FBI Pays Geek Squad Techs To Snoop On Customer Computers-($500 for Pedo picture)

The FBI has a relationship with Geek squad. They will pay for illegal pedo info from customers computers, something the Geek squad is legally obligated to do anyway. This turns the "I found something" to actively searching computers for pay, something that would require a search warrant.

The FBI can't take short cuts, this guy will walk becasue of short cuts.


"Trey" a geek squad employee discovered a picture of child porn on a computer. Good right? Maybe not.

According to court records, Geek Squad technician John “Trey” Westphal, an FBI informant, reported he accidentally located on Rettenmaier’s computer an image of “a fully nude, white prepubescent female on her hands and knees on a bed, with a brown choker-type collar around her neck.” Westphal notified his boss, Justin Meade, also an FBI informant, who alerted colleague Randall Ratliff, another FBI informant at Best Buy, as well as the FBI. Claiming the image met the definition of child pornography

According to law the employee is required to report the illicit picture to the police. The problem starts when Trey gets paid $500 for the digging around the customers computer.

Not necessarily a problem, considering companies performing computer/electronic device repair are legally required to report discovered child porn to law enforcement. The difference here is the paycheck. This Geek Squad member had been paid $500 for digging around in customers’ computers and reporting his findings to the FBI. That changes the motivation from legal obligation to a chance to earn extra cash by digging around in files not essential to the repair work at hand.

When Trey suddenly gets paid by the FBI and the FBI has a liaison with Best Buy suggests the searches are not really a private "I found it while working on a customers computer" anymore. It is a situation that should have had a warrant. Got to do this right, or people who do this stuff will walk.

www.technocracy.news...
The “private search” issue is mentioned briefly in OC Weekly’s report, but should be examined more closely. Private searches are acceptable, but the introduction of cash payments, as well as the FBI having an official liaison with Best Buy suggests the searches aren’t really “private.” Instead, the FBI appears to be using private searches to route around warrant requirements. That’s not permissible and even the FBI’s belief that going after the “worst of worst” isn’t going to be enough to salvage these warrantless searches.

a reply to: seasonal

Somebody else made a thread similar to this last week.

Pedophiles are walking free left and right because the FBI won't cover its bases.

wait....this is great......so how does this keep the Freak Squad from putting it there so they can collect the money? Seems like the perfect opportunity for mass smearage.

originally posted by: tribal
wait....this is great......so how does this keep the Freak Squad from putting it there so they can collect the money? Seems like the perfect opportunity for mass smearage.

the file would be dated. they could prove it was added later. but i hear the point, the openings for abuse are many

a reply to: tribal

I didn't even think of that angle. I'm sure there are safe guards put in place blah blah blah.

If there is money to be made, you are right someone will find a way to exploit a poorly designed system at lightning speed. And as for pinning this on some poor customer, they won't even miss a wink of sleep.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

I agree that he FBI needs to cross tees and dot i's.

My Sister used to do Computer Forensics for a District Attorney's office. She told me about a Trojan that would allow a pedophile to store their images on another person's computer. The person with the computer would not even know that they were there. She was able to prevent a person from being charged because this Trojan was on their computer.

a reply to: dashen

the file would be dated. they could prove it was added later.

The date could be set to an older time when it is installed. The file system dates are not reliable.

a reply to: JIMC5499

Good luck getting your reputation back. May as well plan on moving to a different country. Can you imagine trying to get a job and the company does a web search?

a reply to: dashen

I'm no expert but file attributes can easily be changed, or is there still a "trace"

Whenever I have to take my computer in for repair, I remove the hard drive.

Geek Squad wouldn't accept my computer for repair because the couldn't run diagnostics on it without a disk drive.

All I needed was for them to resolder & straighten the power receptacle on the motherboard, no need for any disk.

Guess they didn't want the business if they couldn't snoop.

ganjoa

Can't they just put child porn on your computer and claim it's yours for the extra cash from Uncle Sam?

a reply to: seasonal

This was kept internal. Nobody knew except for the people involved. No media.

My favorite was the couple who took video of themselves having sex while they were both 16. They took their computer in for repairs and a nosy tech found the video. At the time they were both 24 and had been married for 6 years. They actually tried to prosecute the man for statutory rape. A Judge threw it out.

And suddenly "the Russians did it" changes to "best buy did it".

And yes, it will always leave a trace. I do data forensics and I can tell you exactly when a file was downloaded or cached in a system. Certain aspects can't be changed for the file system. They couldn't plant it without leaving a "time stamp".

But the pay to search thing is a blatant work around by the fbi to get info without a warrant. I would hesitate to think they are solely asking to have child porn reported.

My thought is that it is more likely every system that comes in has the drive cloned or uploaded to the FBI for them to mine any info they can from everyone around.

originally posted by: dashen

originally posted by: tribal
wait....this is great......so how does this keep the Freak Squad from putting it there so they can collect the money? Seems like the perfect opportunity for mass smearage.

the file would be dated. they could prove it was added later. but i hear the point, the openings for abuse are many

That can be easily manipulated by just downloading free software for it an do it i bulk even.
www.howtogeek.com...

Whether you need to hide your recent activity on a computer or if you need to synchronize file dates, using BulkFileChanger is the best way to adjust the creation, access, or modification dates and times of files or folders.

No tech savy needed for it.

originally posted by: roadgravel
a reply to: dashen

the file would be dated. they could prove it was added later.

The date could be set to an older time when it is installed. The file system dates are not reliable.

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: dashen

I'm no expert but file attributes can easily be changed, or is there still a "trace"

On a windows operating system there are many items beyond the operating system time and dates which could date when this file appeared after editing the attributes. Beyond the basic file attributes there are many registry keys and also the NTFS file system to draw data from. To give an idea of what's possible...

Scenario:
Geek plugs in USB drive and copies a jpeg to the temporary internet files along with a number of cookies to replicate the activity of visiting a website. The Geek alters the visible dates and times.

Result:
* If they used the Windows GUI the list of contents of that drive are stored in the O/s
* If they ran a powershell script data from that is stored in the windows event viewer
* If they copied the file without adding data to the advanced data stream we can immediately tell if the file came from the internet or not. In this case, it would show as not being from the internet
* Even after updating the operating system data there would be time stamps not accessible to the ordinary user stored within the file system of the hard disk

All of these things can be modified or stomped, but its super rare for anyone to even try.

a reply to: JIMC5499

All for $500. Imagine what the FBI could get done with all the free money at it's long bony finger tips. Give someone $10,000 and it would seem you could get anything done you wanted.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Wonder if this will hurt the geek squad's business? Oh ya if you got nothing to hide you got nothing to worry about, right?

originally posted by: tribal
wait....this is great......so how does this keep the Freak Squad from putting it there so they can collect the money? Seems like the perfect opportunity for mass smearage.

That was my first thought too, the $500 reward is more than they make for a weeks work. How trustworthy are these guys? are they above putting a pic on a computer so that they can collect a reward that is more than a weeks pay for them?
That`s a lot of temptation for even the most honest of people. If they "found" just 2 pics a month the reward would be equal to at least a months pay.

a reply to: seasonal

Seems a waste of public funding when we have 16 agencies on public dole full of high priced suits that can just search the database they got in Utah?