Computer repair shops - Sky News Investigation

el_gringo_3

Jakg wrote: »

No technician at PC World works on Comission.

Whilst this may be the case for PC World, I've worked for a major tech retailer which pays commission to its techs. In our case it led to the opposite problem to people doing unnecessary work, as it was more advantageous for a tech to sign something off as 'finished - no fault found' if he couldn't sort the problem than spend time he could have done fixing an easier issue.

U4EA_2

Very interesting thread guys.

I use my laptop for self-employment and, as a result, it has a hell of a lot critical data on it and passwords on Firefox etc to access multiple financial accounts.

Due to the advice of people on this forum, not too long ago I encrypted the entire drive with TrueCrypt with a passkey that is basically impossible to guess, which has been passed onto a relative I trust completely should I ever forget it.

However, there is the issue discussed here regarding having to hand in my laptop for repair should something happen to it. All the critical data on the laptop is backed-up at the end of every working day onto a USB stick that is also encrpyted with TrueCrypt, so actual lose of data is not an issue for me. But if someone needs to repair the laptop, they will very likely need to boot it up and would therefore be able to access all my data once they get the keypass.

I guess the question I have is... is it really worth putting it in to get repaired? It's only a low-spec £400 Toshiba. I've had this current one for about a year so far and I have had no problems with it. If it packs in tomorrow and I can't fix it myself (I am reasonably good with IT stuff), is it really worth handing over to get fixed? I think it would probably be better to just properly destroy it, replace and put my backed-up data on to the new one and get going again.

superscaper

U4EA wrote: »

Very interesting thread guys.

I use my laptop for self-employment and, as a result, it has a hell of a lot critical data on it and passwords on Firefox etc to access multiple financial accounts.

Due to the advice of people on this forum, not too long ago I encrypted the entire drive with TrueCrypt with a passkey that is basically impossible to guess, which has been passed onto a relative I trust completely should I ever forget it.

However, there is the issue discussed here regarding having to hand in my laptop for repair should something happen to it. All the critical data on the laptop is backed-up at the end of every working day onto a USB stick that is also encrpyted with TrueCrypt, so actual lose of data is not an issue for me. But if someone needs to repair the laptop, they will very likely need to boot it up and would therefore be able to access all my data once they get the keypass.

I guess the question I have is... is it really worth putting it in to get repaired? It's only a low-spec £400 Toshiba. I've had this current one for about a year so far and I have had no problems with it. If it packs in tomorrow and I can't fix it myself (I am reasonably good with IT stuff), is it really worth handing over to get fixed? I think it would probably be better to just properly destroy it, replace and put my backed-up data on to the new one and get going again.

Well you don't haveto do drive encryption, you could just encrypt specific files and folders.

If the repair place is any good it should be quick and easy to reinstall the OS and if you're backing up that should be no problem to you.

BargainGalore

Murdoch empire seem to have a reputation of spying take News of the world, and recent come to light they are bugging many famous people

Browntoa

on a bottom end Laptop the cost of repairs normally far outweighs the value of the item unless its just a OS repair/re install. I'd rather spend more time backing up my critical data (on 2 different types of media , USB pen drive and DVD or external HSS in case one fails when you really need it )so it could just go on a replacement

LeeDJC

I own a laptop repair company and was disappointed with the news last week - not just of the content, but the way that Sky reported it.

It has unfairly tarred all repair centres with the same brush. Integrity is a mainstay in my business - there is no way that any of my technicians would be allowed to get away with any of this - they have been selected carefully to ensure they are reliable and trustworthy. After all, we realise that we are handling customer's data, some much more private than others, but treat all with care and consideration it deserves.

My take is - a laptop is not just another piece of electronic equipment, it is quite often someone's life - without it, they are often quite lost, and come to us to help them get back up and running again. If they cannot trust the independent repair company, who the hell can they trust? Where does that leave them? Too scared to get a computer repaired because they fear for the security of the data they can no longer access......

Personally I'd call for laws on data handling, anyone found not to be conforming to those laws would be 'struck off', and not allowed to trade. Perhaps a little far fetched, but something welcomed by myself.