The Geek Spy

[pc747]

We all heard it, when you go into Best Buy and purchase an item you are prompted to add the geek squad protection package. Whether or not it is worth the money I'll leave to the consumer, but they have apparently been doing more than just fixing your hard drive. Network World has reported of cases where the Geek Squad have been digging through hard drives in exchange for money from the FBI.

Whether or not this violates customer agreements remains to be seen, but it will make you question what to drop off to best buy without you yourself wiping your device. Now I am not saying that some of the cases that were solved involving child pornography should be thrown out or that we should protect people who participate in that. My concern is that for every white hat there seems to be a black hat and how long before it turn from solving crimes to actually committing crimes and stealing people's personal information for gain?

So if you have something you need to take to the geek squad that have data on it I suggest backing that data on an external hard drive and wiping the data on your computer before taking it in for a repair.

Source: Why you shouldn't trust Geek Squad ever again

 

[Sajo]

That's just not cool, in my personal opinion, if it is all true.

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[kjumper187]

I used to work for Geek Squad. I was very impressed with the level of professionalism they displayed. Not all apples have bad seeds. Please don't generalize all of Geek Squad because of one or two isolated incidents.

Side note, 99% of the reasons a pc came into Geek Squad was because of virus' or HDD crashed. Hard to backup your HDD before you bring it in to get it recovered. If you can do that, then you obviously don't need Geek Squad in the 1st place.

 

[akhenax]

If you have data on your harddrive that is illegal, and Geek Squad sees it, don't they have the legal or moral obligation to report it to the proper authorities?

If you don't want this to happen, then you better call 1-800-YOURFRIENDWHOKNOWSCOMPUTERSTUFF ext: 911

 

[pc747]

If you don't want this to happen, then you better call 1-800-YOURFRIENDWHOKNOWSCOMPUTERSTUFF ext: 911

^ I like that.

​

As I said in the article I am in no way defending someone who had something illegal on their hard drive. If there was someone in my neighborhood who was a pedophile and the police caught him by using such method to find child photos on his hard drive, I for sure am not defending that person. In fact I would be happy they were caught.

People unwittingly store a lot on their hard drive. I know my parents who now do paperless billing tend to download the bill pdf and would not think twice to leave it on there. And they are one who would take their computer to a best buy for repairs. And I know they are not the only ones as I see people around that age either picking up or dropping off a computer for the geek squad to repair almost every time I go into a best buy.

Now I am not trying to paint everyone in the same light, as @kjumper187 pointed out I am sure there are a lot of professional people who are on the geek squad. But what is to keep the dishonest people from taking advantage of information found on grandma or your parent's hard drive?

Maybe I am just one of those people who is overly cautious. I remember when I was on Verizon and they were trying the option for their techs to be able to look into your phone from their station and my response was "No way in hell".

I'll give you a screenshot if you need it but I am not agreeing to that. The tech reminded my that the apps was on my phone and they could just tap into it and I reminded him that there were other carriers out there.

 

[Sajo]

My first response was based on the post only and my interpretation, without reading the article. Shame on me. And I never assumed that all Geek Squad techs were bad people. Now that I have read the article I have a mixed opinion. I assumed they were selling data just for profit. I do believe in privacy and believe it's important. But I also believe that getting pedophiles off the street and behind bars is important. I wonder if evidence found this way is admissible in court, without a warrant?

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[LoneWolfArcher]

I'm never going to defend someone that has child pornography on their device.

 

[pc747]

My first response was based on the post only and my interpretation, without reading the article. Shame on me. And I never assumed that all Geek Squad techs were bad people. Now that I have read the article I have a mixed opinion. I assumed they were selling data just for profit. I do believe in privacy and believe it's important. But I also believe that getting pedophiles off the street and behind bars is important. I wonder if evidence found this way is admissible in court, without a warrant?

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I probably should have worded the op differently but I think it is safe to assume that for majority of those that respond to this thread it goes without saying that none of us will defend a pedophile. And any means used to get that person is not going to warrant any rebuttal.

I also was looking at the other side of the aisle as well in the "what if" scenario. And that was what I also wanted to get from people's opinions, thus understanding your post being for the latter and not for the criminals caught by these methods.

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[Sajo]

Your wording was fine PC. My initial interpretation of the information without reading the article was not correct. I'm all for the Geek Squad folks helping get pedophiles locked up if they find incriminating evidence on a computer. But...I can also understand the argument that if they can use this as incriminating evidence what else might they be looking for? An u paid speeding ticket? I ran a red light last month? Where do we draw the line?

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[kjumper187]

Also my mistake, I didn't even see the article, let alone read it. I was trying to start anything. There is a moral obligation to do the right thing as a Geek Squad member or a human in general. I took the reading (not article) as Geek Squad members are trying to find something, just to be the hero. My apologizes to @pc747 for the confusion and for not reading the article.

 

[liftedplane]

IF you're doing some kind of illegal activities and you take your computer into ANYONE aside from the friend who is part of the nefarious activities, whatever that may be, then you're dumb enough to get caught and deserve ANYTHING you get

or learn to fix it yourself.... you can't trust anyone...

I once fixed this guys PC.... and in backing up all his files like he asked found his home made collection of he and his girlfriend.... I immediately closed the folders and finshed the backup.... but there's people who would make an extra backup and post that stuff online.... so.... don't trust anyone.

 

[MissionImprobable]

I really don't understand the point on bringing the information to light in an illegal manner only to have it tossed out in court. What they did and how they did it seems very questionable, on top of getting paid bounties that encourage illegal methods. It would be the same as defending government agents posing as technicians to illegally gain entry to homes and search them at random. There was no probable cause and the searches would have never been allowed by a judge via a warrant. There's really nothing to defend here, it's more than out of sorts.

While the image--single image mind you--in the case cited may have been illegal, it seems everything about the methods employed to obtain it were also illegal. Real crimes should be stopped, but there are reasons that there are policies in place as to how investigations should be carried out. This would be no different if an employee had obtained possible evidence of fraud, tax evasion, or dealing drugs in the same manner. If the method is illegal nothing that results from it is going to come to much. We see as well that the FBI had to falsify records in order to get what they found admitted in the first place. Adding monetary incentive to carry out illegal searches and then prosecuting someone based on that won't ever be okay in my eyes.

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[LoneWolfArcher]

I really don't understand the point on bringing the information to light in an illegal manner only to have it tossed out in court. What they did and how they did it seems very questionable, on top of getting paid bounties that encourage illegal methods. It would be the same as defending government agents posing as technicians to illegally gain entry to homes and search them at random. There was no probable cause and the searches would have never been allowed by a judge via a warrant. There's really nothing to defend here, it's more than out of sorts.

While the image--single image mind you--in the case cited may have been illegal, it seems everything about the methods employed to obtain it were also illegal. Real crimes should be stopped, but there are reasons that there are policies in place as to how investigations should be carried out. This would be no different if an employee had obtained possible evidence of fraud, tax evasion, or dealing drugs in the same manner. If the method is illegal nothing that results from it is going to come to much. We see as well that the FBI had to falsify records in order to get what they found admitted in the first place. Adding monetary incentive to carry out illegal searches and then prosecuting someone based on that won't ever be okay in my eyes.

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Where are you getting that this method is illegal? When you hand over your device to a third party your expectation of privacy should be nil. It's not like they were breaking into people's houses and performing searches.

 

[MissionImprobable]

Where are you getting that this method is illegal? When you hand over your device to a third party your expectation of privacy should be nil. It's not like they were breaking into people's houses and performing searches.

Read the article. It says that the FBI had to falsify records about how they'd obtained the information.

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[liftedplane]

Where are you getting that this method is illegal? When you hand over your device to a third party your expectation of privacy should be nil. It's not like they were breaking into people's houses and performing searches.

Regardless of an expectation of privacy the law is the law and unless they had probably cause for a search and seizure (which it seems they didn't) it was illegal and any good attorney could get their client off.

someone calling the FBI and saying.. I am fixing this computer and found a bunch of videos depicting XYZ could easily be argued that those weren't the clients images and were placed there after the fact. The law works both ways, and when the government can't even follow their own rules it lets dirtbags walk.