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What to do about user porn?

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by 1stladytech Mar 3, 2003 last reply Mar 26, 2003 2 views

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We run an independent repair firm, and have consistently found porn on computers we repair. I have no problem with porn on most computers, but there are certain situations that I feel that I am morally or legally(?) obligated to do something about. The situtation of porn on a computer that is owned by a child, is something that I feel that I should inform the parent about. I do not specifically look for porn, but in the process of finding out "why it is running so slow" we often run across it when we remove spyware, temps, etc. I usually call the parent and inform them of what we have found, and then leave it up to them as to what, if any, actions should be taken. But the most bothersome problem to me is what should I do when I find underage, teen or pre-teen porn on an adults computer? I am not the police, nor the moral cop of my customers, but I have strong moral objections to this type of activity as well as the legal implications. What would you do in this situation? I have one in the shop now that has pre-teen porn mixed in with Sunday school schedules and other religious activities and writings. I know what is on this computer as we have to do a full data backup, so I have to look through the files and try to read data from a failing hdd. Any thoughts or procedures that anyone has tried or has worked will be greatly appreciated.

118 replies

by madroxxx Mar 3, 2003

Child Pornagraphy is illegal and immoral and should be reported to the authorities. If you don't you are an accessory.

by thechas Mar 3, 2003

I agree that illegal activity found on a PC should be reported.

First, you need to protect yourself.

Consult with your lawyer, and make sure that there is wording on the pre-repair agreement that protects you from invasion of privacy suites.
The last thing you want to do, is loose your business from doing the right thing.

The next question is, is there someone, or an agency that you can contact to review the material before reporting the activity?

This way, you reduce your risk of making a judgment call on the material.

Proceed with caution.
Act discretely.
Make sure your staff is not copying any of these files for their use.

Chas

by maxwell edison Mar 4, 2003

Regarding the child pornography, ask your attorney what to do. And if you're advised to turn it in to the authorities, ask your lawyer to do it for you. If the advice is to voice displeasure with the customer, again, if it were me, I would probably ask my attorney to do it for me. You'll probably lose a customer, but do you really want that kind of customer? You have to make certain that you're looking out for your own best interest as well.

Regarding the legal adult stuff on a child's computer - heck, ask your attorney what to do about that as well.

The adult stuff on an adult computer - I guess there's nothing to worry about.

by hal 9000 Mar 6, 2003

We are required by LAW to report this type of thing and actually the ISP's are also required to report this activity to the Federal Police. I would imange that you have similar laws there as well. This is another instance of having to have multi-skills in doing what at first appears to be a simple job but actually in many instances you need a law degree and to specalise in a specific area of the law to know just how to behave. And who ever claimed that computer repairs where nothing more than astraight forward job?

by hereinoz Mar 8, 2003

Unusual for me but there you go. Chas and Maxwell are right. If it is illegal it must be reported, otherwise you can become an accessory or aiding and abetting or something along those lines.

by jkaras Mar 4, 2003

I'm glad that I dont have your job I honestly dont know what I would do in your position. As I see it, your job is to repair failing hdd and not determining moral or legal content. Whether the material is offesive, wrong, or illegal is not your place to play police. Yes the porn is wrong and shouldnt be incouraged, condoned, etc.. Is this your business or do you work for someone? If you work for someone then I would address it to the manager/owner and have them decide on the best couse of action that could create the sticky situation of the reputation of both parties involved. How do you know it wasnt the adults child vs the adult that downloaded the porn? If wrong you could destroy someone's reputation forever in his community upon assumption. No matter how you look at this situation it comes down to if you can look at yourself in the mirror every morning and not be ashamed of your decisions, it's just personal. Good luck with your decision, I'm sure you will do the right thing.

by 1stladytech Mar 5, 2003

Yes, it is my business. I don't have a manager to go to, and usually these computers are personal property, so no help with the company that the individual works for either.

Vickie

by oldefar Mar 4, 2003

I suggest you look at the FBI site regarding child pornography at http://tinyurl.com/6ubc for guidance. In particular, backing up that hard drive may result in your having broken the law.

At the very least, I suggest you contact your local FBI office and request material related to your obligations under federal law.

Judgements on what is or is not pornographic and what should or should not be allowed between consenting adults aside, I believe there is a responsibility on all of us to protect children from predators.

by generalist Mar 4, 2003

The biggest problem with this type of situation is that there is a chance that the person doesn't know that the stuff is on their computer. That would lead to all kinds of trouble because of the potential of false accusations.

When you think about it, how many people look at every human accessible file on their system? If the porn is located in an obscure location that is hard to stumble across, then there is always a chance that it was placed there without the owner's knowledge.

In fact if the owner is an outspoken foe of porn, then they could easily be a target of planted images.

At the same time, there is also a chance that the owner is fully aware of the images and is indeed guilty of immoral and illegal behavior.

I suspect that forensic data analysis would be needed here. And that may require, non-biased legal and investigative intervention to protect the innocent and prosecute the guilty.

by oldefar Mar 4, 2003

The issue is one of legality, not morality. By reporting child pornography on a hard drive, the reporting person is not making any accusations, only identifying a situation.

The computer forensics to link that material to the individual is outside the scope of making a report.

To put it in perspective, a mechanic reporting a body found in the trunk of a car is a far cry from making accusations that there was foul play or that a particular individual is implicated. Not reporting the bodyis not an option.

by madroxxx Mar 5, 2003

Good analogy.

by generalist Mar 5, 2003

You're quite right about reporting a situation to the authorities not being an accusation.

My biggest worry would be whether the authorities involved handle things properly and discretely. In an ideal world, such things would remain low profile until the authorities have an air tight case that they can present to the legal system. At that point everything could be revealed because you've eliminated the possibility that the person is innocent.

In the real world there are occasional flawsin the system that can result in false accusations.

Of course there are also flaws that prevent the guilty from being prosecuted.

I guess that the best moral and legal thing to do is report what is found to the authorities and keep your mouth shut after that point. You don't want to be an inadvertant leak.

by support#netropole.com Mar 5, 2003

Finally, someone with real information without sounding forceful, pompous, or religiously opinionated.

by hal 9000 Mar 6, 2003

This would only happen in rare cases but what is of more importance is the information contained on HDD from the general public as they really have no idea of exactly is on their HDD. A disrepuatable repairer could for instance gain access to a persons finicial records or even bank account if that person was to do on line banking as everything related to that is actually stored on the HDD. In business there is usually some form of DATA PROTECTION but the general public have little to no knolledge of this pratice and many are happy to have a HDD replaced under garantiee than run the risk of having their finical records become public knolledge. This makes a very good argument for not under any circumstances ever letting a computer out of your hands or at the very least its HDD!

by admin Mar 5, 2003

that proper evidence procedures would not have been followed here and a case could not be made, however, law enforcment would usually quite easily determine the nature of it, and act appropriately. This may include suggesting that the porn was legal(they have amazing ways of telling whether someone is most likely young, or just young-looking by specialists in anatomical development) all the way to including giving the repaired computer back without any accusations, or evidence that it had beenfound out and starting a thourough investigation on the suspect.

In my experience at my locality the police are quite adept at determining a good solution working with, rather than against, the shop owner.
They are also quite good at understanding that most computers, somewhere or other in their history have had a person browsing, and treat that appropriately.

For one person I know, who is quite opposed to porn, it was his babysitter, a local girl from his church. As it turned out, the babysitter had easily bypassed his win98 security and then she spent the hours after the kids were asleep looking at (adult) porn while he and his wife were out. He suspected some Computer Criminal of doing this remotely somehow through broadband andturned his computer into the local crime unit. Turned out to be his baysitter, and when she was confronted she confessed. I think his anti-porn stance was probably helped rather than hurt by doing the right thing here. I'm not saying that it couldn't be planted, but usually truth prevails in the end. Even when it's somebody we would like to believe otherwise about.

by timwalsh Mar 4, 2003

Acquire the services of a lawyer, either personally, or as a business.

A lawyer can do several things for you:
1. Tell you whether he thinks the pictures you found fit the LEGAL definition of child pornogrophy; He can also tell you how the liberally or strictly the local courts interpret the legal definition. If you can, it would make things a lot easier all around if you are sure a crime has been committed before going to the authorities.
2. Tell you what your legal responsibilities are;
3. Tell you what actions you (and your business) might need to take to protect yourself from either invasion of privacy or defamation of character civil suites;
4. Take the material in question to the authorities to try to shield you (and your business) from direct involvement and adverse publicity.

Remember breaking the law is breaking the law. A simple analogy might suffice:
You work for an auto-body repair shop. An auto that has been rear-ended has been towed in for repair. The trunk has been damaged to the extent that it won't open. In the process of repairing the auto, you have to remove the trunk lid to repair it. Inside the trunk you discover what looks like explosives. The owner of the vehicle may be a demolitionsexpert at the local quarry, but you don't know that. Do you have any moral qualms about going to the authorities?

Hope this gets you thinking.

by jardinier Mar 4, 2003

I think I see a parallel here with lawyer/client privilege; the inviolability of the Confessional; and the right of a journalist not to reveal his/her sources.

The technician's job is to repair the machine (or back-up the data). The contents of the drive are the personal and private property of the owner of the computer.

by djent Mar 4, 2003

We are not priests or lawers and we do have a moral if not legal obligation to protect our young from preditors.

by oldefar Mar 4, 2003

The priest, the lawyer, and the journalist all have information given to them by someone on the understanding it would remain confidential. In the first two, it is presumed the information is necessary to save that individuals soul and butt respectively. In the third, it is to preserve a free press for the greater good of society at large.

The tech stumbled on what appears to be evidence of a crime while doing work. The obligation is to report such possible criminal evidence to proper authority and allow them to determine if a crime was committed, and if so by whom. The priest, the lawyer, and the journalist have the same obligation under the same circumstances - accidentally discovered rather than specifically divulged.

by mallardtooxx Mar 5, 2003

The priest, and the lawyer have to report it. The Journalist is never required, even under threat of prosecution, to devulge their sources. I have to say in this case it is not a matter of morals, or of protection. I agree that the pervert who captured the images in the first place should be caught spayed or neutered and then locked in a cell with a guy named bubba for the rest of thier natural lives. However, you cannot know that the images on this persons box were actually taken by this person. Nor can you know that this person even knows what is on their box. Did they buy it new? Is it a used box? the implecation that someone is a child predator is not to be taken lightly and thus should not be propagated by a computer tech charged with a simple backup and replacement of a hdd. I would say you tell the individual that you came across some questionable data in the backup procedure and would like to have them verify it is theirs. It is not your place to play judge advocate and jury in this case, it is your place to do what you are being paid for and nothing else. I am sorry if this sounds crass or like I do not care, actually I care a great deal about the children, I have 2 of my own. But as a Businessman I also knowthat if I stray too far from my assigned duty I am going to lose customers. Fix the box, let your boss, or if you are the boss, let the individual know what you found and leave it at that. There are very few morals in business, that is an unavoidable fact, while you don't have to agree with what a customer does, you do have to hold up your end of the agreement to fix their box. It is sad, but true.

-duck

by support#netropole.com Mar 5, 2003

your funny :-)

by hal 9000 Mar 6, 2003

Saying that the business has some how entered into a contract with a customer to protect the customer from criminal activity is just silly. What would you expect to happen if you went out with your check book and handed out singed blank checks to everyone you meet? This is just the same if you are involved in some form of activity that you don't want anybody else to know about you would never make it known, in a case like this you would simply destroy the computer or at the very least its hard drive and then get a new one fitted and loaded. But you would never allow the HDD out of your hands, what is happening here is that most people don't realise exactly is stored on their HDD and therefore take no measures to protect themselves from anyadverse outcomes. Just look at how many people sell SH computers without wiping the HDD and then are shocked when someone gains acces to their bank accounts just because they used On Line Banking and all the information is stored on the HDD so anyone can have access to the bank account. I agree you don't go looking for any of this but if you actually find it then you are duty bound to report it just as you are duty bound not to access a persons bank account just because you have their computer in for repair or use any other information contained on the HDD for your profit.

by jellimonsta Mar 4, 2003

As noted by everyone else I would also recommend a lawyer in this situation. I guess the degree that you follow up on this situation should be determined by the legitimacy of the "illegal" content on the said computer systems. If it is children being exploited in any way shape or form, I would alert authorities at the drop of a hat. If it is some kid in a bathtub and possibly even there own child then I would imagine there is no foul play present. As you well know there are plenty of spam emailmessages that are sent with a misleading title, these emails can contain images that will be stored in temp locations on the computer. I have not however, ever heard of under age pornography being sent in the form of an email unless it is one of those dodgy rings. I could be wrong though. If it looks as though it could be a legitimate mistake or unintentional content, I would like to present the findings to the owner of the computer. I do prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt. If it isseriously illegal content that could not have really been placed on the system unless intentionally, I would go to the authorities. Good luck!

by admin Mar 5, 2003

You need it specified in your repair agreement up front that the process of repair is sometimes invasive out of necessity and that you follow applicible state and local law. That gives people the incentive to clear that sort of stuff off their computers before they bring it in if they desire.

If it's my computer and you found porn on it, I would want to know. I of course monitor this at home anyway, but if I didn't know how and my kid and his friends were doing this I would be tipping you and thanking you for showing me.

Unfortunately, Sunday School and Sexual Misconduct goes on much more often than we would like to acknowledge, however, the damage done to these children by spiritual authorities is immense when it occurs. No matter how uncomfortable it is, I think we owe it to our future to make sure that spirituality and sexual abuse do not become mixed and unified in the minds of our Sunday School classes. The recent developments with the Catholic Church on this issue has given us a better enviroment to talk about it, and these people need found out and removed so that legimate, healthy spiritual guidance can be available for our youth IMO.

Any form of abuse to a child legally must be reported in my state. This is not an optional or moral question for a business. The publicity from fixing boxes for a child porn ring (even if you didn't realize the porn you found was part of a ring) could be devastating once it was found out.

I would go and get some repair agreements from other well known respected companies, begin to draft my own and then take it down to my attouney for the final draft.

by jardinier Mar 5, 2003

Right on admin. I think this has proven to be a very useful discussion. It has brought out into the open a variety of personal viewpoints, but has also aired the legal implications.

I consider your posting to be the most constructive of all because it would set a precedent that could became the standard procedure for technicians who do not what they might find on some individual's hard drive.

I am only guessing here, but someone might like to verify for me if it is also a legal obligationto report any treasonable material.

by tomsal Mar 5, 2003

Without a doubt, I'd have no conscience, I'd need no thinking - it would be reported in a heartbeat.

And I'll go one further too - keeping in mind that this is pre-teen material, I wouldn't give a care in the world if I lost a customer over it either. Like if they were (as ironic as this says) insulted by me reporting such information.

Of course I'll conduct myself like a professional and be like "Well I'm sorry you feel that way Sir/Ma'am but.....".

We have an internal problem with a repeat porn offender. Its adult porn (I think I'd risk my job if it was pre-teen, because I'd go ballistic) but the problem is the offender is supposed to be a "leader" in the company...he's the number three guy an executive. Over 1 GIG (yes, as in 1,000 MEGA bytes) of porn videos on his machine, not to mention links to porn sites in his favorites.

How do you deal with that? Btw, this is a repeat offender, everytime I remove it - the next time I get a trouble ticket to work on his system I find it again.

by admin Mar 5, 2003

I'm lucky, Porn is not tolerated at all by management where I work. First offense and the person might get a chance to persue counseling, professional recovery etc. but it's clearly against policy. If our management wasn't supportive or involved- wow, that's rough. I still might try going to #1 or #2 and frame it not like I'm mad, but I am concerned about this persons addiction and would like to see him get help or the like. Only you would know the politics of this at your workplace.

If someone hid the equal of a 1 Gigabyte Bar in their desk, well, wouldn't the seniors want to get some help for this guy?

by tomsal Mar 5, 2003

The double whammo here? When he is out (about 1-2 xs a week) FEMALE employees will use his computer....(this is another issue that drives me up a friggin wall -- executive machines used by anyone in the company including just the $9/hr CSR people --because we have more people than stations)...

You know I just thought of something, LOL, I think its harder in some respects to be an IT manager in a small highly political workplace like mine than to be a CIO to a multi-national corporation.

by jardinier Mar 5, 2003

Thank you Duck. I consider that your posting has more then adequately covered the legal, moral and pragmatic elements of the scenario.

However I am glad that I threw in my 5 cents worth, as your response has further clarified the responsibility of the technician who may encounter this situation.

by 1stladytech Mar 5, 2003

First, thank you for your input and insight into this. As stated before, I run an independent repair shop, so I am upper, middle and lower management as well as the tech! The additional problem that we have is that as an independent shop, we are possibly open to a suit if/when we report activity such as this, as the customer could claim that we put the material on the computer to falsely report them. The machine is not in their custody, but in ours. We are in a fairly small community with alarge mix of nationalities, professional backgrounds, etc. It can become very complicated very quickly, and we have had to try to find this type of activity for lawyers involved in divorce cases on many occasions. As you all have indicated, it is a multi-faceted problem with no easy solution. Several of you have underscored my own thoughts on this area, as well as brought up other areas to work on. Many thanks to you all,

Vickie

by mtberjim Mar 6, 2003

I do the same kind of work you do. It's not your call as to what's ok for someone to have on the PC. The client asked you to make it work, not for your moral commentary. The majority of the comments here are from Admins or techs that have some say as to what is acceptable on a business owned PC. You and I deal with privately owned PC's, you report someone and invade the owner?s privacy and you may as well lock up your store and look for a job. Would you bring your car to a mechanic that goes through the glove compartment looking for personal stuff?
Jim D.

by mallardtooxx Mar 6, 2003

That is exactly what you should do, and jim is right as a private computer you have no legal recourse as to what that person puts on it. That is what I was trying to say but jim hit the nail on the head with his post.

-duck

by timwalsh Mar 6, 2003

So what you guys are saying, is that if I'm walking down the street and see one person shoot another in an open garage, that it would be an invasion of privacy for me to report a crime because the shooting happened on private property and I wasn't asked to look in the garage??

Or if I'm walking through a parking lot and see a box of what appears to be explosives sitting in the backseat of a car, it would be an invasion of privacy to report this because the car's owner didn't give me permission to look through his car's window??

Give me a break!

I think there is something fundamentally flawed in your thinking here. We are not talking about a tech prying into every nook and corner of a computers hardrive, when all he was asked to do is replace a power supply. From the posters initial question, it sounds as if he was asked to try and recover data from a failing HD. This sort of implies having to look at the data.

Regardless of how anyone comes across information about the possible commission of a crime (any crime), it is immoral to look the other way. Otherwise, the criminals win.

That's why you get the lawyers involved.

BTW as far as your car mechanic analogy, if the problem the mechanic is trying to solve involves your heater, guess what, he's probably going to be removing your glove compartment, whether you give him the permission to or not. And if he happens to see anything incriminating there - oh well...

by oldefar Mar 6, 2003

I am not a lawyer, but IMHO it seems there is a legal obligation to report suspected child pornography.

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 110 > Sec. 2258. - Failure to report child abuse

A person who, while engaged in a professional capacity or activity described in subsection (b) of section 226 of the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990 on Federal land or in a federally operated (or contracted) facility, learns of facts that give reason to suspect that a child has suffered an incident of childabuse, as defined in subsection (c) of that section, and fails to make a timely report as required by subsection (a) of that section, shall be guilty of a Class B misdemeanor
-------
Here is where it seems where the tech avoids being criminally liable for child porn in his posession (the clients hard drive) -

(d) AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE- It shall be an affirmative defense to a charge of violating subsection (a)(5) that the defendant--
(1) possessed less than three images of child pornography; and
(2) promptly and in good faith, and without retaining or allowing any person, other than a law enforcement agency, to access any image or copy thereof--
(A) took reasonable steps to destroy each such image; or
(B) reported the matter to a law enforcement agency and afforded that agency access to each such image
---------
By all means, check with a lawyer, but don't take an approach of none of my business.

by oldefar Mar 6, 2003

Although LadyTech titled the initial post as user porn, it is quite clear that her concern was with suspected child pornography only.

As for what to do about consenting adults and their activity on file, I think LadyTech and I know I believe MYOBis a legitimate approach.

by tomsal Mar 7, 2003

If we are talking an adult leaving off a computer for report and you find ADULT material, you have a point.

But you define the word wrong if have the same opinion of "mind your own business" if child porn is found on there.

And if you think privacy is privacy is privacy with child porn, then YOU need help and you are one sick puppy - for you have no morality and therefore would lose respect with me. From a business end, go head don't do business with me for reporting CHILD porn, see if I care.

later.

by hal 9000 Mar 6, 2003

You have already crossed the line into snooping and are no longer involved in the repair business, however this is a convenient smoke screen for what your primary business actually is. I work on may different computers for may different organisations and other than the glaring obvious like being in the favorties I don't actually look for anything unless asked to and I have often had to restore data that was lost when a HDD was formatted or something like that but in every case I have never actually looked at what I was recovering I simply just coppied it to a Hard Drive then put it back in a temp directory for the owner to place where they required it and this was the entire data packet. But from your above coments kiddy porn is just the icing on the cake as your main objectives would be to recover banking information for the lawers to use against the other party so this whole question was in all probability just a smoke screen to cover your own questions on your existing activities. YOU HAVE CROSSED THE LINE HERE and are looking for redemption for your activities. But if you do come across some form of criminal activity no matter what you are duty bound to report this to the revelent authorities this is simply your duty as a citizen. After all if you had of worked on a computer that was owned by one of the people involved in the Sept 11 action and discovered what they where planning and not reported it would you not be as guilty as those who where involved?

In every case you must follow the laws and you will never find anyone who is unhappy with this after all you are only reporting what you have found and are making no allegations against anybody are you? You are just making a statment of fact and it is up the theproper authorities on how they proceed. However working for lawers is a line I personally don't care to cross.

by 1stladytech Mar 6, 2003

I did not say that I cracked passwords into bank accounts or recovered that type of material, what I said was that we have been asked by lawyers (with proper authority) to check the temps and logs on a computer to see if there is porn activity when it is alleged during divorce proceedings. I am not snooping on customers drives, the files in question show up as thumbnails in the browser when you are selecting them to copy. I never intentially look at users files or data. The question was in regards to material that is illegal on a computer that is found accidentally during the process of a repair or data transfer, not what I can find out about a person from their computer.

Vickie

by coreybstn Mar 6, 2003

Much like the old tin can analogy that is used in elementary school, it seems the further down the list we go, the farther the conversation strays from its intent.
Ladytech found pre-teen porn on a system. That is THE issue. She does not state thatpornography in general is at issue.
I am a former seminarian. Prior to the recent spate concerning abuse we had dsicussed at length the moral and legal implications if one was to approach a member of the clergy with information indicating that a crime has occured. It was up to us, as individuals, on how to handle the matter because of confidentiality agreements. It was my intent and practice to inform each person seeking guidance of some sort, that prior to divulging information I would informhim/her of my intent. In other words, I would state clearly that if during our conversation I was to find out that a child is being abused, physically, sexually or otherwise that I would need to inform the authorities. It was then up to the individual whther or not I was the person he/she needed to be speaking with.
Someone had stated previously that there should be a statement of intent on the work agreement. I could not agree more. And as for the current customer, as this is prior to such a statement, consult legal counsel.
I respect you immensely Ladytech for bringing a topic such as this to the forefront. In my eyes you are not playing "God" or "Judge and Jury" you are to be commended for your internal struggle. More people should act on those "red flags."
The question I would pose to the folks are looking at this as an invasion of privacy, I would ask this, Could YOU dare look in the mirror if the individual was arrested, even years later, and you were to find that this was the tip of the iceberg? Can you dare look in the face of a child whom you recognized from a photo found on this system and say 'I did all I could to protect you'?
Thank you Ladytech!

by tianisnews Mar 6, 2003

Child molestation is increasing, is illegal and dangerous. If a you said you find porn and the Bible school scheduled in the same computer, I think that the are kids in trouble. So report it.

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

Duty to report this kind of thing and after all you are not claiming any one particular person is actually getting their rocks off on this kind of thing you are in no way defaming any one you are simply making a statment of fact and it is up to the proper authorties to deal with this matter and investigate it properly. Only yesterday a Vedio CD was broadcast on Australian TV showing a very young girl being molested, this was done to first find out who the girl actually was and who the person performing this act was. As a result of that broadcast the child was found and the person is now in goal awaiting a hearing after handing himself in to Police. The male person was found in Cairns {very far north Queensland} and the girl was found in Victoria {only about 3,000 Kms away}. But the main reason it was broadcast was the CD was found in England and the British Police noticed the Australian backgrounds or what ever and sent it to the Australian Police to investigate. That was an almost impossible task without public help to find out who at least one of these people where.

by mtberjim Mar 6, 2003

When I'm in a situation of transferring data from one failing drive to another new drive, I use Ghost. If the PC boots that's it, I have no need to look into the data more than that. A fresh install I move the entire My Docs folder over, I never even look beyond seeing that the data is in the folder, the same goes for the AOL folders and or any other mail clients. I also read someone else makes a folder with the whole contents of the old drive on it, I also do the same incase I've missed anything and tell the client were it is. Beyond that I have not reason to open or look at individual files or folders
If I?m in a position to have to do a search like *.jpeg, I don?t know what kind of time any of you can bill for, but I cut and paste everything I?ve found into the my pictures folder. And don?t look to see what it is.
To Tim Walsh: I was an auto tech before I did this and there is a BIG difference between taking the junk out of the glove compartment dumping it in a box and putting the box in the back seat. Compared to talking things out one by one opening them up and looking for naked pictures of your wife or girlfriend. Yes, I have worked with guys that did just that.

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

I don't know how much time some people have to waste or worse get someone else to pay for but I very rearly look in any folders simply because if the data is intact well it's just none of my business and if it is corupted well theres simply nothing I can do about it but hope that who ever has made backups {unlikely in most home uses}. The only thing that I do do with data recovered from a HDD is to run a Virus Scanner over it just to make sure I'm not replacing one problem with another but it is generally a waste of time but as it is done on another computer while I'm working on the unit that is faulty then not much harms done as it takes very little time to hook up a drive and leave it to be scanned while I'm working on fixing the original problem. On business machines where a HDD has gone bad and is not available under BIOS I simply send the drive away to have the data recovered and while it is expensive I have never had any complaints that the data has been studied in any way on the returned media. Of course this does trash the original drive but then again the data is the far more valuable bit of any computer system. You can replace a computer in under 1 day but it can take months to reenter the data if there was no backup done or the procedures had not been followed properly. I can remember a case where a security guard was given the responsibility of performing tape backups, he had no knolledge of computers and the little that he did know was to put the tape in the drive and press a few buttons then leave the computer alone as he had other work to do. Unfortantly the drive only ran for a few minutes and this was not picked up until about 6 months latter when the server crashed losing all the data and when they tried to recover from the backup tapes they found them blank.

by jardinier Mar 6, 2003

It is interesting to note how many techies are also fully qualified lawyers. Next time I need legal advice, I will post my question on techrepublic and save the legal fees.

While I may have missed reading a posting or two, it appears that the only person who has actually encountered the situation of looking for (or accidentally finding) child pornography on a computer is the original poster, ladytech.

It is easy to give an opinion when you are not personally involved in the situation.If you techies are so clever, instead of recommending dobbing in the perhaps one in 10,000 people who may unwittingly or deliberately have offensive material on their hard drives, perhaps you could all put your heads together and find a way of hacking into the mother websites which supply the offensive material, and disabling them.

The porn industry is becoming more and more invasive and avaricious. A few bandaids at the user end will do f... all to hamper the continuing growth of the industry.

by generalist Mar 6, 2003

You don't have to be an IT lawyer to know that hacking into any site with the intent to disable it is illegal, even for a good cause.

It would be much better to come up with a way of finding said sites and using various techniques to make sure that they are reported to the authorities and shut down. And if the authorities don't shut them down, figuring out ways to pressure said authorities to do their jobs.

by jardinier Mar 7, 2003

I was guessing that it was probably illegal to hack into any site, for any reason. Thank you for clarifying this point for me.

As for porn in general, well that takes us back to good old Keynesian Economics: supply and demand.

Much as I also abhor the exploitation of children in this context, is it realistic to imagine that this industry can be stopped, or even reduced?

There seems a parallel with the drug instrustry: the more users/suppliers you bust, the worse the problem becomes.

by maxwell edison Mar 7, 2003

First of all, let's make it clear that this is intended to be a VERY friendly post, and you are my favorite poster from the land down under. (So smile when you read this.)

From my count – at this point – there have been 17 different people give opinion and/or make a suggestion. The tally is as follows:

Neither gave or suggested she seek legal opinion – 7:
Jkaras
Mdgill
Admin
Djent
Mallardtooxx
MTBerJim
Coreybstn

Suggested that she SEEK legal opinion and/or the advice of an attorney – 6:
TheChas
Maxwell Edison (yours truly)
Oldefar
Generalist
Tim.walsh
Jellimonsta

GAVE legal opinion – 4:
Madroxxx
TomSal
User Deleted
Colinluck

The way I count, that’s 70% who suggested she SEEK legal advice and/or appeared to give more general opinion, while only 30% appeared to GIVE legal advice and/or opinion.

So from those totals, you came to the conclusion that (using your words), “It is interesting to note how many techies are also fully qualified lawyers.” The numbers simply don’t support that assertion, do they?

And I might add, that one of the people who GAVE legal advice and/or opinion was one of your fellow countrymen – that blow-hard colinluck. (But of course, he’s an expert on EVERYTHING.)

This is just another attempt by you, at least in my opinion, to criticize people (possibly Americans – again) without having any basis in fact. Or am I missing something here?

by maxwell edison Mar 7, 2003

The initial arguments:

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/6940.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/71ra

The Court decision:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/04/16/scotus.virtual.child.porn/

or

http://tinyurl.com/71r8

by jkaras Mar 7, 2003

To clarify, any business that is legit should or would have had all their i's and t's dotted and crossed before opening said business. All forms of liability should have been looked into, so the need for a lawyer now seems a little too late. My parents owned abusiness and a lawyer on retainer at all times. I imagine she already had this looked into as a legal matter only desiring validation that she was doing the right thing, by consulting her peers vs. a money grubbing self centered lawyer. Let's face it, any lawyer that got this kind of case dropped on his/her lap would jump at the media opprotunity to advance their career as a valadation that they are here for the people. This would get national headlines if I understand that the pervert in question is a ranking offical in the church vs. a church patron. Either way it would be a podium/circus thet would have dollar signs dancing in their heads. (yes I'm that pessimistic.) What if there was a misinterpretation on who put it there that would destroy someone's life regardless that the intentions were indeed honorable (her blowing the whistle). Everyone put out great points utilizing morality as well as business ethics in a solution. Without all the facts in the situation, I stilllean towards fix dont judge unless beyond a shadow of doubt before making the fateful leap. Everyone deserves privacy, however I hate child exploitation and make no excuses for it in anyway. This decision involves both her business and this persons life/reputation that has to be made by them. Lawyers arent always the answer to lifes problems, but at times are a necessary evil. I hope everyone gets what I'm saying, great input all.

by jardinier Mar 7, 2003

Thanks Maxwell. I am genuinely flattered that you consider me to be your favourite poster from down under.

And your statistics demonstrated that my posting was totally incorrect and therefore in very poor taste.

But now I'm going to say something that will no doubt REALLY upset you. Your country, now having the full support of only one other country, Australia, is about to launch a massive attack on a country whose population consists of 50 % of children under the age of 15. Do you think that the little children who will be killed, maimed or orphaned will be any less devastated than victims of child abuse?

by jardinier Mar 7, 2003

Dear Maxwell. Please erase from your mind the notion that I have anything against Americans in general. The ones I have met have been vibrant, enthusiastic ... qualities which have no doubt been largely responsible for America's current status as the world's most powerful country, economically and militarily.

In the early 1970s I was living in Kings Cross, Sydney, a favourite place for US soldiers involved in the Vietnam conflict to spend their R & R. I was extremely impressed by their seemingly universal good manners and gentlemanly behaviour.

Some things which America has produced which I love are jazz (though this largely derived from the Negro Spiritual: a form of music that was a cry of hope from a people who had been brutally exploited); movies (even though the first moving picture was made in Australia); excellent TV series; and the expression: "Kick arse."

So let your troops "kick arse" in Iraq, but spare a thought for the innocent who will also suffer.

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

An expert on everything. But may I point out to you how the word expert is made up X {being the unknown quantie} and Spurt {is only a drip under preasure}. I have never claimed to be an EXPERT at anything I am only comenting on what I would do. If this is Anti-Americian well so be it but I personally can't see how reporting a possible child molestor is Un-Americian unless of course you consider it proper that no Americian can do no wrong! Maybe you feel comfortable with selling out your ethics but it dosn't sit well with me! Anyway I only suggested that the matter be reported to the proper authorities for investigation to my knolledge no one has ever been sued for trying to uphold the law in the proper manner. However if Kathy {I think} was to go out and tell everyone that she meet that who ever was a child molester then she would have a very big problem and this is exactly what a lawer would do after all they arn't called LEGAL WHORES for nothing are they? I have offered no LEGAL advice in any manner just to inform the proper authorities for investigation! If you find this offensive then its your tough luck not mine as I have worked with abused children and I never want to see it happen again although I know it will. A Lawer cannot investigate these matters in any way and at the very best can only offer their opinion which may be quite different to what a Court would say or think. Anyway if you find my writtings so offensive simply don't read them after I don't believe that someone is holding a gun to your head making you read these are they? If they are you should get out of there as you are in the wrong place. There have been other entries on this group which quote the law as it stands in their area and it may be different somewhere else like in the Middle East they still kill Women if there is even so much as a thought that the unmarried ones arn't VIRGINS! Maybe you believe in this as well?

by jardinier Mar 8, 2003

Dear Maxwell. I would have thought that it would be a decided advantage to anyone involved in the Information Technology industry to be full of "IT."

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

The US but here in Australia we are obligated to report any suspected case of child abuse and if we don't we are libal for any punishment that the person who performs these acts is likely to get as we are considered as accessories after the fact. It's all well and good to say you don't know what you would do until you actually come across this type of thing but I know what I would do without a second thought I would report it and then leave it up to the Police or whoever to investigate the matter. Just for the record a chemist over here has a photo of a young naked child sitting on a tilled floor in his shop, One woman made a complaint that the female child was being abused in some manner by having this photo taken. The only trouble was the child in question was the chemists son though you could not see this in the photo but the chemist was proud of his son and wanted everybody to see just how proud he actually was. By the way the photo in question is a 30 X 40 inch print and is stillon display in the shop. But on the other hand a newsagant was taken to court for selling offensive material and all that it was is a print of the Great Masters DAVID. So it is up to the viewer to make their own minds up on what constitutes offensivebut in every case I have ever heard of porn involving young children is universially considered offensive and at least here it is mandatory to report these to the proper authorities.

by jellimonsta Mar 6, 2003

What if the said perpetrator was part of some kind of adult group that mailed pornographic pictures to each other and posted them on hosted user groups (I am lead to believe such groups exist in numerous sites like yahoo or msn). This PC owner is a member of a number of these groups for consenting adults that participate in this action, there are many members that post material or mail it. What if some individual had posted or mailed under age or child pornography and the recipient had opened it therefore storing the images on the system. It is a tough call, what if it was accidental. I guess if they are stored in 'My Documents' and are legitimate illegal materials there is no question of authenticity.

by oldefar Mar 7, 2003

I have been led to believe that regardless of how you come into possession of child pornography, your defense (defensible position in law terms) hinges on not copying it, not being caught with more than 3 images, destroying what came into your posession, and notifying law enforcement.

However, a lawyer is your best source for a definitive answere.

by maxwell edison Mar 7, 2003

There was an advertisement some time ago that featured that late great lady of jazz, Ella Fitzgerald (Is/Was there any singer better than Ella?) that was asking, "Is it real or is it Memorex"? (A live performance or a recording?)

Ella Fitzgerald’s live singing and the tape of her singing both broke a wine glass, thereby showing the high quality of the product that was being presented.

So also, in the case of finding what “appears” to be child pornography on a customer’s computer, one must ask, “Is it real or is it virtual”?

I remember a United States Supreme Court case not too long ago that looked at the issue of “virtual” child pornography. (Some people are quite talented in manipulating graphics to “look” like something that it is not.) The court’s decision was that this practice was not illegal. (Much to the chagrin of many groups.) See the link below:

http://www.goodnewsetc.com/052PLT3.htm

or

http://tinyurl.com/71py

And another factor is the country of origin in which LadyTech resides? (I don't recall her saying.) What may be legal in the United States may or may not be legal elsewhere. (And visa versa.)

However – and this is a BIG HOWEVER, I would still suggest that this person seek the advice of her attorney to determine what should be done, not only with this particular circumstance, but for potential future issues as well.

by maxwell edison Mar 7, 2003

The initial arguments:

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/6940.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/71ra

The Court decision:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/04/16/scotus.virtual.child.porn/

or

http://tinyurl.com/71r8

by maxwell edison Mar 7, 2003

I abhor child pornography and/or anyone and anything associated with it – virtual or otherwise.

It’s child exploitation at its worst. It’s harmful to society in general, and it causes physical and emotional damage to children from which they may never recover.

Personally, if I had a chance to put a stop to some of it, I would take it.

by madroxxx Mar 7, 2003

Is not for him to decide. There is evidence that a crime against a child MIGHT be being comitted so he has an obligation to report it. It is then up to an investigator to determine if a crime IS being comitted and if so by whom.

by maxwell edison Mar 7, 2003

You're right - it's not for him(or her) to decide. But, in my opinion, there are two things to do.

One, of course, is to report a crime and/or to avert a potential crime - especially when children are involved. However, the second thing to do isto protect your own self interest/best interest.

That's why a call to one's own attorney to not only advise what to do, but to also report the "potential" crime - all the while looking out for his or her client's best interest - would be the prudent thing to do.

Moreover, any attorney with an ounce of decency - especially if this attorney has an ongoing business relationship with this person - would do this for nothing. I think mine would. (However, it may become my turn to pay the next green fees.)

by maxwell edison Mar 7, 2003

In addition, an attorney IS an officer of the court, and if a crime is suspected he or she has an obligation to report it. The difference, however, between reporting it to your attorney and reporting it to the police is that the attorney is also obligated to protect the best interest of the client. Even if it does cost a couple of hundred bucks, which (in my opinion) is doubtful, it's a cheap insurance policy.

by greatgazzoo Mar 7, 2003

First if you currently don't have something in your agreement with your customer to cover yourself take care in how you proceed. Do not open yourself to a lawsuit.

Second if it is illegal where you are to have porn then you have a legal obligation to report violations to the authorities. How you implement this could have a negative impact on future business. You may want to address this by coming up with a policy document and forwarding it to all customers prior to implementing any business practice changes. This will give your clients an opportunity to clean up there own act prior to using your services in the future.

Third if the client computer is owned by a minor I would advise the parents / guardian.

This is my personal opinion and should not be deemed as an assault on you or anyone else.

Thank you.

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

Get off. It is not my place to do their jobs for them and personally I am unwilling to become involved. But if you are prepared to perform this type of work it is just a short step to doing something more unproffesional for a price in the future. I still don't look on hard drives when I am asked to copy them I just dump all the data OS, programs and user data across to another drive and then when the original drive has whatever done and is reloaded I then dump all the saved data back to a temp folder on the drive. When it comes to removing spyware I just run a program to remove it and I only look at data stored on HDD when asked to and always in the presence of the owner or user. I pay particular attention to never look at accounting programs and when I am requested to I always have the person responsible open the program and enter their passwords. But you don't need to crack bank codes they are simply just on the drive to recover if you wish and it is only a very short step from looking for illegial material for a lawer to actually gaining access to bank records for the same lawer who claims to have the authority.

Again if you find anything you consider offensive report it to the proper authorities as you are not making any claims of illegial activity you are simply reporting a fact & it is then up to the Police or whoever to deal with the matter in what ever manner they think fit.

by mrafrohead Mar 7, 2003

Alright, I have read your original post. I haven't read every body else's yet. But I wanted to throw in some facts for you. I hope that this isn't a repeat to anything above.

I am assuming that you are in the US. Here are a few things for youto know regarding this type of media that is on the machine.

I just think it's wierd that this is posted here, as just last week there was a discussion about this on the radio. I learned a lot about it as there was a lawyer on. Although, I am suprised about the laws. They really are to be frowned upon.

The law states, that just "pictures" of nude children, is not illegal. It is art. I know, it's gross, but that's it. Unless these pictures depict these children in any type of "acts" you legally will have no footing what so ever.

Although, as a business owner, I would NOT do further business with this person. I would call them, ask them to pick up their machine, not charge them and ask them to NEVER come back again.

A suggestion would be to do this. I find it a bit nerve wrecking that this person has kiddie porn along with religious material on the same machine. If it is straight nude shots, with no intrusions involved, I would call the press, report the person and let the public persecute. Although, if there is penetration or anything other than straight nudity, CALL THE POLICE!

I think that the law sucks, but I don't make them. I do know that if you have any integrity, you will not support this. It needs to be reported, because if it does fall into the illegal realm, these children are being exploited, and you may be the only help that they may ever receive.

Mrafrohead

by mallardtooxx Mar 7, 2003

What we are talking about and what you are saying are two different issues. There is no concrete proof what so ever that this was the owners porn. Therefore it is not like witnessing a murder, or seeing a case that may be full of explosives. It is a matter of seeing something on someones private computer that may or may not be thiers. You cannot tell me you have never gotten any pornographic material sent to you via email or some sort of messed up url. If this is the case you are screamingto prosecute before you even garner all of the facts. That is why I said let the individual know first. If you run out and call down the thunder right away you won't have to worry too much about these issues because in this country there is a little something called DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER. and it will kill a business. I am saying get all the facts before you go running with your ill gotten conclusions. Trust me when I say you always need the facts before you go into anything like this.-duck

by mallardtooxx Mar 7, 2003

never mind collin, he is an expert on everything!
just ask him=)

-duck

by maxwell edison Mar 7, 2003

Touche' Mr. Duck.

Well done. Well done indeed.

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

It is not the responsibility of any lawer to tell you how to act it is up to your self and your ethics as to how you behave, that is why I suggested informing the proper authorities as they are the only ones who can investigate ths type of thing properly and if the owner knows nothing about these images he/she has nothing to feer from a police investigation and actually may be proved not involved in any way. It all depends on just how well these are burried. If they are easily accessable then the owner should at least know of their existance and at the very least be passivily allowing this to continue whithout check. Currently Peter Townsend in England is up on similar charges for having this type of images and his defence is he was resurching child abuse for an upcomming book on how to prevent child abuse of any kind. This is not a matter for the lawers but the police or the child protection office {who ever that may be in your area} as these are the only people who will investigate the matter all a lawer will do is to get as much money for themselves as possible at who'e ever expence. You do not have to make a big song and dance about what you have found just report it and allow the proper authorities access to the HDD and any copies that they may require. After all the computer just might belong to someone working in the Child Protection Area and these could be used for education purposes who knows but can you take the risk that they are not? Anyway my ethics are more important to me than a few dollars and I certianly would not want the reputation of being a TAME tech who will do anything for a price!

by maxwell edison Mar 7, 2003

An attorney IS an officer of the court, and if a crime is suspected he or she has an obligation to report it. The difference, however, between reporting it to your attorney and reporting it to the police is that the attorney is also obligated to protect the best interest of the client. Even if it does cost a couple of hundred bucks, which (in my opinion) is doubtful, it's a cheap insurance policy.

by thechas Mar 7, 2003

After you are sure that your business is protected from legal action, check with your local authorities.

I spoke about this with a friend at work who used to work in the repair department at one of the major US PC chain stores.

He remembered asimilar situation that they came across.
As he recalled, the manager contacted the local police.
They assisted the repair department in locking out the drive or files in such a way as to aid the police in collecting evidence to capture the suspectin action AFTER they got their PC back.

This method avoids the issue of when and where the files came from.

Also, the police are usually more concerned with finding and disabling the producers of the material more than the users.
If the user cooperates with the authorities, they may face no, or minimal charges.

Chas

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

But exactly how does a lawer legally obtain another persons computer for you to find out if there is any porn on it? Who are you to say exactly what is porn? Surely this is for the Courts to decide and not some tech, I certianly would want no part of anything like this. I can remember an old movie where there was a naked woman laying on a sofa over a bar in the wild west of the US and it was considered as offensive by all the women of the town who wanted it destroyed. Anyway to cut a long storyshort this painting was actually done by a Great Master and was worth quite a lot of money and when it was discovered exactly what it was everybody in the town wanted it on display. The one thing that stuck in my head was a young child asking words to this effect "Why was I beaten last week for looking at the painting and now you want me to look at it and appericate it?"

Having said that however I believe you are DUTY bound to report any suspected child abuse to the proper authorities, you are not defaming anyone you are simply making a statment of fact that if it involves kiddy porn must be investigated. Or do you want to do as the clergy did all over the world and ignore it until the children grew up and started sueing them?

by hal 9000 Mar 8, 2003

You have to live with yourself so it is up to you to do what you think is right! It is your ethics that are at question here and nothing else what price do you place on your reputation? Well to me thats easy without my reputation I am not the personwho everybody knows and respects even if they don't actually like me. They at least know where I stand on matters relating to professional conduct in business and that has never been questioned in my case. But it is your decission do you sell out your ethics for a few dollars? Personally I couldn't live with myself if I was prepared to do this type of thing particuarlly as it relates to children! It all depends on how you hold your reputation if it has no importance to you well just forget about the whole thing and go on, but if you value your reputation {and that is what brings in the customers anyway} you must do the right thing as you see it! And the pictures had to get there somehow that at the very least must be investigated in some form.

by hal 9000 Mar 8, 2003

A few weeks ago I recieved a computer from an insurance company for a repair report now this machine was a dual processor Xeon with inbuilt SCSi it had 17 drives in all and the whole thing was fried that was obvious from just taking off a cover. Theowners had returned it to the shop where they bought it from only to be told that it had suffered a lighting strike and was not their responsibility so they sent in a claim to their insurance company for the whole computer network all 250 computers.The insurance company was unwilling to believe the explination simply because there had been no lighting strikes for several months prior to this computers failure and it was only a few weeks old so they sent it to me for a report. It all looked correct on first inspection but I then pluged in an ATX Power Supply Tester not expecting anything to happen and when power was applied it blew up in my hands, on further investigation I found that mains power was coming out through all the supply lineseven the CPU supply. Now I could have gone along with the lie and it would have saved me quite a lot of trouble if no one else looked at it but thats not me and I would never consider it. I looked at the power supply and it was unnamed with a ratting of 250W vastly underpowered for what it was expected to do. So I wrote the report blaming the computer maker for the fault and subsquent destruction of all these computers connected to the network as mains power was coming out the network connection which did a lot of damage across the network. Did I want to do this? Hell no it means I will be in a Court for the better part of next year giving evidence against the maker and I don't need that however I can't lie just to protect some fool who doesn't know what they are doing in the first place anyway. At present the total damage is unknown but will run into the millions of dollars just for the hardware.

by hal 9000 Mar 8, 2003

This is just one example where we have to do things we don't like but it all revolves around professional conduct, ethics and reputation if you value these things then there is no question of what you must do. If you don't well you can simply ignorewhat is going on around you but you will not be in business for long or worse you will get a reputation for allowing anything past which will then make you a target for every Government Department to investigate when ever they like. It all depends on your own principals and nothing else and also if you want to remain in business for any length of time and are not out to make a FAST BUCK then sell on the whole mess to some unsuspecting fool who comes along!

by maxwell edison Mar 7, 2003

jul646,

Before you get TOO flattered about being named my favorite poster from the land down under, you should realize that I only know two of you chaps (or should I say one chap and one bloke?) - you and colinluck.

It kinda' keeps things in perspective.

by jardinier Mar 7, 2003

Hi Maxwell. Shouldn't that be "two" flattered as there are only the "too" of us?

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

But personally I think it wrong and inhuman but others out there may have different beliefs. Didn't about 20 people a few years ago in September honestly believe that they where doing the RIGHT THING IN FLYING AIRCRAFT INTO BUILDINGS to me this is inexusable but some think it right they simply don't live in America. It all depends on your prespective dosn't it? Anyway wouldn't it be interesting if I was the one sitting beside you at the moment as I certianly don't know you and I am as sure as hell you could not pick me out if your life depended on it! Any I am loginf off now as the F1 coverage has just started you have to keep things in prespective don't you. I have only been on here wasting a bit of bandwidth while I downloaded SP1 for Xpas when I try to copy from my disk the computer fails and I am getting sick and tired of recovering from the same mess all the time.

LOVE

COLIN

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

To twist the truth to suit their own ends dont they?

by abelnguyen Mar 7, 2003

If I were you, I wouldn't report it.
Yes, it sound immoral, but it's my opinion and here's the reasons:
If you report the incident
1) You will lose a lot of customers, if not all your customers (especially if the customer that you would report gets prosecuted). After all, you open the shop to make money, not to be a police.
2) There's a big risk of being sued: - You access the file without permission from the customer. - The computer is in your shop -> you might be the one who put porn in it. ...
In short, there's many ways they can sue you. You might win those cases, but it will cost you a lot for lawyer fee + you will have to deal with lengthy law suits (a whole mess that you don't want to get involve).
3) By law, process of child porn -> 25 years to life (I am not sure about this)
A few months ago, I read an article about a cop get 10 years in jail because FBI found 300 child porn in his computer (he joined a child porn group in Yahoo). According to the article, the prosecutor threatened that guy to charge him with 25 years jail time for each picture -> he agreed to a 10 years charge without going to trial. While viewing child porn is immoral, I disagree with putting a person to jail for 10 years just because he viewed some pictures.
I mention about this so that you can be aware about the result of reporting. While the customer desire a fine or some jail time, how will you feel if that customer get, let?s say, 5 years jail time (not because of you, yet, because ofyou)?
By the way, how do you know that it?s pre-teen porn if you didn?t at least look at one picture? -> be careful, it might backfire.
(to be continue)

by abelnguyen Mar 7, 2003

Because of those reasons, if I were you, I wouldn?t report. I would ?don?t see, don?t know?. You get paid to fix the computer doesn?t mean you have to look at the content of all the files on the hard drive. Therefore, even that customer get caughtlater on, you won?t be held responsible for not reporting.
About the moral issue, I know my solution sound immoral, but it is common sense. I think the risk of reporting is too high. I don?t see content of those porn files so I don?t know how serious they are. However, if you feel that the customer desire to be prosecuted, you can always report him anonymously after he pick up the system. This way, you and your business are safe.

by thechas Mar 8, 2003

I'm sorry, you are placing dollars over what is the right thing to do.

That in my opinion is one of the major problems in the US at this time.

Too many people, politicians, and companies are placing profits ahead of what is the right thing to do.

Now, if the staff at ladytech's shop is searching through the PC's that they work on to see what is on them, that is a side issue.

However, if in the course of repairing a PC, you stumble across ANY evidence of illegal activity, you have anobligation as a HUMAN BEING to at least contact someone in authority about the issue.

Even if the owner of the PC had merely downloaded the images, there is still a child somewhere that was exploited to create the image.

People with child pornpictures on their PCs are not automatically charged and prosecuted.
They are often given the chance to help the authorities find and arrest those responsible for creating and distributing the filth.

Even if the PC owner is going to be charged, the police FIRST have to build a solid case against them.
Getting a look at the PC before it is returned to the customer, allows the police to know where to look.

While it may be true that not every person who views child porn will molest a child,the vast majority of child molesters viewed child porn before they started molesting children.

If the prospect of a few dollars of profit is more important than preventing a child from being abused, we as a society are in VERY SAD shape indeed.
Chas

by oldefar Mar 7, 2003

I understand your points, but believe on closer consideration they fail to hold up.

1)Loss of customers - I have not found a single report of a shop losing customers because of having reported child pornography to authorities. Will the shop seekmedia attention about their action? Will the individual seek media attention? The answer to both is no. Even an individual whose files were reported but was innocent (not child porn, or not his) is unlikely to want the situation to be public. Common sense would say that at worst, you lose that individual as a customer.
2) Risk of being sued. Sued for what? The tech came across what appeared to be child porn while doing work he was contracted to do. The tech reported the existance of thefiles to proper authority, an action required by US and apparently Australian law. No accusation, just a report. I have found no instance of where a person who reported suspected evidence of a criminal act being sued for reporting the evidence to authorities. If you can reference a particular instance, I stand corrected.
3) How would you feel about an individual who does time because you reported evidence of the crime? Let me ask a better question. How would you feel about a many childrenmolested or raped because you refused to report evidence that would have led authorities to taking the molester or rapist off the street? How would you feel if it was your child molested or raped?

by hal 9000 Mar 8, 2003

More to the point how would this person feel if he/she where held up at gun point in a crowded street and robbed and no one came forward to help the police? Would he/she be happy with this situation? I certianly would not. I have never heard of a case of anybody being sued for reporting a fact to the authorities but you may find an obscure incident but I would guess that it was a malicious report that lead to the court action. It is your Moral and Legal responsibility to report any criminal activity to the proper authorities. I am a Microsoft Partner and I have no problem with reporting to MS any pirate software that comes into my hands on computers that I repair/reload. Actually in every case that I have reported MS is not so concerned with the end user but where they actually got the software from in the first place and they go after the suppliers. I don't know if MS is still doing this however a few months ago at least MS where running adds encouraging people who thought that they had pirate software to report it to MS and if they could provide proof that they bought it from a shop they where given geninue software to replace the pirate stuff and then MS investigated the supplier. At least every 2 weeks I recieve an Enforcement Alert from MS where they have investigated and then instigated court action against some shop or other party and I have never lost a customer over this. And anyway if my customers where the pirates themselves I simply don't want them as customers Iam not that desperate for money to break the Law nor do I support others breaking the same laws. It seems to me that who ever says don't report it wants their cake and eat it to you can't have it both ways you have to make a stand somewhere and it only enhances your reputation if you or your shop is beyond reproch!

by hal 9000 Mar 8, 2003

How would this person feel if they where held up at gun point in a busy street and robbed and when the Police asked noone came forward to help th ePolice? This is not a question of possible legal action against a business it is a question of your responsibilities as a citizen. I believe that most Americians take an Oath of Allegence at school well what does that mean? I want to live here and enjoy the benifits without any of the inconveniences? Sorry it just doesn't work that way, and by reporting the matter unless the business openly goes out and tells everybody who will know? The police certianly won't tell! You swear o uphold the laws of your country but at the first oportinuty you simply chose to ignore them I think that says more about the person rather than the people of the country in general! From personal experience I have on numerious occasions reported pirate software to MS when it comes into my hands with computer repairs/reloads and in every case MS is not so interested in the End User but where they got the software from in the first place. Until recently MS was replacing any pirate software with geninue software when people reported it to MS and provided proof that they had unknownlly bought pirate software. And MSdoesn't reward me in any way what so ever for reporting this so I get no benifit from it other than only dealing with the real product. At least every 2 weeks I recieve an Enforcment Alert where MS has investigated along with the Feds and brought action against companies dealing in pirate software. I have never had a complaint bought against me for this pratice and I never will as I am not making any allegations against people I am just reporting fact for which no action can be brought against me. If everybody was to stop supporting the Police in policing the existing Laws nothing would ever get done to prevent crime.

by hereinoz Mar 8, 2003

I am in total agreement with what Oldefar and Colin are saying. If we just sit on our hands and say "it will affect my business so I will do nothing", what does that make us? No better than the porn people. The authorities are pretty good at sorting out what has gone on, and I would be somewhat aggrieved if my child was attacked by a child molester, and I found out that the person's computer had been in this situation and the repair shop had not reported it.
Yes, I know that many people whodownload porn do only that, and don't go out molesting children, and the possibility is there that they inadvertently stumbled on the site and had a string of breeding browser windows that they couldn't close. This is where you come in, Colin - in this case they probably wouldn't know that the files were still there, and there wouldn't be many of them. But if the stuff is there in reasonable quantities, and it is illegal, then that tends to point to consistent use of the sites, and ought to be checked out.
I suppose if it were a meek mild local shopkeeper who owned the machine you might approach it differently than if it were owned by a 120Kg Hells Angel, but Oldefar is spot on when he says to think it through, and decide on the best course of action, possibly in consultation with a lawyer.
Hell of a good topic - thank you

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

However a lawer can and does twist the truth or facts to suit their own ends and don't believe me look up the Australian Government Web Site and follow the lonks to the High Court Transcripts then look up the Australian Government Vs Waterside Workers it was a few years ago now and there are hundreds of pages but what was funny at the time was the Barristers and QC's {sorry but I don't know the US equivelent} nearly came to blows about who they where actually representing on I think day 3 of the proceedings as they simply did not know. But what was more interesting was a coment from the presiding Judge where a QC had used an argument about 1 month previously and arguded for a different outcome, when the Judge picked up on this and questioned him he simply claimed not to remember and that he would have to go and look up his records. The Judge explained the case when it happened and actually told this QC what he had said that was the exact oppisit of what he was now saying he even got the balif to produce transcripts of the actual case so that there did not have to be a postponment of the ongoing action. Now these are not your garden variety Lawers who you find in nearly every suburb doing wills and the like they are specalists whoare paid accordingly and in all cases several thousand dollars per day. So if one of these people can take the same facts and argue on two different accasions for a different outcome to suit their current client what hope is there for the rest of us? Yes the legal people are Officers of the Court but they approch their duties in a very inconsistent manner or at least what is in the best interests of their current clients.

by hal 9000 Mar 7, 2003

Anyway not being an "expert" on these matters today I rang my cousin who is a QC {Queens Council} and asked him how he would proceed and he told me that any Loyal Citizen of a Country has to at the very least inform the authorities in the first instance and if they stick to the facts and only the facts as well as providing all the required help to that agence they can in no way be held responsible for any adverse outcomes. As far as my picking on Americians well you are just plain wrong, if youwhere to accuse me of picking on child abusers I would willingly plead guilty on every instance but it is the authorities who are the only agencies who have the resources to investigate these matters and it could be that a simple look at the pictures is all they need as there might be nothing Leagly wrong with them, sometimes people see porn where it doesn't exist like a newsagant who was proscuted for selling posters of the statue DAVID as one old woman made a complaint and the investigating officer considered male nudity offensive. Any Police could not fuction without public input as there are simply too few officers to police the existing laws even taking into account no other activities that would require them to do other duties that under normal circumstances they would not perform {read that as being on a heightened alert for terristorts activity and guarding public infrastructure.} If the public neve approched the police to help them but only to report crimes against themselvesthere is no way these departments could fuction let alone catch any persons intent upon causing trouble for others. In almost every case where someone is arrested and charged it originally came from a member of the public freely giving information to the Police who then had to gather the evidence to prove the person inocent or guilty of any offence.

by maxwell edison Mar 8, 2003

First of all, I too believe it should be reported, just in case there is a crime – such a horrendous crime - being committed, but through a channel that protects my business and my self-interest at the same time. Contrary to what you’ve said about lawyers, they are indeed officers of the court, and as such they have an obligation to report a suspected crime. Whether it gets reported to the police (or whatever other authority) by me personally or by me through my lawyer is immaterial.

And you did GIVE legal advice/opinion as compared to the suggestion of SEEKING legal advice/opinion. For example, you said, “We are required by LAW to report this type of thing” and there is a, “Legal Duty to report this kind of thing”. That sounds like legal advice to me. I would think that only a law expert would know such a thing – a lawyer, police officer, etc. You went on to say, “Saying that the business has some how entered into a contract with a customer to protect the customer from criminal activity is just silly.” An important note is that this is “suspected” criminal activity.

(continued...)

by maxwell edison Mar 8, 2003

A business does indeed enter into a contract with its customers – an implied contract – to fulfill a fiduciary duty to the customer. And if, for example, this was reported directly to the police, the customer was arrested and his computer confiscated, but it was later determined to be legal activity, then that customer would have every right to sue the socks off that business. (And that “could” be possible under the explanation of the “virtual” porn decision.) A person does, after all, have the right to seek monetary damages for a detrimental outcome that was caused by others negligence – regardless of whether or not the intentions were honorable. Even if this kind of lawsuit lacked merit, a personcould lose tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and lost business defending him or her self. I’d rather pay an attorney an “insurance premium” of a couple of hundred bucks to make sure my best interest is covered.

You further said, “working for lawers (sic) is a line I personally don't care to cross.” and you would, “tell the Lawers (sic) where to get off.” And you went on to say, “It is not the responsibility of any lawer (sic) to tell you how to act.” You say, “keep the Lawers (sic) out.”

Well I say it is in one’s best interest to bring in a lawyer – to represent things in your behalf. And it is indeed the responsibility of a lawyer to tell one how to act. What a lamebrain thing to say. You obviously have a very negative view of lawyers, and granted, many of them – but not all - are snakes. But it’s in a business’s best interest to have a lawyer on retainer; it’s a cost of doing business; and contrary to your negative views, these business layers DO INDEED look out for their client’s best interest. But it’s not hard for me to see why

by maxwell edison Mar 8, 2003

But it’s not hard for me to see why you think otherwise. You have proven to be quite the contrarian.

by maxwell edison Mar 8, 2003

My bottom line is to suggest that this person report a possible crime to her attorney, an officer of the court, who is duty-bound to report any suspected criminal activity, and let the attorney – with all his or her legal expertise – decide whether or not to take it to the next step, all the while acting in the best behalf of his or her client. If this person’s business attorney is not capable or agreeable to this, I’d suggest that she find a new attorney.

And by the way, here’s another stupid thing you said. If you handed me a signed blank check, you can bet your ass that I could – and perhaps would – fill in an amount and cash it. You handed it to me. You signed it. You left it up to me to fill in an amount. There’s no crime or deception on my part, only stupidity on yours.

Good luck, LadyTech

by hal 9000 Mar 8, 2003

Something throgh to you, at least you read the entire thing about a signed blank check its a pitty however that you couldn't read the whole thing about what I said in relation to manadatory reporting and I am sure you will be the first to complain if I don't get it word perfect but it would take about an hour to read the entire thing all over againg these 1930 characther blocks are just too small. What I did say was something to the effect of "Here in Australia it is manadatory to report suspected child abuse however the laws maybe different over there" I was under the impression that the Lady who first posed this question was in the US however that could be wrong. If you accept that it is foolish to hand out blank signed checkes how can you not see how dangerious it is to let your data out of your control as often home computers are used for on line banking and the like if not for a small business this information is far more dangerious than a few blank checkes as if there is not enough money in the account they simply won't pay however with a constant link to somebody's bank account you could empty it at every opportinuty before they where to collect their pay as well as run up bills on thier credit cards you could have virtually unlimited access to this account. At present there is a case in England where the banks are trying to surpress evidence of just how insecure their systems actually are and it's some poor blokes Thesis for his PHD that they are trying to quash. Yesyou are right a business does enter into an implied contract with a customer to perform a service what ever that may be and in this case it was a computer repair/service but the company does not in any way agree to protect the customer from any potential criminal activity that they may come across in doing the repair job. If they where to access a bank account and withdraw money they would be wrong and lible for litergation.

by hal 9000 Mar 8, 2003

However only an insane person would believe that any company should treat its customers with greater protection than they are granted themselves. Next time you take your car in for a service look on the wlll you will see a sigh the reads something like this "All care taken but no responsibility" basicly they agree to take every step to look after the car but are not responsible if it is stolen or smashed in a road test. Any properly legaly qualified person would be the first to say it is best for you to make the initial contact as by going through a lawer you are drawing unnecessary attention to yourself because it is immediatly assumed that you have something to hide and you need the lawers protection. {eg you are guilty}. An inicoent person has nothing to fear from this type of interview and it looks better coming from the owner of the business anyway. But really do you believe that a person would be arrested and charged soly on the strength of a few pictures without any supporting evidence? If that is possible you are difently living in the wrong place as from my understanding a person is presumed inocent until proved guilty and the onus is on the {I think DA in the US} to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt. Of course if there was a prior history of this type of thing it would all be different wouldn't it? No person could be arrsted without any supporting evidence as it is not possible to prove they are responsible for the contents of the HDD. However if I was to findthat type of thing on one of my computers I would be the first going to the Police and complaining I would at the very least want to know where it came from and who put it there. Anyway by making a report you are not accusing anyone of anything you are simply reporting a incontratible fact as the pictures are there it is up to the police or whoever to investigate exactly how they got there then take steps.

by hal 9000 Mar 8, 2003

Anyway there is a listing from Oldfar towards the bottom of this page that you just might find interesting however you may consider him as mad as me I really don't know and worse still I don't care. At the moment I am probably in a better position to talk about these things because I associate with disreputable types {Polies and QC's} so I have someone to ask if I am not sure of something but again I stress I am only refering to Australian Law and in no way have I made any attempt to state Americian Law but I believe it to be something similar as the US Government has ratified teh International Treaty on the Rights of The Child so there can't be too many differences. And actually I am looking at spending the next year in court over a multimillion dollar screw up by a computer builder who caused an entire network to collaspe and be destroyed. I could have gone along with the lie it certianly would have been easier but then again I am too professional for that and I do value my reputation so while I am not happy about what is going to happen it is all part of the job you have to take the good with the bad.

by jardinier Mar 8, 2003

Hi Colin, in my experience anyone who is gullible enough to use Internet Banking deserves to be ripped off.
I initially connected accounts with St George, ANZ and Commonwealth to the Internet. Shortly afterwards, the first two of these banks would not allow me to access my account without agreeing to a disclaimer absolving the bank from liability in the event of breaches of security.
A week later there was a story in the newspaper stating that a significant number of St George customers hadexperienced security breaches.
I understand the banks have now set a limit on liability to the user in the event of security breaches, but Iwouldn't trust them as far as I can sneeze.
And why are the banks pushing for Internet Banking. Well firstly the customer has to pay $AU 2,000 to acquire a computer to access the service, and from the bank's end, computers don't draw wages, may occasionally take sick leave, don't get pregnant and couldn't sue for unfair dismissal.

And all this long before you think of trading in your computer with info still on the hard drive.

by jardinier Mar 8, 2003

Dear Vickie. If you have had the patience and time to read through all these postings, you will have observed that points of view have been presented from all colours in the spectrum of opinion, and all (except the ones that got right off the track)have been sincere attempts to lead you to the best decision.

So I would suggest that you are now left with two options:

The cheap one: flip a coin.
The not so cheap one: consult a lawyer.

I am sure that I can speak for all members who havesubmitted postings in hoping that this very complex discussion has helped you to decide upon the most appropriate course of action in the particular situation which you are facing.

by 1stladytech Mar 8, 2003

Yes, I have been following and reading this discussion group with great interest. I have started to make comments several times, but have refrained until now to see where the threads would lead. It is a very complex legal and moral issue that I have evidentially hit a nerve with. I did not expect this much activity when I made the original post. But I am very glad to see the points, debate and various viewpoints aired here, at least as a group of people in the computer tech/repair field, ithas hopefully made a few stop and think about what to do when faced with a similar situation.

I have not flipped a coin, I have consulted with a lawyer (yes, I am in the US), and will contact a member of the local clergy groups next week to have a chat with them about what may/may not be happening. In the strictest since of the word, the images that I saw (no I did not go through the rest of the HDD to find out if there were others) might not be construed as child porn as the young girls where not involved in actual sex acts. This is why I decided to go to a member of the local clergy group, there is a mixed member group from all denominations here, I guess that I feel the need to alert people that are in the position to monitor this individual that there might be something to watch for or keep from developing.

by 1stladytech Mar 8, 2003

I have not accused, charged, or filed anything against anyone, that is not my place. But I have made it known to the proper authorities. Additionally, the files in question just "happened" to be on a spot on the hdd that I could not read or recover properly. There were not included in the data that was emplaced back onto his new hdd. If there was a legitimate reason for these images, he might contact me to see if any of them could be recovered, if he is aware/ashamed of these images he willnever call or ask me about them.

By doing the above actions, I have tried to strike a balance between what is legal/moral and makes business sense for our community and business. I hope that everyone that participated in this discussion startsto think about this and develop policies to address it, both as independent shops and as part of staff IT departments in larger organizations. It would be naive to expect to never be in my situation, like it or not you will eventually have a similar dilemma facing you at some point in your career.

My thanks and appreciation for all who have aired their thoughts and opinions here, you have greatly helped validate my own position and responses.

Vickie

by jardinier Mar 8, 2003

Hi Colin. A particular posting suggested that you have too much to say. Be that as it may, the example you have presented here indicates that 100 per cent ethical behaviour is your priority, and you are to be commended for it. It is also quite an awesome example of business malpractive which has landed in your lap, and hopefully when the case goes to court it will be widely publicised so as to (a) deter other unscrupulous people from trying to pull off such a major con, and (b) inspire people at managerial level to thoroughly check out what they are buying before they part with their money.

So as long as you've got something worth saying to share, then keep talking (posting).