Scary

"Chris Howells" wrote in message
...
Snowdon Computers wrote:

Incidentally if I should not have been reading it - were PCWorld
prosecuted
for reading the data on Gary Glitter's computer when they took it in for
a
repair I wonder?

I'm somewhat intrigued as to how PCWorld actually managed to find it.
Presumably Glitter wasn't stupid enough to have a folder called "child
porn piccies" on his desktop or something.

My laptop is off for repair now and I don't particularly want the repair
man looking around and finding PGP private keys, e-mail passwords, and
other private stuff.

We get half a dozen machines in per day, all with stuff on them... none of
us have any interest in other peoples files... who gives a toss what they've
got on their machines? We do get to see stuff, it's unavoidable, but we
certainly don't go looking.

It was prolly just some bored kiddy in PCW doing a search for porn cos he
doesn't have net access at home.

As for email passys and pgp keys, we have to know them as most of our
customers dont know how to reconfigure their mail accounts... we do it as
part of the service. Why an IT "professional" would want to steal a
customers passwords is beyond me.

In article , nut
writes
It was prolly just some bored kiddy in PCW doing a search for porn cos he
doesn't have net access at home.

No, PCW frequently do this, Mr Glitter was not the first person to be
reported to the police by PCW for this type of thing.

Kind Regards,

Jeff Davison


Display Systems Consultants UK

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:09:58 +0000, "display.systems"
wrote:

In article , nut
writes
It was prolly just some bored kiddy in PCW doing a search for porn cos he
doesn't have net access at home.

No, PCW frequently do this, Mr Glitter was not the first person to be
reported to the police by PCW for this type of thing.

Kind Regards,

Jeff Davison


Display Systems Consultants UK

erm.... isn't that an intrusion of a persons privacy? (along the lines
of looking through the drawers of a persons house who's given you
their keys whilst they go on holiday?)

In article , Buggerlugs
writes
erm.... isn't that an intrusion of a persons privacy? (along the lines
of looking through the drawers of a persons house who's given you
their keys whilst they go on holiday?)

Yes, but it doesn't seem to stop them doing it )

My local PCW technician (isn't that an oxymoron?) took great delight in
telling me they do it as a matter of course and had found lots of porn
and pirate software.

The pretext being that they were inspecting the HDD contents for viri,
trojans etc. and just happened to come across any such files (no pun
intended!).

Kind Regards,

Jeff Davison


Display Systems Consultants UK

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 08:58:56 +0000, "display.systems"
wrote:

In article , Buggerlugs
writes
erm.... isn't that an intrusion of a persons privacy? (along the lines
of looking through the drawers of a persons house who's given you
their keys whilst they go on holiday?)

Yes, but it doesn't seem to stop them doing it )

My local PCW technician (isn't that an oxymoron?) took great delight in
telling me they do it as a matter of course and had found lots of porn
and pirate software.

The pretext being that they were inspecting the HDD contents for viri,
trojans etc. and just happened to come across any such files (no pun
intended!).


Maybe they should advertise that point in television adverts too, in
future then.

"display.systems" wrote in news:lDK9YKAQ5Nn
:

Yes, but it doesn't seem to stop them doing it )

My local PCW technician (isn't that an oxymoron?) took great delight in
telling me they do it as a matter of course and had found lots of porn
and pirate software.

If PC World reported on pirate software on the machines they get in, they'd
have to report 95+% of them. Just how many people got a copy of MS Office
"from Billy down the pub"?

OTOH, I'm not really surprised about that; it's the same sort of thing as
Boots looking at your photographs.

--
Ross Tregaskis
online diary @ http://inq1.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

On 29 Oct 2003 22:58:53 GMT, Ross Tregaskis
wrote:

"display.systems" wrote in news:lDK9YKAQ5Nn
:

Yes, but it doesn't seem to stop them doing it )

My local PCW technician (isn't that an oxymoron?) took great delight in
telling me they do it as a matter of course and had found lots of porn
and pirate software.

If PC World reported on pirate software on the machines they get in, they'd
have to report 95+% of them. Just how many people got a copy of MS Office
"from Billy down the pub"?

OTOH, I'm not really surprised about that; it's the same sort of thing as
Boots looking at your photographs.


I disagree...boots have to look at your photographs to develop them,
pc world does not have to search your pc's harddisk to solve a
software problem or "spring clean" (as they so elequently put it).

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 22:20:07 GMT,
(Buggerlugs) wrote:

On 29 Oct 2003 22:58:53 GMT, Ross Tregaskis
wrote:

"display.systems" wrote in news:lDK9YKAQ5Nn
:

Yes, but it doesn't seem to stop them doing it )

My local PCW technician (isn't that an oxymoron?) took great delight in
telling me they do it as a matter of course and had found lots of porn
and pirate software.

If PC World reported on pirate software on the machines they get in, they'd
have to report 95+% of them. Just how many people got a copy of MS Office
"from Billy down the pub"?

OTOH, I'm not really surprised about that; it's the same sort of thing as
Boots looking at your photographs.


I disagree...boots have to look at your photographs to develop them,

And to inspect them for a) quality and b) whether they are unsuitable
or not. Do report anything that could be classed as dodgy (such as
porn) but they tend to ignore most stuff [1]

pc world does not have to search your pc's harddisk to solve a
software problem or "spring clean" (as they so elequently put it).

Well they do have to search it (say for malware or the like) but they
don't have to go looking for jpegs or gifs.

[1] Lads on holiday always have a) someones photograph of their own
bits b) a mate on the floor c) the mate throwing up d) a toilet bowl
with a huge poo in it.

--
This post does not reflect the opinions of all saggy cloth
cats be they a bit loose at the seams or not

I'm not a nerd, I'm an empowered freak

Ross Tregaskis wrote:

My local PCW technician (isn't that an oxymoron?) took great delight in
telling me they do it as a matter of course and had found lots of porn
and pirate software.

If PC World reported on pirate software on the machines they get in, they'd
have to report 95+% of them. Just how many people got a copy of MS Office
"from Billy down the pub"?

How would they know it was pirated?

When you hand over the PC they don't (to the best of my knowledge) pop
by your house and search it for licenses so they couldn't possibly
determine whether the installed software was legitimate or pirated.


--
iv Paul iv

[ Mail: ]
[ WWW: http://www.hopwood.org.uk/ ]

Bagpuss wrote:

[1] Lads on holiday always have a) someones photograph of their own
bits b) a mate on the floor c) the mate throwing up d) a toilet bowl
with a huge poo in it.

I don't have any of those.

When we go we *know* the photos would be incriminating so we have a
strict no cameras rule! ;-)

--
iv Paul iv

[ Mail: ]
[ WWW: http://www.hopwood.org.uk/ ]