Computer servicing privacy assumed, not mandated | ajc.com

Computer servicing privacy assumed, not mandated | ajc.com

If there is stuff hidden on your computer -- that video of an embarrassing karaoke performance, that Abba greatest hits collection that is a guilty pleasure or pornographic images of children -- it’s never wise to leave it on a hard drive taken in for service.

University of Georgia student Kyle Thomas Glasser, 21, recently learned this when he sent his laptop to a Minneapolis, Minn., technical support company for repair last month. Technicians allegedly found child porn while servicing the machine, and Glasser ended up in jail.

The incident was not only disturbing for the content said to be involved, but raised a couple of privacy issues:

What right do computer repair companies have to rifle through someone's personal files? And what happens if they find something criminal and look the other way?

No law protects someone's data from being accessed, with or without permission, or requires that companies seek out authorities when finding something questionable, said Paul Stephens, policy director for San Diego-based non-profit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Consumers usually have to rely on customer-service agreements for any privacy safeguards.

"If you willingly turn over a computer to a company and it has something on it that implicates you in a crime, there's nothing that precludes that company from turning [your computer] over to a law enforcement agency," said Stephens, whose organization protects consumers from electronic privacy abuses.

And with no Georgia law requiring computer repair companies to report pornography or anything else illegal found during servicing, most of these businesses set their own policies and simply follow their own moral convictions.

Electronic retailer Best Buy, based in Minneapolis, offers technical support through its Geek Squad, and its policy is to contact law enforcement, which the technicians did after discovering what UGA police said were pornographic photos of children on Glasser's laptop.

"We got a call from Minneapolis law enforcement and they sent us the computer," UGA campus police chief Jimmy Williamson said.

Glasser has been charged with three counts of felony sexual exploitation of a child and bonded out of the Clarke County jail on Thursday, authorities said.

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Related articles

• Kyle Glasser, University Of Georgia Student, Arrested On Child Pornography Charges (huffingtonpost.com)
• Senators Push for Update to Electronic Privacy Law (pcworld.com)
• The Geek Squad Becomes the Porn Squad (blogs.forbes.com)

U.S. Wants to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet - NYTimes.com

U.S. Wants to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet - NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.

Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.

The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.

James X. Dempsey, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet policy group, said the proposal had “huge implications” and challenged “fundamental elements of the Internet revolution” — including its decentralized design.

“They are really asking for the authority to redesign services that take advantage of the unique, and now pervasive, architecture of the Internet,” he said. “They basically want to turn back the clock and make Internet services function the way that the telephone system used to function.”

But law enforcement officials contend that imposing such a mandate is reasonable and necessary to prevent the erosion of their investigative powers.

“We’re talking about lawfully authorized intercepts,” said Valerie E. Caproni, general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “We’re not talking expanding authority. We’re talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security.”

Investigators have been concerned for years that changing communications technology could damage their ability to conduct surveillance. In recent months, officials from the F.B.I., the Justice Department, the National Security Agency, the White House and other agencies have been meeting to develop a proposed solution.

There is not yet agreement on important elements, like how to word statutory language defining who counts as a communications service provider, according to several officials familiar with the deliberations.

But they want it to apply broadly, including to companies that operate from servers abroad, like Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of BlackBerry devices. In recent months, that company has come into conflict with the governments of Dubai and India over their inability to conduct surveillance of messages sent via its encrypted service.

In the United States, phone and broadband networks are already required to have interception capabilities, under a 1994 law called the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act. It aimed to ensure that government surveillance abilities would remain intact during the evolution from a copper-wire phone system to digital networks and cellphones.

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