link: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071003-geek-squad-trip-lands-child-porn-trafficker-in-slammer-for-10-years.html

Geek Squad trip lands child porn "trafficker" in slammer for 10 years
By Nate Anderson | Published: October 03, 2007 - 10:36PM CT

It's been a rough week for PC users who get their hard drives serviced at Best Buy. First, the RIAA trained its legal guns on a young woman who had Best Buy swap out the hard drive in her computer, a move they believed was designed to wipe evidence of P2P infringement. Now, a man in Arkansas has just been sentenced to 135 months in jail and a $10,000 fine after a Best Buy tech found child porn on the man's hard drive.


Michael Fortino, an "author, speaker, and media personality," found himself in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on a business trip, and he took his laptop to a local Best Buy for repair. A Geek Squad tech there found child porn pics on the PC and contacted the police, who obtained a search warrant and examined the PC.

The results showed 130 child porn images along with "a commercial video clip of child pornography, and two video clips of minor females changing into swim suits that appeared to have been taken by a hidden video camera," according the US Attorney's eventual complaint.

Because Fortino traveled across state lines with his laptop, he was accused of interstate trafficking in child porn and faced federal charges. Fortino pleaded guilty earlier this year, and his sentence was handed down yesterday.

Apart from a decade in jail and the fine, Fortino's PC and video camera were confiscated "and will be disposed of according to law."

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geek squad punks. the new pond scum...

[Edited on October 4, 2007 at 3:31 PM. Reason : 1]

10/4/2007 3:24:35 PM

Revenge of the nerds?

10/4/2007 3:27:03 PM

i work at a small computer firm and even I'd have to say something to someone.




i mean fucking christ, that's a lot of kiddy porn.

10/4/2007 3:30:04 PM

I've heard of people taking their laptops to have something like the monitor LCD screen fixed but for some reason the geek squad will wipe their entire HD clean. When the person comes back to bitch they will just say its "common policy" and they should have paid the $80 backup fee when they bought their laptop. Fuck Best Buy they profit off of people's ignorance of their image of the to go store for electronics.

Everything in BB is overpriced and they represent everything that is wrong w/ corporate America.

Yeah it is good that guy is getting locked away for being a fucking faggot; but it is very poor business ethics that the geek squad snopes around your computer when you give it in. People could have confidential business info; personal family memos, etc.

[Edited on October 4, 2007 at 3:33 PM. Reason : l]

10/4/2007 3:31:37 PM

^ What he said

I'm in no way condoning what this fucker did and I'm glad he's locked up..but Geek Squad has no right to go through personal shit.

10/4/2007 3:35:56 PM

^in addition to that, I think tacking on ridiculous additional charges is dumb

Quote :

"Because Fortino traveled across state lines with his laptop, he was accused of interstate trafficking in child porn "

10/4/2007 3:49:06 PM

Anyone else think that is a stiff punishment? (no pun)

I mean the guy could have porn of 15-16 year olds doing it or something. And we all know he wasn't doing "interstate porn trafficking"...

10 years in prison seems like a lot.

I know, I know, child porn is wrong. But jesus...

10/4/2007 3:53:11 PM

is this the 2nd case of Geek Squad child porn, or just a follow up of the first incident?

10/4/2007 3:54:07 PM

don't keep child porn on your computer or anywher else you sick bastard

10/4/2007 3:56:05 PM

Nope... anyone with the kiddie stuff needs to go away for a long, long time.

I feel no sympathy.

10/4/2007 3:56:24 PM

Quote :

"t is very poor business ethics that the geek squad snopes around your computer when you give it in."

first thing I thought. because we all know this guy was looking for real porn and stumbled upon the kiddie stuff instead.

10/4/2007 3:57:11 PM

Child porn is wrong, but screw GS for snooping through people's computers.

Probably looking for credit card numbers.

10/4/2007 4:02:30 PM

my parents took their old computer in to a small local store to get it fixed when i was in middle school.

they found my hidden porn collection.

my parents weren't very happy.

10/4/2007 4:04:09 PM

no sympathy for child porn but 10 years is kinda excessive for just possession. As someone else said it could easily be 15-16 yr olds. If he was the one that created the film then that would be a different issue

10/4/2007 4:04:26 PM

if i had the sense to do it, i would make a false child porn tape for these fuckers to find

name it something obviously porno, start off with some kid(s) doing whatever innocent stuff, then like 10 seconds into it 'YOU JUST FELL FOR THE TRAP' with akbar would flash up and itd start making some really loud gay noise with a meat spin running

maybe for the pictures have a picture show the thumbnail of a kid (again innocent) but when you open it you get either 2girl1cup, tubgirl, lemon party, etc.

10/4/2007 4:08:33 PM

what if the GS employee didnt like the customer and planted the child porn on the harddrive?

hmmmmm...

10/4/2007 4:11:47 PM

^^good idea.

but that guy was stupid to have the child porn on there. I don't get why people enjoy looking at naked children.

^I thought about that, but that would be mean of them.

[Edited on October 4, 2007 at 4:14 PM. Reason : ]

10/4/2007 4:13:59 PM

Haven't they already had instances of GS people stealing customers' identities? I wouldn't put it past some geek to fuck over someone like that, there are some mean fuckers out there. I tell all the people in my firm not to call GS, instead they hand their computers over to me.

10/4/2007 5:39:33 PM

I wouldn't trust my calculator with GS.

10/4/2007 5:41:46 PM

You know computer techs have got to have the best pr0n and movie collections. All those computers come in, just search for folders with a lot of movie files in them, rip 'em to your portable USB hard drive that you bring to work with you... profit!

10/4/2007 5:42:41 PM

My friend had a virus on his computer and took it in to BestBuy to get it fixed since it was still under their warranty (he bought it there). They called the police because they found credit card replicator programs or something like that that someone had put on his computer. The police kept his computer for about 3 months.

10/4/2007 5:46:02 PM

^^thats exactly what they do. There was a thread the other week on here about them being caught.

10/4/2007 5:55:59 PM

i'm like geek squad...first thing i look for is porn

10/4/2007 5:56:26 PM

10/4/2007 5:56:46 PM

u can tell a lot about a person by the type of porn on their harddrive

10/4/2007 6:02:43 PM

10/4/2007 6:03:08 PM

10/4/2007 6:08:38 PM

This opened a can of worms. Now they'll take it upon them to search every customers computer for 'child porn' or illegal material. If you ask me, his attorney should use this to get the case thrown out.


Not that I think this guy should get off, but because of the danger a case like this presents in the future.

Quote :

"what if the GS employee didnt like the customer and planted the child porn on the harddrive? hmmmmm..."

then it would have a time stamp of when it was last copied or created on the drive.

[Edited on October 4, 2007 at 6:58 PM. Reason : .]

10/4/2007 6:56:20 PM

There are readily available programs that can spoof and modify NTFS timestamps. Savvy computer techs could certainly have access to them and know how to use them to plant files.

10/4/2007 7:05:19 PM

Syntax
TOUCH [option]... files ...

Key
/t year month day hour minute secondThis is a POSIX utility.

Use the optional argument /t to specify a date other than the current time.
( four-digit years, two-digit months, days, hours, minutes, seconds)

Example

To set the date to 7:30 am 1st October 2015

TOUCH /t 2015 10 01 07 30 00 MyFile.txt

10/4/2007 7:11:51 PM

My computer crashed a couple of months ago and I can't take it to the Geek Squad because my wallpaper is this 16 year old with some sexy braces and plump taytays.
It suxs

10/4/2007 7:14:06 PM

Quote :

"u can tell a lot about a person by the type of porn on their harddrive"

always keep in mind that if you somehow get taken out by a bus or whatnot, your family is gonna look through your junk

10/4/2007 7:14:29 PM

unless the kids were infints how did they no it wasnt just girls that look yung

10/4/2007 7:14:54 PM

It would have to be pretty apparent I would assume

10/4/2007 7:16:29 PM

i thought this said Greek Quad.

10/4/2007 7:21:28 PM

Quote :

"There are readily available programs that can spoof and modify NTFS timestamps. Savvy computer techs could certainly have access to them and know how to use them to plant files."

yes but all things leave a trail. If it becomes a Federal case....it won't be too difficult for their computer forensics team to figure this out.

10/4/2007 7:28:58 PM

Quote :

"My computer crashed a couple of months ago and I can't take it to the Geek Squad because my wallpaper is this 16 year old with some sexy braces and plump taytays. It suxs "

wait two years....

10/4/2007 7:44:02 PM

^gg

10/4/2007 8:44:00 PM

Quote :

""u can tell a lot about a person by the type of porn on their harddrive""

What if its "harddrives"?

10/4/2007 8:49:51 PM