Consumerist Catches Geek Squad Stealing Porn 686
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."
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.
I would (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Whoa... whatever happened to 'it's not stealing (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
Not surprised at all honestly... (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh and if they had child porn - we'd call the police.
Best Buy is skeevy. (Score:3, Interesting)
A few months ago I was looking at TVs, and the sales guy was this young kid who just oozed sleeze. (If you've ever met a bad sales guy you know what I mean). He was trying to push a certain TV. I went over to Circuit City a few blocks away to see if they had any better prices. I actually wound up buying the same model this BB salesguy was trying to sell me, but the CC guy didn't try to push too hard. He of course tried to upsell my on an HDTV, but he at least had the instincts to back off a little.
Recently I was at Best Buy because they had nice quality speakers really cheap. I checked the website price, and went to the store. The price at the store was higher than the website price, so I asked the sales guy. He went to a terminal, went to the INTERNAL website (the dodge I already knew about from a few lawsuits against BB for this deceptive practice), and proclaimed I was incorrect. Of course I complained and eventually got the website price.. but it left me feeling even more uneasy about how Best Buy isn't the most honest, or trustworthy retailer.
Oh, and don't forget about the racketeering [slashdot.org] lawsuit filed against Best Buy. Not so great a track record.
Don't be the anti-spam guy (Score:3, Interesting)
they've caught (and fired) one or more sysadmins reading other people's
email.
Typically the guys charged with, "get rid of this SPAM in my InBox!". Yep, I've seen it first-hand, when they don't like the anti-spam guy they go after him for 'reading other people's e-mail'.
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:geek squad != professionals (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well, OK (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:Share your new iTunes DRM free folder? (Score:2, Interesting)
If you'd ever taken your computer to a big box repair shop, the precedent/possibility exists that someone other than you distributed the media. I'll remember that if I ever get sued by the RIAA . . .
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:1, Interesting)
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
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.
Hold the freakin' outrage... (Score:4, Interesting)
1. When running an entrapment scheme, a 1:12 ratio is hardly damning of the whole organization
2. Who cares? Was the entrapment author deprived of his pr0n? No, someone just got a copy.
3. If you have super secret pr0n or whatever on your computer, DON'T TAKE IT TO BEST BUY. Hire someone to come to your house so you can discuss your concerns and sit next to them while they do their thing.
Give me a break. Ethics?! How about journalistic ethics?
Shame on the Consumerist and shame on Slashdot.
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:4, Interesting)
How do we prepare our youth for their adult lives when they see society's role models, government officials, sports superstars, members of the church, etc... committing breaches of ethics on a daily basis?
-Rick
Re:That must be how... (Score:3, Interesting)
(Posting anon. for obvious reasons.)
That's exactly what I did. Once.
I was preparing to format a hard drive returned to us by someone. Found some truly disgusting JPGs in a folder named 'Family Photos". The country where this occurred makes it a crime not to report child pornography, so I was stuck in a tough situation. I had to decide whether our ethical standards concerning the customer's privacy had precedence, or the criminal code.
I went home and thought about it for two hours, then decided that my moral responsibility trumped my ethical duties. I turned the hard drive in to the police.
That decision ended up costing me my job, and ultimately made it impossible for me to stay in that community. The person implicated was well-known and widely respected. I stuck to my guns, and stood by my decision, but eventually had to leave, because people no longer trusted me. Ironic, isn't it, that being honest and demonstrating a better moral compass than most can come at such a high price?
Justice was done, however, when a year later 3 adult women came forward and accused the same person of molesting them when they were children. He was sent to prison.
Re:I try not to post on stories like this, but... (Score:1, Interesting)
Oo, I heard the "men are doomed because women don't need them any more" feminist-inspired argument quite recently and it got me thinking. It accompanied a rant about how men need women like infants need mothers.
Yes, women no longer need men to put bread on the table. Just as men no longer need a servile woman to give them sexual satisfaction - well, OK, thanks to prostitution, it's been millennia since men needed that, but now it's free and easy access from the comfort of our own homes.
My personal (male) experience has included two long-term relationships that had their good sides and their bad, but today, they lose out to way more interesting, productive, non-sexual pursuits. And when I get the urge, I can fire up the browser, beat the meat at no cost to myself, and get back to work.
My female social acquaintances have learnt that I am not interested in taking it sexual; in all honesty, it probably makes them feel safer around me, so we can become quite close friends. This is so much more emotionally fulfilling than the traditional mating dance I would have performed 10 years ago, knowing one woman well to the exclusion of all others.
I still value my testosterone - the same energy that drives me to success in relationships, now helps drive me to success in academia, and in contributing towards what I consider good causes. That's what human development is about - harnessing what nature gave you, not subjugating yourself to the behaviour of less advanced primates.
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:3, Interesting)
Same at Fry's (Score:3, Interesting)
I did get a laugh the one time I removed a Barbie game CD from a machine that had more voluntarily installed porn dialers and pictures on it than I could count. The amount of porn pop ups alone on start up had to have been enough to make daddy tell the little girl "Don't start the computer without Daddy around, ok?"
Re:geek squad != professionals (Score:2, Interesting)
This goes without saying.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, there weren't mp3s and such, but there was a lot of porn pictures and games. I'd say a solid 10% of machines had a "warez" directory where they'd keep their archive once internet connectivity became more common around 93 or so (common, in the sense of customers with broken machines bringing them in with some form of connectivity to the internet).
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone know if this is still the case?
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
I heartily agree. At the same time knowingwhat I do about human nature I would fully expect a "Geek Squad" employee to do exactly what they did. They're predominately high school to community-college age males. Most of us on Slashdot are or have been male and that age and can remember our mentality, or that of our peers. Young males are curious, they're pranksters, they like to push boundries, they're susceptible to peer pressure, all of that. Of course some are more so than others but come on, it's hard wired to our brains. This isn't something new; if you handed an 18-year old Roman an unlocked box and said "don't open it", the first thing he's going to do is open it. And if there are drawings of naked women inside he's going to show them to all of his friends.
I'm not justifying what they did. But I do believe that's "the way it is." If Best Buy is going to hire young and largely unskilled and inexperienced workers (at minimum wage or close to it) to handle computers that may contain extremely personal, private or sensitive files then they should take precautions to make sure this doesn't happen. Don't tell me they don't go to great lengths to make sure these same employees aren't stealing from the register.
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, that bomb I made is only a bunch of protons and electrons. A very specific configuration of them, but if society makes owning protons and electrons a crime, this is very scary stuff.
You don't evaluate things as their most basic parts, you evaluate them at high functional parts.
And actually it's not really a big number at all, it's a whole bunch of small numbers, and it's not even that, it's a whole bunch of magnetic charges or perhaps little holes burned in a media substrate. What it's made of doesn't matter, something that can only reasonably be arrived at by abusing and permanently emotionally damaging children.
Re:That must be how... (Score:4, Interesting)
Huh? The moment you looked in the folder - you proved you had neither morals or ethics. You turned him in in an attempt to make yourself feel better and to make up for your failure.
You prove yourself untrustworthy by snooping - and then you blame the community for treating you as untrustworthy?
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:5, Interesting)
The only way to reduce the demand is to eliminate all humans.
We are driven by basic desires. One of these desires is to ensure that we are genetically related to the children that we spend our resources in rearing. Prior to contraception, the best way to achieve that was to impregnate a woman as soon as she is capable of being impregnated. Sooner is wasted energy (from a biological perspective, because she won't end up pregnant), and later runs the risk that someone else (the alpha male perhaps; we are tribal/herd-like still) has previously impregnated her and #2 will be rearing #1's child, not his own.
The problem with the above factual analysis is that women reach biologically reproductive age much sooner than the law allows them to be sexually active.
Yes, there are sickos out there who create and consume abuse of infants and 8-year-olds. That does not mean that we should, as a society, attempt to cause the greatest amount of collateral damage while bringing these abominations of life to justice!
My great-great-great-grandmother was legally married at 13. Our laws have changed; our bodies have not.
I hope that it is plain that nowhere in here am I defending those who abuse children, create child porn, or distribute and use it. I'm simply stating that creating laws that outlaw possession of anything (including drugs, books, and money[1]) makes it very easy to punish someone who hasn't actually committed a crime.
[1]--If you don't declare that you're taking more than $10,000 through an airport (perhaps only for international flights, I'm not positive), the police are allowed to take it. Similarly, the RICO laws allow them to plant some coke in your car, then confiscate the car and sell it at auction; even if you have the ability to defend yourself legally, the car is gone. Same goes with houses, yachts, and other large-value items; there have been documented cases of abuse of this law, so I'm again ashamed that we allow it to persist. It is blatantly unconstitutional, as are the drug laws; back in the 20's it took a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw alcohol, but we've allowed our rights to erode so much that we even outlawed the amino acid Tryptophan (naturally occurring in turkey, as we experience every Thanksgiving) for almost ten years [wikipedia.org] (1991 to 2002).
I agree that eliminating the demand would make the supply less profitable. That works with all commodities. But you've gotta change biological nature (not even human nature; all organisms want to maximize their resource expenditures on their own genes, and minimize said expenses on others' genes (yes, adoption and "altruism" are exceptions, but you'll generally find a self-serving motive for the latter, perhaps as simple as "feeling better", and the former is usually the path of last resort when unable to bear children of one's own, celebrities excepted)). And we haven't done such a good job at eliminating demand of any of the "vices" that we've made illegal; alcohol prohibition helped create the mafia, and current drug prohibition is dividing our populace and disenfranchising far more blacks than it does whites (by making drug crimes felonies, and selectively prosecuting, we are taking away their right to vote).
And, sure, forget that digital images are numbers; forget the idea of taking things at their lowest level. Let's look at the highest level: we are imprisoning people because they possess evidence that a crime was committed. They had nothing to do with the crime. Again, this scares me because it can be abused so easily. And since it's linked to the "won't somebody think of the children" meme, using it as planted evidence will likely always be a way to control unpopular-but-not-illegal people.
Like, for instance, a rival senator.
truecrypt (Score:3, Interesting)
This happened to me, and almost ended in a lawsuit (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The decline of ethics????? (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank you for understanding.
Most other responses lump me in with the sickos because I appear to be defending their behavior, which I most certainly am not. That's why I started this mini-thread with "This may be unpopular." I realized the type of vitriolic responses it would garner, and I thank you for your civility.
I disagree with your first paragraph, but you're right, the hammer is the object prior to the injury whereas the child porn is the evidence of the injury. To be completely accurate, it is not carrying around the hammer, or bloodied skull remnants, it's carrying pictures of the murder. "Faces of Death" is not illegal to possess, as another response mentioned.
I agree that it may be able to be traced back to the creator. That's a fairly slippery slope, though; many people download porn (of any kind) via Usenet or Freenet, both of which are basically untraceable.
I suppose another perspective is, what percentage of people in possession of these images are creators of them? And for what percentage is the possession actually an alternative to creating them -- which means that fewer children would actually harmed by not making possession illegal?
You're right, I don't have all the answers, but I think I have some useful questions.