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I totally agree with you, however, why should a techie be nosing round in your personal files at all? Supposing he is a religious nut and strongly disapproves of ALL porn, does that give him the right to villify you in public or chastise you when you go in to collect your machine? No, of course it doesn't!

If as a direct result of having to access a file for the sole purpose of aiding the repair of a machine, a techie stumbled on a cache of child porno filth, then you are right, he has no choice but to make this fact known to his superiors. But I do not believe they have an unassailable right to nose through your files for no other reason than nosing. It should be illegal to look through files without "just cause".




There is no dilemma if the techies do their job and no more.

jimslip wrote:

>
> For example, does this mean if you were to drop your car in for
> a service and had left your briefcase in the boot, a mechanic
> could if he wished, open the briefcase rummage around inside
> and if he were to find some unpaid parking fines, contact the
> authority and announce, "I have found the person that owes you
> alot of money, would you like us to take the amount from his
> credit card?"
>
> I can't really see the difference between my analogy and what
> in fact happened to Glitter. The same happened to me about 10
> years ago with a PC that was faulty, the nosey techie wanker
> opened my files to do with TVX and the pics for different
> series I had made and when I went to pick up the PC, he said,
> "Wey, hey, hey, you got a nice bunch of totty in that TVX
> folder!"
>
> Funnily enough, I said nothing and just thought I will NEVER
> take a computer for servicing again and I will look into all
> this stuff about Apple computers that don"t fuck up all the
> time and I've never looked back since!
>

That did happen to me. I had some copies and proofs of a mag I was working on when I took the car in for an MOT and got "Wahey, what have you go there?" comments when I got back. Needless to say, I have taken my custom elsewhere since.

jimslip wrote:

>
> It should be illegal to look through files without "just cause".


It is already a breach of privacy law to look through someone else's computer files without their permission, but that would not help a person such as Gary Glitter as the information in that case was only used to expose a crime - and because of that there would be no case to answer.

I believe in the USA such "Evidence" gleaned by a nosy geek would be inadmissable in court. This is because it would be a licence for ANY computer service engineer to be dispatched to a firms IT department and quite legally and in full view, search through the company or individual's files looking for possible illegal content, of any kind on the basis of, "Because I am "Servicing" these machines, I have a right to nose into any file I want!" This is utter bollocks and a travesty of natural justice.

I bet if a notorious and violent gangster had dropped his PC into PC World for a service, the geek would have done his job and just shut the fuck up, because he would have found himself floating down the Thames if he'd blown the whistle on any dodgy stuff he might have nosed into!

jimslip wrote:

>
> I believe in the USA such "Evidence" gleaned by a nosy geek would be inadmissable in court.


I'm sorry to say that isn't correct Jim.

The guiding principle on admissability of evidence in the USA is that of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that the Fourth Amendment applies only to government officials such as law enforcement officers and that evidence unlawfully obtained by a private person is admissible in a court of law.

The current law on this point is laid down in the case of Burdeau v. McDowell:

"The Fourth Amendment gives protection against unlawful searches and seizures, and as shown in the previous cases, its protection applies to governmental action. Its origin and history clearly show that it was intended as a restraint upon the activities of sovereign authority, and was not intended to be a limitation upon other than governmental agencies."