Computer repairs and data privacy

patman99

A local computer repair shop in Colchester recently helped jail a !!!!!phile after finding images of children on the guy's PC that he had brought-in for repairs.

Question -

Would you trust a company that allows it's staff to route around the contents of your hard drive to fix your PC?.

justjohn

the repair shop may have found it by accident

Many things on a pc/laptop are in your face during a repair.

eg. images displayed as thumbnails.... Email client may need run to test things.

We/repair shops do not route around your pc.

The answer too your question is No lol

if i had too send a pc elsewere(unlikely) i would delete all sensitive matterial.(passwords/logins/letters etc)

I have done virus repairs and found passwords files etc....(text docs with the client passwords for banks/paypal/ebay etc) I informed clients of the risks of doing this. However only reason i have spotted things is because they were in my face.

BargainGalore

Pcworld caught Gary glitter

robmar0se

justjohn wrote: »

the repair shop may have found it by accident

Many things on a pc/laptop are in your face during a repair.

eg. images displayed as thumbnails.... Email client may need run to test things.

By and large I agree. I'm sure that there are some inquisitive repairers - I think one was filmed on Rogue Traders.

However, one is usually far too busy to worry about people's personal details - clients often want data transferred/recovered, and in the process we do see things that occasionally surprise - but discretion is part of the job. !!!!!! is none of my business, however if I saw paedophilia, I woukd report it, but we do not go out of our way to look for it.

Nilrem

robmar0se wrote: »

By and large I agree. I'm sure that there are some inquisitive repairers - I think one was filmed on Rogue Traders.

However, one is usually far too busy to worry about people's personal details - clients often want data transferred/recovered, and in the process we do see things that occasionally surprise - but discretion is part of the job. !!!!!! is none of my business, however if I saw paedophilia, I woukd report it, but we do not go out of our way to look for it.

That is pretty much it i think.

For example I sometimes repair friends PC's (sometimes annoyingly a lot of my sisters friends know I'm pretty good with PC's), and whilst I don't tend to "look around"*, if someone asks me to copy stuff off a failing windows install/hard drive I will glance at thumbnails (hard not to), as the machine I tend to throw the drives into is one I also use for other stuff and defaults to showing them.
I'll go looking for stuff if when I'm fixing the machine I have to reinstall and they've asked me to try and save data, as half the time they don't have a clue where their holiday snaps are saved to, so it's "hunt for their data" time (mainly on older machines/when they've used software that doesn't use the modern conventions on storing data), apart from that I barely pay any attention to the personal data, and don't go rooting around for it.

However some people do leave embarrassing stuff in "plain view", I vaguely remember the odd article in the paper where a pedophile has been caught because they've left the evidence on the desktop when they've taken a PC in to be repaired, and a couple of times I've found slightly rude/embarrassing pictures on the desktop of someones wife/gf.

Basically it tends to be a case of most people fixing PC's simply don't have the time/inclination to go poking around for stuff, but if it's obvious they'll probably report it if it's seriously illegal (and the odd downloaded copy of "Star Trek 15: The hunt for a Girdle" isn't**)


*It takes long enough to get many of the machines fixed without wasting time on them.

**Although anyone with Star Wars: The Christmas Special should probably be reported as a threat to society

mandi

patman99 wrote: »

A local computer repair shop in Colchester recently helped jail a !!!!!phile after finding images of children on the guy's PC that he had brought-in for repairs.

Question -

Would you trust a company that allows it's staff to route around the contents of your hard drive to fix your PC?.

If anyone is perverted enough to store images of children on their PC then they deserve to be caught regardless .

Edit my OH has his own PC repair company and never " routes " around . BTW .

Mista_C

The most common request I receive when replacing a hard drive or carrying out an OS reinstall is "I'm not bothered about anything else but can you please try and save my photos". I don't go digging through customers data but many times seeing photos are unavoidable, especially if you're working outside of the native OS.

wymondham

If a repair shop etc discovered images like the ones found then are they not legally obliged to inform the authorities?

justjohn

wymondham wrote: »

If a repair shop etc discovered images like the ones found then are they not legally obliged to inform the authorities?

Yes and no

If you did not it could open up a hole can of worms for the repairer.

Technically You are not legally obliged to inform the police of any illegal activity of any nature.

However it could be detrimental too yourself not too inform the police.

googler

Windows keeps a cache of images from the websites that you visit.

If I've clicked on a malicious link in an e-mail someone forwarded to me, and it's taken me to a raft of unsavoury websites, and stored the images from those in the cache, do I have a defence, along the lines of - "I didn't put them there deliberately", or will computer repairers and courts alike assume the worst?

murphydavid

Not sure if this a moral or techie question.
If moral, which it probably is and therefore in the wrong thread, then computer technicians aren't priests or doctors they don't swear an oath of confidentiality and it sounds like the repair man did us all a favour.
If techie - How about free encryption ie TrueCrypt put all your important files in there and not only are they unviewable you can't even see their names without your password. It also makes their backup a dodle. As for private browsing How about firefox private browsing or run your browser in a sandbox. Finally there are loads of programs that delete and overwrite files making them completely irretrievable.