Beware of computer repair shops

David777

David777

Senior Member
Location
Silicon Valley
A reflection of the corrupt unethical world we now live in today.

Thinking about taking your computer to the repair shop? Be very afraid

https://arstechnica.com/information...lt-in-snooping-of-sensitive-data-study-finds/

...recovered logs from laptops after receiving overnight repairs from 12 commercial shops. The logs showed that technicians from six of the locations had accessed personal data and that two of those shops also copied data onto a personal device. Devices belonging to females were more likely to be snooped on, and that snooping tended to seek more sensitive data, including both sexually revealing and non-sexual pictures, documents, and financial information.
 

The Samsung repair centres, we had one here, were in the
past, accused of copying pictures from phones, when the
owners asked for help.

I went in when I was using a Galaxy and asked how to change
the keyboard to Spanish, "let me plug it in to the system and
see what I can do", I looked at him and asked if I looked so silly,
that I couldn't press the keys that he was going to tell me, he
got all embarrassed and told me to hold the space bar down
and slide it up the screen to select another language, easy.

He wouldn't say why he needed to plug it in!

Mike.
 
It doesn't matter how careful you are, if you have accessed the web in any way your information is there. It's like using a credit/debit card the information is there and once used you are on the gird. It's all about money and information is a valuable and marketable commodity.

Every time you fill out a survey, get a rewards loyalty card, credit/debit card, power up your smartphone someone is there monitoring you. Even your printer has stored information on it's HD. In this day and age of Drones, CCTV's, The Cloud, Bluetooth,,,etc, no one is invisible! Big brother is always watching.
 
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David777 said:
A reflection of the corrupt unethical world we now live in today.

Thinking about taking your computer to the repair shop? Be very afraid

https://arstechnica.com/information...lt-in-snooping-of-sensitive-data-study-finds/

...recovered logs from laptops after receiving overnight repairs from 12 commercial shops. The logs showed that technicians from six of the locations had accessed personal data and that two of those shops also copied data onto a personal device. Devices belonging to females were more likely to be snooped on, and that snooping tended to seek more sensitive data, including both sexually revealing and non-****** pictures, documents, and financial information.
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Thanks for the tip, David.
 
caroln said:
@timoc...The article was good at pointing out the dangers of computer repair shops but not very helpful at how to protect yourself from them.
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Doesn't really need an explanation. Obviously, one ought remove sensitive information if possible before giving it to a repair shop. Unfortunately that won't help if the issue is not booting up or bricked. In that case, encrypting sensitive files in normal use by habit will help though that can be annoying having to decrypt/encrypt each time.

This is a basic open source app I use on my smartphone, laptop, and desktop that allows using the same key. Especially useful on desktops/laptops if one knows how to use the command prompt, cmd.exe instead of usual GUI's that might have unintended complications.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dewdrop623.androidcrypt&hl=en_US&gl=US
 
It's funny because I've never really paid attention before of the phone and computer repair shops, until a couple of days ago in a large town in the next county, I noticed suddenly a huge increase in these types of shops.. one after the other almost next door to each other, and like stores that seem to sell nothing and are a front for another business, it occurred to me as I passed these repair stores how easy it would be for them to steal people's info from them... I hadn't thought of it until then, simply because I've never had to use one.. and secondly because there now seems to be such a huge array of them..
 
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If I have a truly big problem (which I normally don't have), I call the maker of our computers, Dell. They'll help over the phone. You can also buy prepaid help. That way I don't need to go anywhere.

Otherwise, I've pretty much learned what I need to do to fix anything on our computers. And we don't seem to have the kinds of problems with Windows that some people have.
 
I took my laptop to a friend that still works at Quantico. He had it fixed in minutes. It just needed a new network board that had to be soldered. He asked me if I wanted him to “juice” my computer. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I pretended I did and told him he probably shouldn’t. Last year, he came to my house for dinner I made. While there, he added 2 hubs. I still don’t know what they are for.
 
Chet said:
There's no sensitive info on any PC I've ever had. That said, if I can't get my PC to work properly, it's time to junk it and start anew, which you will do anyway when it's no longer supported.
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What Chet said. Also as of late the Nigerian-419 gangs have been scouring the African E-Commerce a/k/a E-Waste dump sites for hard drives. Sometimes they'll pay the kids some cash for boxes of the drives. Saves time and risk of their original money grab scams.
 
Been There said:
Last year, he came to my house for dinner I made. While there, he added 2 hubs. I still don’t know what they are for.
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I've been there. It's really awkward to have friends adding stuff to your computer, especially when you don't know what they are. It's like they think their additions are really important. Maybe they are. Who knows? But they're still useless to you. But if you want to impress people at parties, you can tell them that you have extra hubs on your computer. Hopefully, no one will bother to ask you why.
 
JustDave said:
I've been there. It's really awkward to have friends adding stuff to your computer, especially when you don't know what they are. It's like they think their additions are really important. Maybe they are. Who knows? But they're still useless to you. But if you want to impress people at parties, you can tell them that you have extra hubs on your computer. Hopefully, no one will bother to ask you why.
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They plug into a receptacle and then he programmed them using the laptop. I think they are some type of extender, but don't have an antenna on them and whatever they are, it didn't seem to make a difference. My desktop is wired direct to a T2 line, which again, I am not sure what that is. When the installer put it in, he asked my permission to do so because Comcast was experimenting with using this type of connection. He told me that I would only have it for 6 months, but he never came back to remove it. Do I still have it? I don't know.
 
I bought a refurbished computer with Windows 10 when it first came out at a computer store and repair place several years ago. I trust the man who I bought it from as far as being competent in repairing computers but now that it's been brought up I would be afraid to have ANYONE fix a computer of mine in the future. He is also a minister though. Realistically though there's nothing to gain from knowing any of my information.
 


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