Ethical question.

Ah, well that's your *first* mistake! :-(

Of course, that depends on what you found.

Pix of "him" (?) spanking his neighbor's wife?

Pix of "him" pouring cement over Jimmy Hoffa's body...?

To get *it* into the hands of police, you have already given up any chance of anonymity -- even if you shipped it to them in an unmarked envelope.

"Hey, I came in to pick up my laptop... What do you *mean* 'you don't have it'? Where did it go???"

There was a girl named Pandora who made a similar mistake (except it was a *jar*, in her case)...

if you can't resist snooping, try to make up for being nosey by keeping your mouth shut. Unless their files are corrupt, it's not your job to snoop, judge then tattle if you don't like what you found.

Isn't that an nvasion of privacy? Did you have a search warrant? Do you open yourself up to a lawsuit?

Advice I one got from an attorney. You never want to be in the witness box. And you don't know the ansewer until the judge tells you.

Well, "it depends"... if you deliberately went snooping around, yes. OTOH, if you happen to open something in the course of repairing/verifying the machine's operation, you can justifiably claim innocence.

E.g., I routinely am called on by friends/neighbors to fix broken laptops. Usually, it's a software issue. Regardless, I often end up having to image the disk or do other triage to try to salvage as much of their "stuff" as is possible. Almost always, this requires looking at the "stuff" (is this something they downloaded and can potentially re-download? or, is it something they created that can't be replicated -- like photos, email, etc.).

I *always* come across something that the owner would rather not let others know about. Especially kids not wanting their parents to know what they do when Mom/Dad aren't watching.

To date, I have never even *flinched* when handing the repaired laptop back to the owner. Even if they *know* I may have seen their tax returns, bank statements, "private photos", personal correspondence, etc. It's just not "professional" and definitely not what a "friend" would do.

OTOH, had I found a photo of one of the neighbor *kids* engaging in some outrageous behavior, you can bet I would approach *them* about it -- even if they were minors.

I don't think the police are bound by that if the materials come to them from a "third party". I.e. *you* may be subject to civil (even criminal?) prosecution but I don't think that taints the authorities' use of the materials.

Probably. Especially if you can demonstrate financial losses as a result of those actions (reputation, loss of employment opportunity, etc.)

In some situations, you might also open yourself up to criminal prosecution as an accomplice after the fact.

Best advice is not to go looking for things -- as you have no control over what you might *find*! E.g., you *don't* want to know where Hoffa is buried...

this is good advice.

Let's say the computer is returned with no mention of contraband. Down the road the owner is arrested, computer seized and contraband found. Owner says he has no knowledge of the contraband and that he had it repaired not long ago and the contraband must have been placed their by the repair person. You are served taken in to be questioned. Do you now lie about having knowledge about the contraband? What if you are called to testify? Do you purger yourself and deny knowledge?

Just some food for thought.

I remembered that it was her *box*.

Jeff

It was a jar. According to the wikipedia, it was mistranslated (around

Geoff.

Actually, that is a mistranslation. It was, in fact, *jar*

Ah! I forget how many little bits of tid wikipedia hordes!

In my case, Greek friends set me (and a few teachers) straight on this decades ago (along with "pea" vs. "pie", "mee" vs. "mew", etc.)

But it's only funny if the word is "box" ... :-)

Arfa

FWIW, search warrants don't relate to private parties, only the government. They don't give search warrants to private parties, not even private detectives. Only to government law enforement persons. Like DY said.

"Invasion of privacy" is a term that can apply lots of places but only a few of them are illegal or tortious.

However the OP says he was nosy and snooping. If he says that elsewhere or used his real name here, he's weakened his defense a lot.

In this case, the machine wouldn't boot.

If one has material one does not wish others to see -- legal or illegal -- it should be stored on an external drive. One can then hand the computer to a serviceman without worry.

Though the temptation to snoop can be overwhelming, an ethical serviceman will resist the temptation at all times. No one expects him to "play police", and no reasonable person would condemn him for not prying, even in cases of child molestation or murder.

It's NOT his business to spy on his neighbors and report unacceptable behavior. The Constitution protects our privacy, and though that protection doesn't generally apply to snooping by neighbors, an ethical person will respect that protection.

(...)

Googling, I found a good start on a computer repair code of ethics.

I think I've broken all ten rules. As I recall, the original ten commandments were only a subset of about 600 assorted ammendments, rules, and regulations that arrived later, so there's plenty of room for creativity.

A good start would be the gold (plated) rule. Do unto the customer as you would have them do unto you. If you give your computer to me for repair, I don't think you would be very happy if I gave it back to you in pieces.

Ummm.... are you billing this customer for your time looking at his photos? (Just curious).

Get a lawyer. Ask them.

I remember several years ago, something similar happened to Pete Townshend of "The Who". He brought his computer into a shop for service and the tech squealed on him because there was some child abuse photos on there. Pete said that he was doing research because he had been abused when he was young.

I think Pete got some sort of community service sentence, but that was after a long legal proceeding. I remember feeling really pissed at the tech who did that (and I'm sure Pete did as well).

All this happened in the UK, and my anger may have been misplaced if there is some law that compells people to report this stuff, but my instinct as a USian is not to go snooping, and if you did, don't let on that you did (by reporting it).

BTW: to keep this on topic... What was the problem with the laptop that made it not boot?

Thanks.

Remove the BALONEY from my email address.

----------------------------------------------------- Matthew Fries Minneapolis, MN USA snipped-for-privacy@baloneyvisi.com

"Quit eating all my *STUFF*!" - The Tick

Uh-huh, Community service. Right. If it had been any of us, we'd still be in prison.

Actually the topic is ethical question. But since you asked, video driver for a web cam. wrong one, crashed the machine on boot.

And while I originally posted "tongue in cheek" about snooping, the original problem was the web cam driver. When I brought up the correct one to make sure it worked, I took a picture, and it dropped it into the "Bozo no no" zone where I went to check that it worked properly.

Jeff

FWIW. That was the store manager trying to take advantage of free publicity when it was realised who the owner was !

That has nothting to do with the problem and what to do.