The Consumerist caught techs from a nationwide US computer repair outfit called The Geek Squad red-handed, rifling through specially-created-for-the-sting image files and stealing choice porn pics.
Many Consumerist commenters wondered if other tech support companies do this. That seems incredibly naive.
All of them, duh – did you ever know a geek who, when faced iwth a completely unsecured system, didn’t have at least a quick look? Stealing files is something else entirely, though the commenters should be more concerned that the repair people were looking for blackmail fodder. or worse: being paid a modest stipend by local, under-employed Homeland Security goons to go through harddrives, looking out for ‘suspicous’ stuff.
That should worry more than thinking that putative pics of pervy puppies and kittens might be nicked by some nosy tech droid.
Surely it makes sense to use encryption then: but the fact your harddrive and data were sensibly secured that way would be considered evidence of guilt of something-or-other by intelliigence agencies and Homeland Security, such are the paranoid and draconian times we live in.
But then of course it’s all moot anyway: none of it’s private once they rev up the national security letters or the RIAA. 30,000 national security letters are issued each year… You could refuse, but that in itself is an offence.
