Tags for this video have been changed from 'pc, laptop, spy camera, lies, private, bikini photos' to 'pc, laptop, spy camera, lies, private, bikini photos, mamma jammas' - edited by Stingray

The only real surprising part of this is the balls the tech had to try and access the customer's bank account. That's clearly criminal behavior, and I hope he faces charges.

the thing is it's so easy
i don't know what the law says, but there should be checks like this annually and shop closure if privacy violated

but they marked the one place as bad that checked that the memory was working
that's something that they SHOULD be doing
i would have probably looked around if there was a game or some other heavy application that i could use to test it - or use a custom tester app - but still, a valid excuse if nothing else
though, i would have probably noticed the recording app - a process running in the background, eating all cpu

does noone else remove their harddrive before giving their hardware over to third parties ?

^ I fix it me self.

>> ^sirex:
does noone else remove their harddrive before giving their hardware over to third parties ?

I do, but try asking an average laptop owner to show you where his machine's laptop is.

If they can't check for a loose memory chip, how are they going to access the hard drive to remove it?

Its just uneducated people, its not exactly indigenous to know that u have sensitive data on your laptop in the same way that u probably have sensative data around u room , U would not let random people come and clean u house without checking them out firs.

PC would and large company's that do this should get huge fines the guy checking bank details should be sorted out.


I just think it mental that if you have a device that you use daily for very important things that you wouldn't understand its basic operation. Evan the most retarded of car users should know how to change a car tire , refill it with fule , lock the dores,check oil. the basic functoins of a laptop are as simple if not more simple.

>> ^westy:
I just think it mental that if you have a device that you use daily for very important things that you wouldn't understand its basic operation. Evan the most retarded of car users should know how to change a car tire , refill it with fule , lock the dores,check oil. the basic functoins of a laptop are as simple if not more simple.

Computers are much more prone to errors and malfunctions if handled incorrectly, however. There's a lot more room to create new problems than there is in, say, changing a car tire. A better analogy would be fixing a loose bolt inside the engine itself, imo. You're far more likely to create new problems by tightening the wrong one, damaging the bolt in the process, or misdiagnosing the problem altogether, than you are of successfully fixing it.

While I wholeheartedly agree that the vast majority of the population is woefully under-educated in basic computer operation and maintenance, that isn't likely to change any time soon.

I ohnistly don't think knowing about ram is that complicated and its actually extremely hard to brake a pc , I would argue its much harder to know about and replace a car tire sucsesfully than it is to replace and know about ram in a pc.

i wasn't really talking about specifcly mending things its more to do with people not using comon sence interms of puting private information on things and not reolising it at all.

like i say you would not leave bank statements out and about on desk if you just employed a cleaner that you know nothing about and is not from a reputable company.


But yah if you use something regularly and its important to your life you should a basic understanding of its operation , I know how to fix my gass cooker , my hoover , basic plumbing . you would have to be a fairly boring and slow person to not have good general knowledge about things you depend on daily.

>> ^westy:
But yah if you use something regularly and its important to your life you should a basic understanding of its operation , I know how to fix my gass cooker , my hoover , basic plumbing . you would have to be a fairly boring and slow person to not have good general knowledge about things you depend on daily.


Now if only you could figure out how to use a keyboard...

I recently had my external harddrive 250GB repaired, and these are exactly the fears I have. There is no way to tell if shenanigans occurred. But I at least know who to shoot if something fishy comes up in the future.

@chilaxe

your comment shows that you don't know at what point a keyboard begins and ends.

Just because sum one knows how to use paint dose not mean they will or can craft peaces of art with it.

@ longde

I think the hard thing is "trust" , generally i am very trusting and i think the vast majority of computer shops would not do this sort of thing, i also think some might look but would never dream of doing annything bad.

at the same time if i had sensitive documents on my desktop ore in stupid places on my pc , i would blame myself for leaving them out if sum one snooped at them or took them.

^Yes, the core issue is trust. And my own ignorance; the fact that I don't know all of the ways that data can be used to hurt me, and the hidden fuckware that could be placed in my hardware.

There is specific information that may be sensitive (personal pics, identify data, etc). Then there are more intangible things. In some ways, people use large data stores as an extension of their wetware. So, if you peek into my harddrive or ipod, you get a sideways glimpse at my soul.

I think, when data mining gets more sophisticated you may be able to take 200GB+ and spit out a personality profile and predictive model of a person's behavior.

Why I would never make it in one of those big box stores as a repairman... I would likely get fired for actually doing my job correctly!

Same problem that is associated with vehicle repairs, you would be amazed at what one could get away with in extra charges that someone does not need when they have no clue about what is being repaired. I can only imagine at GeekSquad they are told to try and upsell repairs at the cost of losing their job.

It really hurts when someone I know does simple spyware removal and charges $250 replacing hardware that was not defective when I would have done the same job for maybe $20... I may be poorer in the end but I would rather keep my dignity.

These "repairmen" are cunts and piss me off. I stopped expecting computer users to be proactive to keep their machines from getting screwed up, because you cant expect anyone to pick up a book and become an expert overnight.

I pray I keep my (not very well paying but very stable) IT job since I would be driven to gouging my brain cells with a pencil having to make up bullshit problems just to charge people more money when I would have been the one who fixed it in 5 minutes for no charge out of kindness.

^ In Portland, Oregon a local news agency ran one of these sting operations on GeekSquad and only 1 out of 5 stores they went to attempted to overcharge them. All others fixed the issue for free. (Disconnected HDD cable).

I'm just waiting for the bikini pics to hit the net....

I just think it mental that if you have a device that you use daily for very important things that you wouldn't understand its basic operation.

Important things like a spell checker.

congratulations quantumushroom you just demonstration of sheer intellect is unfathomable.

You reolise spell checkers don't magically just give you the spelling for an intended word ?

sum one could be the ultimate master of a spell checker and still have it not work as a tool to correct the spelling you used.

also i fail to see why it matters if words are spelt incorrectly so long as what sum one types makes sence and is legible to a good proportion of people.

Id much rather sum one writes like a utter dipshit than sum one that thinks like a utter dipshit.

Sadly, the attempted access of the bank account could never be taken to court: by leaving the password in an easily accessible location (an unprotected notepad file), which is something banks will explicitly warn you against doing: it is now a type of entrapment. It's like leaving your wallet on a table then jumping out at the first person to pick it up and going 'GOTCHA!'

It might be an unusual case, but this is a similar situation to how Gary Glitter was found to be a paedophile in the UK, when he took his laptop in to PC World to be repaired and one of the technicians there found the pictures and reported it to the police.

Westy, your analogies are flawed.

Would you know how to fix an LCD tv if it stopped working?
Would you know how to fix a digital PVR if it did?
What about if you have a new car and the issue is only able to be ascertained via consultation with the diagnostics computer on board?

Saying that people should just know how to fix their pcs when they go wrong is crud.

They should know some basics, and a lot of people don't... but opening up a piece of electronics which has live 240V (in Aus, or 110V for you US types) in it and fiddle around is ridiculous. Especially as even if you have disconnected the power etc. you can still break stuff in there by touching the wrong thing.

You seriously expect the average Joe to be able to look into their pc, at something like this and know where to even start?

Come on.

I know what to do, I build my own PCs. You apparently know what to do also, but don't try to suggest that people can't use things unless they know how to fix them, that's utter bullcrap.

If that was the case you can rule me out of ever driving a car then, changing the tires, checking the oil and a few other things is as far as I get... which in PC land would be, ensuring it's plugged in and that you're not using the DVD drive as a cupholder.

Also, it's pretty sad that so many of you expect this sort of thing to happen. It's not that it doesn't (obviously), it's just that it SHOULDN'T. It's such a low life thing to do. Both the snooping and the charging exorbitant prices for work that was never done or was unnecessary.

And I bet those that do the last bit use Westy's logic of 'well, they should damn well know how to fix it themselves, so bugger em'

Delightful

As a Londoner I see loads of these computer repair shops with their decrepit bits of hardware gathering dust in the window. It helps that I'm PC-literate but I would never trust this lot. You just have to walk in and sample the atmosphere. I even got taken in by one of them many years ago when I was desperate to get a dot-matrix printer fixed.
Instead make friends with someone who knows their stuff and buy them drinks to keep it all sweet.

This does remind me of working in internal support for an IT company (biggish systems integrator) and seeing some very dodgy usenet groups on a salesman's laptop while restoring his email.

...........................................................................

You seriously expect the average Joe to be able to look into their pc, at something like this and know where to even start?
..............................................................................
@ spoco2

I have never said thay should be able to fix it 100% and all problems I said thay should sunderstand its basic operatoin , and im sorry but changing the ram on the laptop or identifying it is not working is very simple. the PC BEEPS at you in a sertain way to tell you + doenot start up , and laptops have a compartment u simply open and replace rescure ram, that is more simple than i dentifying a plbming propeblem / problem with a car,

that's all besides the point

I NEVER SEAD THAY SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIX EVERYTHING I said

"I just think it mental that if you have a device that you use daily for very important things that you wouldn't understand its basic operation. Evan the most retarded of car users should know how to change a car tire , refill it with fule , lock the dores,check oil. the basic functoins of a laptop are as simple if not more simple."

its as if you didn't read my comment and then made something up.

@spoco2

Its like people that think ther LCD screen is broken and thay call out IT and it turns out that the power / monitor cable is lose or not plugged int, now i can appreciate everyone makes idoitc mastakes every now and then, for example I and 2 other people spent 1 hour trying to resolve a network issue where a pc was some how isolated from the network , it turned out that we had not plugged in the network cable.

what i am on about specifcly are people that just show a lack of intreasted of the world and specifcly a lack of interest in objects and items that thay depend on , im not saying thay need to become computer engineers , im simply saying they need to know some basic fundamentals.


OH and if you think my analogies are flawed why don't you call out the specif analogy and explain why its flawed ?

Ooooh, I just remembered my favourite networking problem I dealt with. Guy had an intermittent connection but there was no rhyme or reason to it. Eventually I noticed his network cable was running under the carpet and everytime he rolled back in his chair he pinched the cable.

Is Westy 9 years old and still learning how to type, or does he intentionally misspell simple things because he enjoys his already terrible comments being...downvoted? Is that the term for it?

Sorry, I'm pretty new here.

>> ^Bananular:
Is Westy 9 years old and still learning how to type, or does he intentionally misspell simple things because he enjoys his already terrible comments being...downvoted? Is that the term for it?
Sorry, I'm pretty new here.


It's ok. You just picked a side. Welcome to the westy war.

Not a big surprise, but still disgusting. Did nobody learn from Gary Glitter?

>> ^spoco2:
They should know some basics, and a lot of people don't... but opening up a piece of electronics which has live 240V (in Aus, or 110V for you US types) in it and fiddle around is ridiculous.

It's nearly impossible to be electrocuted when working in a PC unless you crack open the power supply itself. I'm bringing this up only because it's an opportunity to link to one of my favorite articles on the web.

I just think it mental that if you have a device that you use daily for very important things that you wouldn't understand its basic operation. Evan the most retarded of car users should know how to change a car tire , refill it with fule , lock the dores,check oil. the basic functoins of a laptop are as simple if not more simple."

convenient for you to comment on stuff with out actually reading/understanding peoples comments.

westy's volleying the fuck outta this thread.

Convenient for you to just give up and post a message saying nothing at all.

Just admit that you know how to fix your pc and expect others to be able to do the same, even though that is an unrealistic expectation.

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