re: Should Computer Technicians be Mandated Reporters for Child Porn?

Alan — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:26:57 GMT

I have read that the FBI will approach computer shop owners and offer a reward for catching kiddie pornographers. All it takes is for one of these dummys whose drive has quit to take his computer to the repair shop and voila, a whole network of kiddie porn is unraveled. The police can then order records from any ISP to examine the websites visited by any suspected individual.

I am not a computer wizard nor even an apprentice but it's obvious and easy to use a utility disk to restart a cranky computer using the utility disk itself, then examine the drive and even un-delete files that were deleted, or fragments, at least. I did this with a used computer that was supposed to have been clean and discovered the name of that computer's former owner. The hard drive is the first place any computer technician will start. As I have understood before, police are rewarded for the number of arrests they make. The law that mandates that techs report suspected kiddie porn makes sense to this attitude. The more arrests, the more rewards, more funding and higher pay for officers....

My advise to computer owners: if you have nude photos of your wife or husband or your children, do not take your dysfunctional computer to any shop. Fix it yourself by purchasing a utility CD.