squad/Best Buy employees are no different than walmart employees, and it doesn't require any more IT knowledge than a wallmart janitor would need to get the job. When I work at "the Buy" I remember the *procedure* for fixing a computer was reformat and reload. These aren't professionals and, while what happened was wrong, it shouldn't surprise anyone.

Geek Squad != IT

[blhack]

Geek squad is on about the same level as the kid down the street. We have ALL done that, some family friend, or neighbor, or whatever needs their computer fixed, so we fix it for them. How many of you have honestly worked on a neighbors computer without at least taking a look into ~\My Music\? It goes with the territory and people know it. You cannot honestly tell me that your average consumer takes their computer into the geek squad to have it fixed and expects that they are getting top level support. If you had a bunch of home made pr0n, or private pictures, videos, files, etc on your computer, don't hand it over to some mouth breathing idiot behind a geek squad counter.

Re:The decline of ethics?????

[bill_mcgonigle]

What does being low paid or at the bottom of a social class have to do with acting morally? Are you saying its ok for poor people to steal, lie and cheat?

People who understand game theory tend to get ahead. Those who don't work at Geek Squad.

Bwhaha

[Alari]

When I worked for a huge non-chain computer store in Massachusetts, technicians would SCOUR every single computer which came in for service looking for porn. I think they had 100 gigs collected from dozens of customer's computers, back in the day when 100 gigs was a lot... Every other computer store / computer service place does the same thing. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE GUYS. THEY HAVE TESTICLES. OF COURSE they're going to hunt for porn.

To be honest, I'm surprised that this is a surprise to anyone. I think the average tech opinion on this is that if you have things you don't want others to see on your computer, you damn well better not mess it up to the point where you have to take it in for repair, or be smart enough to fix it yourself. (And yes, the majority of repairs are only necessary because people click the "OMG PRAWN!" banner ads and then wonder why they have popups and spyware on their system...)

Sadly, its true

[shafty023]

I worked for Geek Squad prior to it being called Geek Squad and after the name change. The story is absolutely true as fellow technicians did exactly what was expressed in this story. There was a central machine that all the vids,images went into but that was not the sole purpose of the machine. All tech benches have a central machine that we used to store our tools and to conduct virus scans. I worked in a college town so the pictures of sorority girls were pretty graphic. I was there to get a paycheck, others took the time to invade people's privacy. I don't believe I recall them specifically searching. But when customers would request spyware removal or data backups, you see filenames flash across the screen. Some techs choose to look further when they'd see filenames like "sorority party, drunken flashing" or something like that. BestBuy has a policy of retaining data backups for up to a month when someone requests one. We'd burn them to dvds or cds and keep a copy just in case the copy we burned for them was unreadable in their drive at home. For example if we used DVD+R and their drive only supported DVD-R if we didn't have a copy on hand then all of their data would be lost and we'd be in trouble. Well those backups were on our central machine so techs would look through them and find this porn. Get the picture?

Re:The decline of ethics?????

[1729]

They aren't prying into documents, they are copying media files.

Yeah, but they aren't necessarily stealing publicly available media files. Now that digital cameras and video recorders are so common, I suspect that a lot of people have homemade media files on their computers. Going through those is absolutely an invasion of privacy.

They use PIRATED software on site too

[StringTech]

Currently being sued by Sysinternals and probably by GRC (Spinrite) also. ...Look into Nerds On Site for an outstanding group of on-site techs geared more towards SME (and ethics).

What the ... ?

[khasim]

Entrapment would be forcing them or coercing them to commit the crime, often with another illegal act. Prostitution sting operations, for example, are often very close to (or over the line of) entrapment, as the police plant streetwalkers (an illegal act) in order to catch another illegal act.

What are you talking about?

The cops have women dress up like prostitutes dress and hang out in areas where prostitutes hang out.

What's "illegal" about that?

It's entrapment when the fake prostitute offers sex for money BEFORE the guy does. Because the guy MAY NOT have offered money for sex on his own.

Re:Whoa... whatever happened to 'it's not stealing

[coaxial]

If this was any of you guys downloading stuff off Bittorrent all we'd here is "It's NOT STEALING WAAHH!!!"
However, now if the guys at GeekSquad do the exact same thing it's now 'stealing'....

No. It's not the "exact same thing," nor is it "stealing." It's a violation of privacy. It's not stealing because there's no loss of material. It's a loss of privacy. That's it. Theft is dependent on scarcity, and this is isn't an issue because an exact copy is made. Material was in fact created, not misappropriated. Give up on trying troll on the idea that somehow the standards that apply to a scarcity based world exist in a post-scacity environment. They don't, and they never did, because it's impossible to lose anything.

Oh and not to put too fine a point on the whole central problem the main premise of your post, but no one called this "stealing" jackass!

Oh, and don't even try that: 'But on Bittorrent it's OK since I have permission' bit with me, unless you yourself made the content (and for the love of God I hope it ain't Porn), your 'permission' is about as relevant as me giving you 'permission' to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

No. It's every bit as relevant here, because it's not theft, and it never was. This is all about an expectation of privacy. In P2P I decide whether and what I want to share off my drive. This is them rumaging through my stuff and taking whatever I want. In the real world this would be putting a stack of stuff on the the curb with a sign that reads "free or best offer" and people coming up and rumaging through that, versus coming home and finding some guy digging through your bedroom closet.

No one gives a shit if someone makes a copy of your porn collection (unless perhaps it's your private homemade porn) or your mp3 collection. What's really the problem is if it was something of more value, like your bank account information, or your passwords or something like that. Porn and mp3s are publically available, my personal information isn't.

Again, your Brooklyn Bridge argument is of no consequence, because you're trying to apply the rules of scarcity economy to a post-scarcity one. They don't apply. There's only one Brooklyn Bridge. If you wanted to make your analogy appropriate, and you didn't, it would have been "[You] giving [me] permission to copy the Brooklyn Bridge." Oh snap! That completly changes everything, because now there's two Brooklyn Bridges! Well that's inconvient, so let's just ignore that shall we?

Re:The decline of ethics?????

[mustafap]

>by saying I'm looking for kiddie-porn?

Please don't call it kiddie-porn. It's child abuse.

It is not stealing...

[gweihir]

Why do people not undertand the distinction? It is really easy: If you steal, then the stolen object is not with the original owner anymore! Too hard to understand? I think not.

So, with that said, this is invasion of privacy, espionage, copytight infringement and unauthorized use of data processing equipment. Might even get a higher sentence than ordinary theft.

I might add that anyone concerned about his/her privacy shoould use drive encryption anyways, or remove the drive before giving the computer in foreign hands.

Re:It is not stealing...

[gweihir]

well if he did mv p0rn /mnt/usb_pendrive then it is GONE and it IS theft.

Still wrong. It is unauthorized looking and copying plus destruction of data. It is impossible to "steal" data.....

Re:It is not stealing...

[MutantBlue]

Stealing does not have to imply depriving the owner possesion of the original. Can data be personal property? Can this data be appropriated, gotten, conveyed, etc. without permission or right? Sounds like stealing to me.

STEAL -noun

1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force.
2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.
3. to take, get, or win insidiously, surreptitiously, subtly, or by chance.
4. to move, bring, convey, or put secretly or quietly; smuggle (usually fol. by away, from, in, into, etc.).

Re:Sadly, its true

[TapeApe]

I worked for Geek Squad prior to it being called Geek Squad and after the name change.

Ermm.... Geek Squad was ALWAYS called Geek Squad. Perhaps you mean you worked for Best Buy prior to the name changes?

Before Best Buy picked 'em up, they were their own company. Started by Robert Stephens, a guy tooling around the University of Minnesota campus on his bicycle. The Squad was a bit bigger than that by the time I joined them, and we LOVED seeing computers with Best Buy stickers. Great source of revenue; we could be almost 100% certain they were messed up since Best Buy techs generally did not have a good reputation around the Minneapolis / St. Paul area. Sure, there were a couple of good ones, but they were far outnumbered by the clowns who didn't give a rat's... well, you get the picture.

Geek Squad had an excellent reputation in those days. Best Buy picked 'em up to improve their own rep, and hopefully get some quality back in their support. Unfortunately, they ended up slapping a good name on the same old (generally) bad techs... dragged a good name down. Doesn't sound like there's been much improvement over time, unfortunately.

Sure we'd joke from time to time when we ran across machines where the Windows desktop was risque, and we'd make backups of customer data whenever they requested it. However, you didn't touch those backups unless your name was on the ticket, and you never went digging through a customer's files on a whim. That was the game the "other guys" played - we considered it beneath us. It wasn't professional, and there were always more machines to repair.

It boiled down simply: Back then, for most at the Geek Squad it was a profession. For most at Best Buy, it was a summer job.

  - (Formerly) Agent 45

Re:It is not stealing...

[gweihir]

So Identity Theft is what? Identity Infringement?

Are you demented? It is impersonation without authorization. Quite obvious. And it is not the data copying act, it is the act to use the data to effect the impersonation. Also quite obvious.

Re:It is not stealing...

[gweihir]

Stealing does not have to imply depriving the owner possesion of the original. Can data be personal property? Can this data be appropriated, gotten, conveyed, etc. without permission or right? Sounds like stealing to me.

STEAL -noun
1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force.
2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.
3. to take, get, or win insidiously, surreptitiously, subtly, or by chance.
4. to move, bring, convey, or put secretly or quietly; smuggle (usually fol. by away, from, in, into, etc.).

Well, all your nice definitions do say the the original owner is deprived of his ownership. Maybe you should read them. Hint: 1,3,4 obviously refer to physical objects. You cannot "take" or "move" data. 2. specifically says "appropriate", i.e. claim as your own.

So if you copy a song and then claim you recorded it that would be theft. If you just copy it, that is not.

So far I have gotten only dumb answers to my posting. Seem people are more in love with their misconceptions that with undertsanding what is going on....