Geek Squad and the FBI

[zombie]

With Best Buy, punishment for helping clean the world of kiddie porn does not appear appropriate. The employees appear to have been punished for accepting side money, which is in appropriate in most any business.

with that, you seem to be siding more with dream and seb. so points to them, on that. kiddie porn is something that should be done away with, absolutely. no one is punishing or blaming best buy for exposing pedophiles.

[Foo]

how about it's nonsense to label this "anti-corporate", when you criticize or blame a particular corporation for being involved in wrongdoing?

You have not demonstrated the corporation was involved. There is zero evidence at this point that Best Buy had any policy or authorized searches beyond the scope of a repair. It appears to be rogue employees at this point.

[zombie]

how about it's nonsense to label this "anti-corporate", when you criticize or blame a particular corporation for being involved in wrongdoing?

You have not demonstrated the corporation was involved. There is zero evidence at this point that Best Buy had any policy or authorized searches beyond the scope of a repair. It appears to be rogue employees at this point.

and i admitted i was wrong. still not "anti-corporate", could be seen as "anti-bestbuy" though, if you wanted to go that way.

[Foo]

With Best Buy, punishment for helping clean the world of kiddie porn does not appear appropriate. The employees appear to have been punished for accepting side money, which is in appropriate in most any business.

with that, you seem to be siding more with dream and seb. so points to them, on that. kiddie porn is something that should be done away with, absolutely. no one is punishing or blaming best buy for exposing pedophiles.

I am trying to figure out what you would be punishing the company for. If Best Buy set a policy to do what was done, I would blame them. It appears to be the FBI and rogue employees willing to accept money for helping the FBI circumvent due process.

[zombie]

With Best Buy, punishment for helping clean the world of kiddie porn does not appear appropriate. The employees appear to have been punished for accepting side money, which is in appropriate in most any business.

with that, you seem to be siding more with dream and seb. so points to them, on that. kiddie porn is something that should be done away with, absolutely. no one is punishing or blaming best buy for exposing pedophiles.

I am trying to figure out what you would be punishing the company for. If Best Buy set a policy to do what was done, I would blame them. It appears to be the FBI and rogue employees willing to accept money for helping the FBI circumvent due process.

i'm not punishing anyone. i just would like the overreach to stop, and those wronged to be apologized to. but i'm not going to physical bestbuy, to best buy's website, to some other bestbuy internet page (twitter whatever). i'm voicing my concern on a completely different unaffiliated in any way message board among friends(?). so you can knock off the blame game.

[Foo]

With Best Buy, punishment for helping clean the world of kiddie porn does not appear appropriate. The employees appear to have been punished for accepting side money, which is in appropriate in most any business.

with that, you seem to be siding more with dream and seb. so points to them, on that. kiddie porn is something that should be done away with, absolutely. no one is punishing or blaming best buy for exposing pedophiles.

I am trying to figure out what you would be punishing the company for. If Best Buy set a policy to do what was done, I would blame them. It appears to be the FBI and rogue employees willing to accept money for helping the FBI circumvent due process.

i'm not punishing anyone. i just would like the overreach to stop, and those wronged to be apologized to. but i'm not going to physical bestbuy, to best buy's website, to some other bestbuy internet page (twitter whatever). i'm voicing my concern on a completely different unaffiliated in any way message board among friends(?). so you can knock off the blame game.

There are people to blame. Just pick the right ones! :p

Unless Best Buy has an unwritten policy, their policy actually seems quite good. Basically, do the bare minimum of intrusion to fix the problem, warn the person their files might be seen in the process, and then if kiddie porn is stumbled upon, report it.

I am not sure it is feasible, but it would be nice if they were able to connect to the customer PC to log activity while under service, so they could be more aware of what employees are doing to customer equipment.

[Foo]

So yeah, you and I seem to agree until you went off the rails.

[zombie]

With Best Buy, punishment for helping clean the world of kiddie porn does not appear appropriate. The employees appear to have been punished for accepting side money, which is in appropriate in most any business.

with that, you seem to be siding more with dream and seb. so points to them, on that. kiddie porn is something that should be done away with, absolutely. no one is punishing or blaming best buy for exposing pedophiles.

I am trying to figure out what you would be punishing the company for. If Best Buy set a policy to do what was done, I would blame them. It appears to be the FBI and rogue employees willing to accept money for helping the FBI circumvent due process.

i'm not punishing anyone. i just would like the overreach to stop, and those wronged to be apologized to. but i'm not going to physical bestbuy, to best buy's website, to some other bestbuy internet page (twitter whatever). i'm voicing my concern on a completely different unaffiliated in any way message board among friends(?). so you can knock off the blame game.

There are people to blame. Just pick the right ones! :p

Unless Best Buy has an unwritten policy, their policy actually seems quite good. Basically, do the bare minimum of intrusion to fix the problem, warn the person their files might be seen in the process, and then if kiddie porn is stumbled upon, report it.

I am not sure it is feasible, but it would be nice if they were able to connect to the customer PC to log activity while under service, so they could be more aware of what employees are doing to customer equipment.

well, you could also argue that the whole of the fbi is not to blame. we don't know extensive this was, how many agents were involved, if this was done on the low key. etc. so yeah. there are always things to consider and look further into.

i feel like there could be some kind of server login that bestbuy or geeksquad supervisors could monitor to see what their employees are doing with the computers. though i don't know all the technical stuff, so yeah.

best buy, as a whole, was very likely unaware of this. what went on with specific locations and specific supervisors / employees should be investigated, to understand the extent of the whole thing.

[zombie]

So yeah, you and I seem to agree until you went off the rails.

you blamed the fbi by name. i blamed bestbuy by name. it is more complicated and nuanced than that. did we both go off the rails? or did i just offend you by using the word "corporation" is likely more the case, here.

[Foo]

So yeah, you and I seem to agree until you went off the rails.

you blamed the fbi by name. i blamed bestbuy by name. it is more complicated and nuanced than that. did we both go off the rails? or did i just offend you by using the word "corporation" is likely more the case, here.

How do you think one would go about getting paid by the fbi? Do you not think that is clear evidence this was institutional?

[zombie]

So yeah, you and I seem to agree until you went off the rails.

you blamed the fbi by name. i blamed bestbuy by name. it is more complicated and nuanced than that. did we both go off the rails? or did i just offend you by using the word "corporation" is likely more the case, here.

How do you think one would go about getting paid by the fbi? Do you not think that is clear evidence this was institutional?

no, it's not clear evidence this was institutional. there was an element within the fbi that was corrupt. but we have no idea how large that element is, or how deep it goes. "paid by the fbi" is kind of misleading, unless they are actually officially a part of the bureau. proxy agents at a third party are not. and probably that was done to have a layer between the whole of the fbi and the element that is corrupt.

[Dream]

These two statements are reasonable and in line with consumer expectations:

"The company told Gizmodo that its policies “prohibit employees from doing anything other than what is necessary to solve the customer’s problem.” This policy doesn’t appear to comport with what the FBI’s records show—that Geek Squad hosted a meeting with federal agents and provided them with a tour of its computer repair shop. Best Buy declined to further clarify its statement."

"Best Buy told Gizmodo on Tuesday that Geek Squad repair employees discover “what appears to be child pornography” on customers’ computers nearly 100 times a year, but that it is only discovered “inadvertently” when “attempting to confirm we have recovered lost customer data.”"



Here is the problem:
"While Best Buy itself is authorized by customers to search the devices, the company’s partnership with the FBI, to some, suggests that Best Buy is effectively acting as an arm of the bureau—conducting searches that would otherwise require a probable cause warrant.

Moreover, the bounty the employees have been paid for locating illegal content may incentivize them to conduct searches that aren’t necessary to complete repairs. (As the EFF points out: “The image found on Rettenmaier’s hard drive was in an unallocated space, which typically requires forensic software to find.”)"

okay now that is a problem more in line with what I said about an employee that knowingly looked at and copied private files from computers he worked on and was fired for doing it. That is an issue and not a part of the policy. From my understanding the policy is if they come across child porn or what they believe to be child porn on a computer they are working on they are obligated to report it to the authorities. Lines get fuzzy if money is involved because that can incentivize people to actually create victims by finding illegal material on allocated space that the employee put on the device and deleted so that authorities couldn't tell who viewed it, when or when it was deleted, etc. I do think there's a fine line there. If the employees are turning in questionable material and then getting paid/rewarded as an informant (common) it would be above board. If the FBI is paying the employees ahead of time to look for questionable material to turn in, that is an issue as at that point they are a government employee. From a moral view either one should be okay because it's exposing people who are encouraging the harm of children, but the second one has an issue in that the employees have an opportunity and incentive to create an abuser where there is none.

I was arguing under the first assumption: employees are being given reward money for turning over information on a customer's computer that lead to the arrest of people who have child porn on the devices that they take in for repair.

And again, I knew of their policy of turning over illegal material found on devices for years, so I don't see that policy being at issue as I never thought it was a secret considering I was blatantly told that when I brought my computer in for repair once.

And I don't think your comparisons of a cleaning service are all that comparable.

I would say it's more in line with hiring a cleaning service to come and clean your cocaine packaging house and expecting the maid to do her job and ignore the people weighing out drugs in the one room she wasn't supposed to clean but the door was left open and she has eyes that function. Seeing something illegal and reporting it, then getting a benefit or incentive for reporting it is perfectly fine in my book. Breaking into a locked room just in case something illegal is going on because you were paid to find illegal activity is not okay.


I read about the case in question here and it makes sense to me. Because the file that was found could not be verified as having been on the computer or viewed while in posession of the doctor, the image is inadmissible as evidence. The search by geek squad, however, is still a legal search because the doctor consented to having his device searched twice, once verbally and once by signing the contract with geek squad.

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/0 ... he-police/

[Foo]

Was talking about this with an employee today. She said she would be guilty of kiddie porn because of photos she exchanged via her laptop with old boyfriends when they were under 18. In fatc, they would be digging up "kiddie porn" that was not only not intended as such, but also no longer exists. All without a warrant...

[Dream]

Was talking about this with an employee today. She said she would be guilty of kiddie porn because of photos she exchanged via her laptop with old boyfriends when they were under 18. In fatc, they would be digging up "kiddie porn" that was not only not intended as such, but also no longer exists. All without a warrant...

intent doesn't really matter when it comes to kiddie porn and they have charged teens with distributing kiddie porn for sending naked photos of themselves to other people (with correct warrants I'm assuming as it's usually a parent of the receiver who notifies police in that case.)

And again, things found in unallocated space (can't prove when it was put on the device, who viewed it or when it was deleted) are not admissible in court unless found with a warrant that specifically states that space will be searched, what it will be searched for, and why it should be searched.

[Foo]

Was talking about this with an employee today. She said she would be guilty of kiddie porn because of photos she exchanged via her laptop with old boyfriends when they were under 18. In fatc, they would be digging up "kiddie porn" that was not only not intended as such, but also no longer exists. All without a warrant...

intent doesn't really matter when it comes to kiddie porn and they have charged teens with distributing kiddie porn for sending naked photos of themselves to other people (with correct warrants I'm assuming as it's usually a parent of the receiver who notifies police in that case.)

And again, things found in unallocated space (can't prove when it was put on the device, who viewed it or when it was deleted) are not admissible in court unless found with a warrant that specifically states that space will be searched, what it will be searched for, and why it should be searched.

Great reasons why the FBI should not be using taxpayer money to bribe GS to do warrantless searches!

[Dream]

Was talking about this with an employee today. She said she would be guilty of kiddie porn because of photos she exchanged via her laptop with old boyfriends when they were under 18. In fatc, they would be digging up "kiddie porn" that was not only not intended as such, but also no longer exists. All without a warrant...

intent doesn't really matter when it comes to kiddie porn and they have charged teens with distributing kiddie porn for sending naked photos of themselves to other people (with correct warrants I'm assuming as it's usually a parent of the receiver who notifies police in that case.)

And again, things found in unallocated space (can't prove when it was put on the device, who viewed it or when it was deleted) are not admissible in court unless found with a warrant that specifically states that space will be searched, what it will be searched for, and why it should be searched.

Great reasons why the FBI should not be using taxpayer money to bribe GS to do warrantless searches!

I can agree with the FBI not paying for information that comes from GS, but warrants are not necessary when the person says you can search their stuff and you're aware that anything found may be turned over to the authorities.

Is the FBI coming out and searching through the rest of the computer without a warrant or are they just viewing what the tech found before getting a warrant to search the rest of the computer? I haven't found anything that says one way or the other on that aspect. If they are just looking at what the tech found, it's no different than a parent turning in their kid's phone that has naked pictures of a classmate on it and the police deciding with only that evidence whether or not a warrant to search the device further is worthwhile. They don't need a warrant to look at something that someone is concerned may be illegal (whether on the person's device or on a device belonging to someone else that the person is in possession of) and brings to their attention, they do need a warrant to look into the device beyond what the tech found.