Comments on: A Client Wanted Me To Do Something Illegal Today

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:55:41 +0000

I’ve actually ran into a similar issue where a member of a car club that I’m a member of came to me with a problem, her computer had some software installed by a 3rd party *ex husband* who decided he wanted to see everything she was doing at any given time, well i had to load the system into Linux to recover the deleted pictures from their vacation and i had to use the UBCD4WIN to remove the password from the admin account on her computer, it turns out that someone at geek squad installed for her ex husband a “net nanny” program and an unnamed Key logger, it took me and another guy about 3 hours to fully remove and patch the system, i didn’t charge her because she was having a tough time, but she did buy us dinner that night, last i heard no more issues were evident on the system, but the ex is now in trouble with yahoo for tampering with her e-mail and geek squad had to let the tech go that installed the software, i just hope that more techs stand up for the morals and at least use probing questions to get an idea of what this software is being used for if asked

By: Sinny

Sinny — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:57:16 +0000

I work in Texas and I think I can clarify the “P.I.” issue. You have to have a P.I. license to do forensic work or (and this is BS) data recovery. I know this because a data recovery company I do business with recently had to get all their techs P.I. licenses. The law came out of nowhere and all the companies were struggling to get their techs up to snuff. Because of that the price for data recovery in Texas skyrocketed for awhile. It may not be true but that is what one of their reps. told me.

By: Boz

Boz — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:06:59 +0000

“In Texas you are supposed to have a private investigator’s license to work on a computer ”

FYI, this is not correct – most of the time. If you’re doing computer forensic work as part of an investigation, then yes, this is an issue. If you’re just doing work on a computer but are NOT doing an investigation/etc, then you’re ok. This was on the blogs a while back, but as bloggers often do, they misunderstood it and took it out of context. Especially boingboing.

@howard – I think you could have handled that one a little better.

By: Jimmy James

Jimmy James — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 11:39:49 +0000

I carry around on my usb stick a keylogger (not to spy on clients…) because I find some parents like to spy on their children and make sure they know who they’re talking to. I don’t actually install it, I run the program and get everything setup, then ask the client to press the ‘Install’ button.

By: Fireddog

Fireddog — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 09:51:13 +0000

As someone who was raised by a union member .. I agree 100% with Brendan. The big financial crisis definitely was not caused by unions. It definitely was not helped by the greed exemplified by wall street over the last 20 years. The huge Ceo bonuses the outlandish ceo and executive salaries and all their crazy perks are a far greater issue that needs to be rectified.

Hopefully our current administration can really work hard to curtail that stupidity.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:35:56 +0000

In response to some of the queries about what I said, I strictly was relating to my experience with labor laws where I have worked in the past, and from experience regarding an incident in which I had to represent a union member.

My comment was strictly based on the fact that, even if it is their property, and they provide no disclaimer, than whatever they find is may or may not be admissible for disciplinary action, depending on circumstances and contractual or local law, from what I have been taught. It’s the same as searching an employees assigned locker. If the employer does it with the employee or the employees representative there, it is a legal search, no questions asked.

Also Bobby, I never made economic remarks. I wanted to stick strictly to the ethical and legal implications. There are differing laws in “Right to Work” states in the U.S. and “At Will” states, and the differences are very significant.

But since the pot has been stirred, unions have made many concessions, unlike corporate CEO’s and the other white collars, who still milk companies for millions of dollars/pounds/euros, etc. What can also be taken from your statement is that you also blame the firefighters and law enforcement personnel, a good deal of whom are also unionized, for our downturn. Please be careful of what and how you say what you say. You offered no proof to back up your statement. Please feel free to look at the Caterpillar (and more recently GM, Chrysler, and Ford) contracts from recent years to really see just how much union members have sacrificed. Also take note of how little the American worker has in time off and pay compared to other workers in other developed countries around the world, and make another attempt at your argument.

By: Shawn

Shawn — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:09:13 +0000

Lucky you didn’t get involved in trying to hack into this computer… unless you had a contract the size of Canada (Paper Thickness wise) and even then you used your common sense.. it’s bad business getting involved in situations like this… the only way this could of been borderline legal is if she would of bought the darn thing herself and have the receipt in her name… ethical definitely not… and I’m sure like me you care more about your integrity than a few extra bucks…

By: SoJo

SoJo — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:50:11 +0000

I agree with AlexCapownt.
The user is going to figue a way to do this. It might have been helpful to the client if you explained why. I would told her “You do know it is illegal to install Spyware/Monitoring software without the consent of the user? Have you spoken to a lawyer about this?”

It may be different if it’s a shared computer.

My 2 cents

By: Fahad

Fahad — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 07:44:57 +0000

Good choice on your part. If the situation had gone to court then you would surely have been charged with quite hefty charges. Better to be safe!

By: JRoss

JRoss — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 04:35:51 +0000

Really tempting to drop the husband an anonymous tip.