What do you do about the PORN ?

~~Meztiso~~ · 09-01-2006, 09:34 AM

Did my first on-site computer repair and had some situations (see my other thread). This one is more "minor", but still left me wondering what to do.

The customer said they had some "work" photos they needed backed-up, so I was browsing their hardrive looking for them and "BAM!" there's the porn.

And not just "boobie" porn either, but hard-core porn that (I think) might even have been "home-made".

Luckily the customer was looking at a baseball game in the other room at time moment, so I quickly closed the window and tried (desparately) to figure out how I was going to identify "work" photos (photos of structures under construction) without having lurid porn spread all over the monitor while the customer (who came back 30 seconds later) was sitting right there.

I did NOT want to be in some stranger's house, sitting next to him while we look at porn together. Nor would I like this situation repeated. The question is how to avoid it ?

What I did (or tried to do) is navigate to the next level of folder which contained both the "work photos" and "(porn)" directories and tried to copy them to my 1 Gbyte USB thumbdrive. (I had the idea that I would then burn a CD.)

Problem is that the Folder was about 3.5 Gbyte in size, and I had no blank DVD's.

There was no way I was going to be able to get the entire folder backed-up, nor was I about to peruse the various images while the (male) customer decided which ones he did & didn't want.

Luckily, the situation was "side-stepped" because I got the system booting reliably and was able to leave it to the customer to be able to deal with his photos by himself.

But it got me wondering. Seems like this might not be so rare. I've found questionable stuff in my temporary internet files that just "shows up", but what do you do when the customer has it in their "My Documents" (or other places) folders ?

Guess maybe this is a pretty broad question, but really, how do you deal with this as a computer repair professional.

Guess if you are doing the work "in house" you could just ignore it all, but what do you do when you are "on site" and (worse) the customer is RIGHT THERE ????

yustr · 09-01-2006, 09:58 AM

What should you do? In a word: Nothing!

Your job is to fix the machine. Not be the Nancy Reagan of the repair business. In fact, if I ran a repair business, the word Discretion would be prominent in my ads. Face it, if it weren't for porn and porn sites, 90% of PC problems would go away.

Now, it’s a tougher question if you happen to see illegal material (you can make up your own definition of illegal). Do you have an obligation to report it? Take it out of porn and put it into another context: what if you see evidence of credit card fraud? Are you obligated to report that? I think the answer is yes, you are.

But, its your business and you are the only one who has to feel comfortable afterwards. Do what you think is right.

**Cellus** · 09-01-2006, 10:05 AM

It is unfortunately a more common experience than one may think to find "kid-unsafe" material on a client's machine. Generally you should do nothing with such occurences, as the machine is their property and what they do in their own time is their own business.

The exception to this rule is if you find evidence that explicitly implicates the owner in a heinous crime. In this case, at the very least for your own safety, is to leave the premises and inform the police. Luckily the chances of this happening is low, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Volt-Schwibe · 09-01-2006, 10:35 AM

i've encountered this myself, and let me tell you, it's VERY VERY awkward.

i normally say something like "woah" and then ask them to point me to the pictures that they NEED to keep.

i tell them pretty bluntly, they are paying me for rescuing data, and if the porn is that important, i'll save it too, but at the same rate.

at which point they normally decide that the porn isn't important enough to pay me to save.

~~Meztiso~~ · 09-01-2006, 11:15 AM

Yeah, I hadn't thought that far; what to do if it's (obviously) illegal imagery. Gotta be ready for that one, I guess.

And maybe that's the whole issue for me, is that I wasn't ready for it. I really was looking for pictures of construction sites, and BAM !

Plus the customer was a bit of a wing-nut. Place smelled bad (like animals), was cluttered, it was dark outside and I was tired from working all day. So yeah, the "suddeness" of it's appearance plus my lack of preparation for it.

Quote:

i tell them pretty bluntly, they are paying me for rescuing data, and if the porn is that important, i'll save it too, but at the same rate

Volt, is the context here in your "shop" or on-site ? And it sounds like you are charging per-unit of data. I was thinking of it as a big dumping operation, a "one size fits all". Are you charging to save data by the megabyte on-site ?

Volt-Schwibe · 09-01-2006, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meztiso

Volt, is the context here in your "shop" or on-site ? And it sounds like you are charging per-unit of data. I was thinking of it as a big dumping operation, a "one size fits all". Are you charging to save data by the megabyte on-site ?

have laptop, will travel :p

here's the scenario.

i show up with a laptop, and a portable usb enclosure... i take their hard disk from within their pc, and load it into the usb enclosure, and proceed to do a search for the data that needs to be salvaged. when i find said data, i prepare it in clumps to be burned to cd's. this is all metered by the clock.

now, it's a given, that the more they want saved, the more time it will take. and, at the same time, if they don't know where the pics are, then it's going to be a slow tedious job while i sort it all out. (still being metered by a clock) however if they know exactly where the pics they want are, then we can go right to them and get them burned, and this can take as little as a half hour.

i don't discriminate against porn, it's all data to me, and it's not my place to attempt to identify if something is illegal or not. (however, if it's obviously child porn, then that changes things, ALOT. thankfully, that's a situation i haven't found myself in, YET.)

in "shop" all of this is much much faster, and therefore going to cost less, but still the exact same rules apply.

the most fun i ever had, was when someone brought me a hard disk from a machine that had crashed, and they wanted it all burned to cd. there was 12 gigs of porn, and less than 1 gig of other data...

rather than sort through it, i just left it clumped all together, and handed them their stack of cd's, and told them "it's all there, you are going to have a blast sorting it all out."

**PanamaGal** · 09-02-2006, 02:59 AM

I will not go through pornographic material. If I see any porno, I stop and tell the customer I'll be happy to do whatever they require, provided I don't have to look at the stuff. I generally do not change customer's backgrounds or screen savers, but if they are porn I do, and I let them know I did it, and they usually don't have a problem with that. I'm not judging them, I'm merely maintaining my moral standards. We all have that right.

~~Meztiso~~ · 09-03-2006, 09:11 PM

Yesterday I was at a "family friend's" house, to show them how to burn the music they have downloaded to CD.

On the machine I spent about 12 hours fixing FOR FREE (loaded with malware) I discover they have the thing FILLED with crap 30 days later.

Rather than fight with a slow machine to teach them how to burn CD's (for free), I started deleting and uninstalling anything that annoyed me. And let them know it, too.

Gave them the "virus definition" lecture ("An outdated virus definition file is only slightly better than no anti-virus protection at all") and let them know about bundled crapware that comes in with goodies like yahoo toolbar and weatherbug.

While I was cahnging everything in their computer, LOL.

It's okay, in 30 days they'll have it back to the way they like it...

**Cellus** · 09-03-2006, 10:09 PM

As an aside, any user data that is arbitrarily deleted should be cleared or at the very least noted with the client first. I say user data as in data the user chose to create/acquire for their benefit.

Many times you'd have cleared their computer of junk only to have them scream back at you wondering what you did with their Yahoo! toolbar. Better to clear the air beforehand than after. They usually will not care just how much effort you had to go through to get their system operational again, only that their free smiley cursor is there or they will reacquire it again. Telling them what they shouldn't have on their machine will usually stop them.

As a shameless plug I prefer to install SpywareBlaster on desktops. It stops a significant chunk of spyware and requires next to no user interaction to work (install it, update it, enable it, leave it). It doesn't even need to run in the background.

http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

infused · 09-04-2006, 12:47 AM

I've done .... well over 2000 now onsite services. I come across this %99 of the time. Porn is just a natural thing. Don't be embarrased about it. I actually bring it up with alot of clients if they are there, they don't normally have a problem with it. They trust you.

If you don't wish to bring it up, don't.

I don't care how hardcore it is... unless it was child porno or something I would not do anything about it.

Normally though I can spot it before I open it and don't even bother opening it.

It is the first challange of running your own business I found to deal with peoples trust. Most people normally tell me before hand if they have porn on their computer. Personally, I have no problem with - some people might however.

09-01-2006, 09:34 AM	#1 (permalink)
~~Meztiso~~ Register user Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 341 OS: WinXP Home	What do you do about the PORN ? Did my first on-site computer repair and had some situations (see my other thread). This one is more "minor", but still left me wondering what to do. The customer said they had some "work" photos they needed backed-up, so I was browsing their hardrive looking for them and "BAM!" there's the porn. And not just "boobie" porn either, but hard-core porn that (I think) might even have been "home-made". Luckily the customer was looking at a baseball game in the other room at time moment, so I quickly closed the window and tried (desparately) to figure out how I was going to identify "work" photos (photos of structures under construction) without having lurid porn spread all over the monitor while the customer (who came back 30 seconds later) was sitting right there. I did NOT want to be in some stranger's house, sitting next to him while we look at porn together. Nor would I like this situation repeated. The question is how to avoid it ? What I did (or tried to do) is navigate to the next level of folder which contained both the "work photos" and "(porn)" directories and tried to copy them to my 1 Gbyte USB thumbdrive. (I had the idea that I would then burn a CD.) Problem is that the Folder was about 3.5 Gbyte in size, and I had no blank DVD's. There was no way I was going to be able to get the entire folder backed-up, nor was I about to peruse the various images while the (male) customer decided which ones he did & didn't want. Luckily, the situation was "side-stepped" because I got the system booting reliably and was able to leave it to the customer to be able to deal with his photos by himself. But it got me wondering. Seems like this might not be so rare. I've found questionable stuff in my temporary internet files that just "shows up", but what do you do when the customer has it in their "My Documents" (or other places) folders ? Guess maybe this is a pretty broad question, but really, how do you deal with this as a computer repair professional. Guess if you are doing the work "in house" you could just ignore it all, but what do you do when you are "on site" and (worse) the customer is RIGHT THERE ????

09-01-2006, 09:58 AM	#2 (permalink)
yustr Asst. Manager, The Conversation Pit Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Connecticut shore/California Desert Posts: 4,876 OS: PCLinuxOS, XP Pro My System	What should you do? In a word: Nothing! Your job is to fix the machine. Not be the Nancy Reagan of the repair business. In fact, if I ran a repair business, the word Discretion would be prominent in my ads. Face it, if it weren't for porn and porn sites, 90% of PC problems would go away. Now, it’s a tougher question if you happen to see illegal material (you can make up your own definition of illegal). Do you have an obligation to report it? Take it out of porn and put it into another context: what if you see evidence of credit card fraud? Are you obligated to report that? I think the answer is yes, you are. But, its your business and you are the only one who has to feel comfortable afterwards. Do what you think is right. __________________ I didn't mean to say it. But I meant what I said. J. McMurtry In Vino Veritas

09-01-2006, 10:05 AM	#3 (permalink)
Cellus Moderator Networking Team Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 2,633 OS: Windows Vista Business SP1, Windows XP Professional SP3 My System	It is unfortunately a more common experience than one may think to find "kid-unsafe" material on a client's machine. Generally you should do nothing with such occurences, as the machine is their property and what they do in their own time is their own business. The exception to this rule is if you find evidence that explicitly implicates the owner in a heinous crime. In this case, at the very least for your own safety, is to leave the premises and inform the police. Luckily the chances of this happening is low, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Last edited by Cellus : 09-01-2006 at 10:07 AM.

09-01-2006, 10:35 AM	#4 (permalink)
Volt-Schwibe Asst. Manager, Automotive Forums; HJT Trainee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Behind you, watching you as you type. Posts: 7,242 OS: Click "My System" to view details My System	i've encountered this myself, and let me tell you, it's VERY VERY awkward. i normally say something like "woah" and then ask them to point me to the pictures that they NEED to keep. i tell them pretty bluntly, they are paying me for rescuing data, and if the porn is that important, i'll save it too, but at the same rate. at which point they normally decide that the porn isn't important enough to pay me to save. __________________ <signature> TSF is funded by our Admin's pocket, care to help? New Members: Subscribe to your thread (Thread Tools) to receive an instant email notification when you get a reply. Power Tip: Creating a single new thread in the correct section is the best way to assure your thread will receive a reply. </signature>

09-02-2006, 02:59 AM	#7 (permalink)
PanamaGal Mentor Hardware Team Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Panama Posts: 1,240 OS: WinXP Pro SP2; Windows Server 2003; Windows Vista Ultimate; Vista Business	I will not go through pornographic material. If I see any porno, I stop and tell the customer I'll be happy to do whatever they require, provided I don't have to look at the stuff. I generally do not change customer's backgrounds or screen savers, but if they are porn I do, and I let them know I did it, and they usually don't have a problem with that. I'm not judging them, I'm merely maintaining my moral standards. We all have that right. __________________ It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

09-03-2006, 09:11 PM	#8 (permalink)
~~Meztiso~~ Register user Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 341 OS: WinXP Home	Changing things without the Customers Premission... Yesterday I was at a "family friend's" house, to show them how to burn the music they have downloaded to CD. On the machine I spent about 12 hours fixing FOR FREE (loaded with malware) I discover they have the thing FILLED with crap 30 days later. Rather than fight with a slow machine to teach them how to burn CD's (for free), I started deleting and uninstalling anything that annoyed me. And let them know it, too. Gave them the "virus definition" lecture ("An outdated virus definition file is only slightly better than no anti-virus protection at all") and let them know about bundled crapware that comes in with goodies like yahoo toolbar and weatherbug. While I was cahnging everything in their computer, LOL. It's okay, in 30 days they'll have it back to the way they like it...

09-03-2006, 10:09 PM	#9 (permalink)
Cellus Moderator Networking Team Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 2,633 OS: Windows Vista Business SP1, Windows XP Professional SP3 My System	As an aside, any user data that is arbitrarily deleted should be cleared or at the very least noted with the client first. I say user data as in data the user chose to create/acquire for their benefit. Many times you'd have cleared their computer of junk only to have them scream back at you wondering what you did with their Yahoo! toolbar. Better to clear the air beforehand than after. They usually will not care just how much effort you had to go through to get their system operational again, only that their free smiley cursor is there or they will reacquire it again. Telling them what they shouldn't have on their machine will usually stop them. As a shameless plug I prefer to install SpywareBlaster on desktops. It stops a significant chunk of spyware and requires next to no user interaction to work (install it, update it, enable it, leave it). It doesn't even need to run in the background. http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html __________________ TSF Networking Team HijackThis 5 Step Process Donate!

09-04-2006, 12:47 AM	#10 (permalink)
infused Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 18 OS: WinXP	I've done .... well over 2000 now onsite services. I come across this %99 of the time. Porn is just a natural thing. Don't be embarrased about it. I actually bring it up with alot of clients if they are there, they don't normally have a problem with it. They trust you. If you don't wish to bring it up, don't. I don't care how hardcore it is... unless it was child porno or something I would not do anything about it. Normally though I can spot it before I open it and don't even bother opening it. It is the first challange of running your own business I found to deal with peoples trust. Most people normally tell me before hand if they have porn on their computer. Personally, I have no problem with - some people might however.