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Best Buy 'Geek Squad' Accused of Pirating Software
Alien54 writes "Texas software company Winternals Software LP has sued Best Buy Co. Inc. in federal court, alleging that the nation's largest consumer electronics retailer was using unlicensed versions of its diagnostic equipment. Best Buy's Geek Squad, is alleged to be using pirated versions of the software since talks on a commercial licensing agreement broke off. A restraining order has been granted."
A slightly related comment - I used to work at a PC repair shop next to Best Buy. We would get a constant stream of customers that would be sent from Best Buy to our store after *they* broke the machine! Sometimes they would even walk right out after getting a machine from the customer and bring it to us. I laughed out loud when I started to see these geek squad commercials. I can just imagine now the peeps at geek squad that use format and reload as their way tp fix any problem the computer has.
Looks like some of the geek squad will be getting a ride in a squad car
a friend of mine works at geek squad, and apparently they have some "geek squad only" forum that has tons of pirated software on it. i don't know it to be true for sure, but that's what he tells me.
No self-respecting geek should work for Best Buy.
Well, not arms. And the women aren't illegal in Nevada.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Well, if they are allegedly pirating software, how much do we *really* know.
They could very well operate a huge fleet of spanish-style galeons just over the horizon from San Diego.
-=- I tried going insane, and it was fun for a while, but I got bored and decided to go sane. -=-
From a compuer "repair" division that gets paid on commision.
The Geek Squad pirates are only doing their part to lower glabal warming. They are thinking of the children.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
$20 says there's a story about "Geek Squad" employees being suspected of installing spyware/keyloggers on customer computers within the next 6 months...
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Best Buy are at fault here no matter what. At fault meaning; they screwed up.
They based their diagnostics business on a licenced piece of proprietary software that can be, and was, withdrawn completely at the discretion of its owner. "What's that? Business needs it? Well pony up then. It's a free market. Take it or leave it."
Such is the fate of any business that relies on an outside party for its most critical infrastructure. If private companies smell weakness, they'll go for the jugular, or at least for as much as they can gouge without putting themselves at risk. If you want to avoid this fate, either use FOSS software, or commission your own.
If you're too FOSS adverse or too broke to do this, then you can either drop the whole idea, or just take the risk. But if that horse hair strand snaps, don't expect the rest of us to be too sympathetic.
May the Maths Be with you!
I knew the Geek Squad was a fake the first time I saw a commercial... There was a girl. That was all I needed.
Who would of thought, a techie that COULD steal software...
I have read on a few forums/commentboards/etc on reaction to this story.
Many people who do work/claim to work/used to work for GeekSquad seem to be claiming on those venues that pirated software is basically part of working for GeekSquad, that they are not given the tools they need by management.
Some are even saying that they were encouraged by managers to use pirated software in place of buying it.
Obviously this is hearsay, but.... I think when an actual investigation is done, we're going to see a lot more than just one company in on this.
-- There's only one replacement for displacement.....
Hey,
I used to work at the Best Buy in Miamisburg Ohio about a year ago, and I can tell you that the majority of the time, no one in the 'squad' ever used the so-called MRI disc (This is the tool disk that came from the corporate office for our use) because the tools on it were so poor that we would not be able to actually do the job.
About half of us used a variety of bootable Linux distros such as Knoppix and SLAX to perform diagnosis and recovery. Sometimes, the best way is the traditional way - the command line.
I personally used to use this bootable distros to prove points to customers who sometimes had a clue about what was wrong, and this would make an excellent way to show the ineffectiveness of various products and utilities designed to protect users from malware, spyware, etc.
After enough time, I myself started to create my own set of utilities (some nothing more than fancy perl scripts that I could run off a thumb drive) to do my dirty work for me.
Most of the time, Best Buy was totally committed to the idea of sell, sell, sell, while trying to improve their image. The ironic part of this was that our own store manager never could seemingly comprend the simple fact that good service sells and will generate more repeat customers and new customers via word-of-mouth than the stupid service plans, the countless harassment of customers that the geek squad personnel is supposed to be doing to buy plans, etc.
Sometimes, a true geek has to take whatever job that they can get. In this part of Ohio, for the longest time, gigs like Best Buy paid the bills or gave someone something to do while they went off and pursued the next software development contract for instance, or go to school.
Please remember Slashdot readers, that not all the techs that work for Best Buy are compelte idiots. Just most of them. And for myself, I must have been lucky, because I found a store with some guys that were actually competent and able to go on to better careers just like I did.
That computer was worked on by an egotistical maniac with a revenge demon on his shoulder!
...for about two weeks. Most disorganized bunch of fu*k-ups I've ever seen.
Yes, the unlicensed software usage is true, and widespread.
The keylogger thing mentioned above happened once, and the tech was summarily fired. I'm pretty sure the customer got a completely new machine, too, because of it.
Our supervisor was a douche, complete and total jerk. When I confronted him about the issue of pirated hardware, he held sort of the 'BestBuy is like Wal*Mart' attitude, with the assumption that the corporation could just strong-arm the publisher into submission.
I guess he was wrong.
Informatus Technologicus
Which is funny regarding how much these guys gouge you for a simple network cable. The suckers must be dipped in Gold. The whole Geek Squad Certified slaps 30% on any prodct $16.19 on sale for a 7 footer. Why would they need to skimp on anything when you rake in that kind of dough.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Having worked computer service in the past, my 2 cents..
Piracy was absolutely rampant behind the counter. The policy was: so long as the customer doesn't see it, it's all good. Some stuff was frowned on, like copying a customer's key to XP and the like, and we were strict on the MS licensing rules (w/customers) except for the boss's friends, who got whatever they wanted.
We used 3 different diagnostic programs, and the rumour was that we'd paid for one copy of one of them a long time ago. We were encouraged to warez (does anybody still say that?) new apps to make our job go smoother, and we must have had a dozen different pirated data recovery suites lying around. So this is not really surprising, if the enviroment at BB is anything like what I knew.
The biggest problem with the service side of things is that anyone who is any good at the job is qualified for much much better things. Servicing PC's is an entry level job that requires an enourmous working knowledge to do well. Any monkey can run a ram diagnostic and format/reinstall, but anything more complex, like virus/spyware removal, intermittant h/w failure, dealing with customers, even just data backup: These all require a skill set that pays better elsewhere. As a jumping off point for geeks, its a great education, but it don't pay what its worth. Hardly a shock that this leads to less-than-professional conduct...
"Best Buy's Geek Squad voted the most technologically intept technical support around"
I've worked on the Geek Squad for about 8 months, and most of these comments are totally false. 1.)NO employee of bestbuy, including the geek squad, works on commission. 2.)There is a geek squad forum at www.geeksquadforums.com, however it is moderated by a corporate manager and pirated software isn't allowed. 3.)I can't speak for any other stores, but I'm positive that our store stopped using Winternals products 6 months ago. 4.)Again, I can't speak for otehr stores, but my store doesn't simply reformat machines. In my 8 months, working on hundreds of machines, I can count the number of machines I've reformatted on my fingers. Most of these comments are simply people speculating about what they *think* it *might* be like - please don't comment without any backing to it.
Not that i'm going to try to defend Best Buy but I can pretty much tell you exactly what happened since I do work for them.
Best Buy/Geek Squad is strictly against using non-licensed tools. Pirating is a big no no and I have written people up for it and they were eventually fired for using pirated software. We only use OEM discs if a key is provided on the side of the machine or a valid license is presented. We will refuse work unless the customer can present a valid XP license or a set of recovery discs specific to that machine. Most stores have a large collection of discs already, if they need a model we have a system in place to order them directly from the manufacturer.
When Best Buy purchased Geek Squad, this was made EXTREMELY CLEAR. Every piece of software that is approved to use, we have a valid license agreement with that comopany. We have a list that specifically states what's licensed and what's not. We don't have a "forum' of illegal software so I have no idea where that idea came from.
Here's what happened with Winterals. All stores were given evaluation version to test out ERD Commander and when the trial expired Best Buy decided not to license this software and they developed their own disc based on Bart's PE which is completely different from ERD Commander. All on-site agents were told to evalute this software and state why we should license it and what features we wanted. In the end, we told that licensing was off and we have to discontinue all use of Winternals products immediately. All stores were sent a paper communication, a mass email and it was generally posted in all stores. We were told to destroy all discs since they were useless anyone without a valid license file.
Basically, Winternals is pissed because they lost an 850 store contract with Best Buy, not including all field agents and stand-alone locations. This suit happened pretty much exactly after Best Buy stopped our trial with Winternals and decided to go with our own disc. It would have been a lot of money for Winternals so i'd be pretty pissed off too.
Again, not saying everyone is perfect. There are always a few idiots that use pirated software in any business and mom and pop shops are famous for this. It was either one rogue store breaking the rules like idiots or a completely baseless lawsuit like everything else in America.
I cannot bring myself to shop there, having once been told "the older RAM gets the mo' price" by a geek squad member when I balked at the cost of their PC-133 RAM!
_signature creation failed.
$5 says this is from DUBCD 2.0 if you're in on software boot packages. It contains some Winternals software.
Buy the extended warrenty, the one that even covers the laptop screen.
proceed to use laptop in a cavileer manner till death occours, drop it to be sure.
swap for a new model.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Someone please mod this AC further into the abyss.
For the last time...again:
Using the word piracy to describe copying software against copyright did NOT originate with lawyers. It is NOT a concept invented by the *AA to smear P2P filesharing.
It's been used since before I got my first Apple II in the very early '80s, and the pirate moniker was fully embraced by the earliest practioners of software cracking and copying. They even inserted their own signature boot splashscreens into cracked binaries with cartoon Jolly Rogers, ships, treasure chests, parrots etc.
Bear in mind, these folks were likely huge D&D nerds (so described affectionately) who derived satisfaction and joy from identifying themselves as nasty, rebelious buccaneers in this narrow context.
The entimology of the definition probably goes back to "pirating" of licensed radio frequencies back in radio's early days.
So please, *ENOUGH* already with the useless, ingorant rants about this definition. It is not a battle worth the time and attention you devote to it. And yes, I recognize the same is true about this post...
Bad Geek squad, no windows Aero theme for them.
This is entirely true. We were often told to "solve the problem however you can" by managers. Why? Because there pretty much =wasn't= a "geek squad" budget. It is treated as an extension of the PC/Home Office department and basically is used to placate customers who have had their machines screwed up at the service centers. We weren't technicians, we were negotiators. We HAD no budget. In fact, Store 323, North Avenue in Chicago uses pirated software for its diagnostics, on every machine that comes in. It is copied and distributed to the technicians, the other employees, their friends, ANYBODY. The passcode to get it to work, is, ironically "323". The "Geek Squad" agents have shitty jobs, utterly shitty. It wasn't "we're provding you with pirated software to do your job because we're cheap" it was "find your own pirated software to do your job because we're too cheap to buy any AND too lazy to even do the pirating"
Why am I not posting anonymous coward when Im giving them such obvious information as to who I am?
Because I'm not afraid of telling the truth.
Fuck you, best buy
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
This rant has been brought to you by the letter Arrrrrrrrr!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I have never worked at BestBuy, but at the last IT shop we worked at we had problems like this. Some people doing Windows support would pirate tools if they weren't given them. I'm not them, but I know the following:
1) If I am not given the tools to do my work properly, I won't go and steal them. If it is a hammer, or software... it doesn't matter. It is not my responsibility to source tools for myself. I do use OpenSource utilities all the time, but I tell my manager what I am using and that it is GPL'd.
2) If I am not clear about a licensing issue, or if I am allowed to use software, I will ask someone to clarify it.
2) If my manager asks me to pirate software, I won't do it. I'm not sure who would be liable for it, but I wouldn't risk it.
So far none of these things have ever caused me any problems whatsoever.
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
That's pretty funny. :^D
I used to work for a company as a Computer Technician. We used pirated software aswell. There was a bestbuy down the street from us and we would here stories on how they charged people so long for the dumbest thing. The one that will go down in history is...
"They said they were going to charge 2 hours to clear my brouser History."
That aside being a technician is fun in a college town...You get all the skimpy girls computers and see the sorority pictures that they take. Ah yes for boobies ^_^ I love my job.
They should not even be allowed to use the name.
I had a friend bring in a compter, they said it was a dead hard drive. It gave the Win2k message, "unable to operate boot device" after the Win2k splash screen.
I just installed a new version of Windows and it was all happy. Any idiot knows what that message means.
Geek squad, ha!
Fight Spammers!
The story was posted to FoxNews... browse around their site, you'll see their is no such thing as global warming.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
"Fraud Squad"
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The plans are also dirt cheap with the employee discount. Unfortunately, little else is.
Hmm. better spoil my own joke with this disclaimer:
For anyone thinking of being a lawsuit-happy prick, the "Fraud Squad" is a pun on "Mod Squad", the 1960's show with Burr as a PI or something rolling round in a wheelchair with is team of assistants helping him solve crime. "Fraud Squad" is NOT to be taken as an assertion of Geek Squad. Besides, even a 4th-grader can tell Fraud and Mod rhyme whereas as Geek doesn't rhyme with either word...
Now, go, find some else to sue. Besides I think Parody Law comes into play here...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I did the same thing for a guy who owns a karate dojo. Not to name names *cough* Mick *cough* had this funy way of stating a requirement, and then changing the requirement half way through a project. I spent a lot of time with him.
/hr. not a bad deal? eh?
One day I put in about six hours, and he says "how much do I owe ya?" I say "$140." He says "ouch..." lets see 140/6= about $23.34
Hope he got his stuff going the way he wants... but I know he paid way more than I was charging him.
The crazy bastard also wanted me to drive one and a half hours away to work for him, without drive time of course.
Lets just say that ended bad for all...
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
...even if they could give me some magic jetpack and a VW.
I walk into their stores, and give it five minutes before some yellow-shirted ninny is on me asking if I need help and then when being told no, either hovering nearby over my shoulder or flying off as far away as possible, no in betweens. I don't need to be led to the Stinksys routers when I ask for blank DVD-R media. I don't need to be offered an LCD when I ask for a CRT. I don't need to be... etc., lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum...
They did not however create the burger flipping mentality NOR did Microsoft. This was created strictly by the brainless users who figured that Microsoft and AOL catering to their need for simplicity and just working in OS and Internet areas respectively translated to needing zero understanding of anything they did. Hence, they got dumber, industry catered to it and made money or did not cater and was not adopted (see Linux versus Windows usage stats obviously, then Linux vs BDSM, oops BSD). Users got dumber, more catering...
Now people think some dipstick dressed like a coatless MIB agent will rocket to their rescue. I STILL meet people who want to know which key or combination is the "any" key.
This is just a function of modern society. Can't be helped really. Unless and until society and its mass culture shy away from abject stupidity and willful flight from reality into brainless ignorance as a way of life (all the while watching so-called reality shows in a trend that obliterates "irony" altogether requiring a stronger concept in its place) we will not see a change. What can we do?
Well, if you're a true geek, find out what the local burger flipping geek services are charging and undercut it by 10% and then charge every friend and family member who expects you to make their "tee cee pip" work for the labors and tell them its either you do it right or they get it done wrong for more money. And then make them watch and sit through the most mind destroying uber-technical longest possible winded explanations you can torture them with, deadpan.
Remember, you CANNOT change the human mind by argument alone. They ALWAYS think that ALL ideas and changes in them are THEIRS. So do like television and encourage them to change their minds through sheer preponderance of information whether they seem to be listening or not. If they don't learn, at least you get the cathartic release of making them sit through in one shot everything they already should have bothered to learn from a simple Dummies book but were too busy Googling for pics of Paris Hilton's privates to bother. I've done this twelve times in one week two a couple of people and lo and behold, they actually bothered looking up how to solve things on their own so as to not have to be lectured to anymore. Not as much fun as electrical shocks, but you do what you can when you're a geek.
That and leave a Knoppix CD in their drive before turning the computer off so when next it boots...
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
It looks like i see two ways this will work 1 Winternals will be found out to be firing off WMDs since they lost a contract (note to the RiverSide Campus folks do not aproach these goons) 2 the Geek Squad will be found out to be the biggest group of pirates since Blackbeard himself sailed the 7 seas (further note to the RSC folks hows about the name "Answer Team") so anybody want to put odds on which way this will fly??
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Doh! I should have proofed that post better. It was supposed to be a shovel wielding angry mob. But considering the context I like the way it turned out even better.
Being violated by housewares utensils is more fun than doing hardware support for the end consumer; and certianly more interesting... and less painful.
"09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0"
Wow, with 12,000 illegal instalations, Best Buy's wholesale institutionalized piracy will probably get it about the same total liability as the average Gnutella user. Makes perfect sense to me!
I've worked with and on computers for nearly thirty years and I'm frequently surprised by the amount of piracy in workplaces. Oh, I'm not talking about out-right piracy like bittorrented copies of cracked Photoshop, but lots of little things.
For instance, I've worked in commercial printers that literally had thousands of typefaces. Let's say you have a job you need printed on a printing press. You collect all the images, layout files, typefaces, etc., and you send that to the printer. The printer is supposed to delete those fonts when the job is complete. They don't, of course, so you have millions of pirated typefaces out there.
Another example: images that are only supposed to be used once, logos "retouched" and used in other publications, templates you're supposed to pay for obtained from non-traditional (i.e. free) sources, trials that miraculously seem to go on forever, etc.
Stuff like this happens in all kinds of offices all over the planet. There are so many companies out there who, if they took a real and honest accounting of the software and tools and plug-ins they have, would find that if they did actually purchase everything they own, they'd likely not have half of it. And if they did, they would have spent themselves into bankruptcy. But they rationalize that it's all necessary, it's something they need to do in order to do business. Indeed, many companies couldn't perform some of their services without the stuff they obtained.
I dunno. I think that, one day, someone really large with lots and lots of locations and chances to pirate stuff is going to get slammed with a huge fine and it's going to open a very large can of worms. If Best Buy really did use Winternals products illegally, it would not surprise me in the slightest, and it would be very, very typical of most companies, large and small.
P.S. And, yes, I can't claim my hands are completely clean.
P.P.S. Don't copy that floppy.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Best Buy's Geek Squad, is alleged to be using pirated versions of the software since talks on a commercial licensing agreement broke off.
To me, pirating (in the software/music sense) means: to copy without the legal right to do so.
If you install a bunch of software under license and then the licensing falls apart, making that software no longer licensed, you don't retroactively go back in time and "pirate" the software. You're simply using now unlicensed software - not copying it.
It's kind of like having sex with someone, dumping them, finding they still stalk you and then claiming they're a rapist. No, they had consensual sex with you. The fact that, since then, they've taken to doing something else that's illegal does not retroactively make them a rapist for having had sex when it was consensual.
Of course, screaming "rape!" in the press gets you a lot more headlines, helps you get more awareness of your product in the marketplace, and helps you strengthen your position in future negotiations with someone who really wants you to shut up, far more than saying, "They keep hanging around outside my window."
The chickens finally came home to roost for MS with their "registry".
.ini files and was legit in the sense that it contained stateful information (i.e. previous window size & position, recently opened files), but it also contained info about licensing and registration which is/was fine. But instead of coming up with a standard installation for these programs, what MS gave everybody was a bunch of API calls to read and write the registry and didn't actually monitor people too closely.
The primary reason they invented the registry was to allow software vendors to hide data about their program. Some of it had previously been in
Well, people can and did write everywhere they could in the registry to hide some inner function of their program, and what we have now is a mess. If you give a program the ability to access the registry, they can affect system parameters, other programs...anything. And if they try to fix this in Vista, they'll break even more stuff, so we'll have that little legacy running around forever.
All because they wouldn't use tried and tested methods of saving information. MS was too smart for everybody else, and now we have to install windows every year or so to clear the crap out of the registry because the OS lacks the facility to monitor changes made by applications, sandbox them, and then forcibily remove registry changes at installation.
I'd love to hear the "genius" who thought this was an improvement over a text file, because he/she is the only one.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"the problem is someone with the brains to be a good PC repair person has the ability to make *MORE* money than anyone will pay for PC repair."
Bingo. And it's made worse by the fact that everybody has a PC and because they installed MS Office they think they're a PC genius and therefore, the job is simple and it's not worth much.
Meanwhile, nobody can afford decent computer help because the guys working at these companies are either (a) just starting and really good and will quit in 2 months for a better job paying more(b) be clueless and worth there forever and do horrible things to computers because they're just not very bright (because if they were really bright and good, see (a) above).
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Where can I get a torrent for a new Graphics card?!? :P
Raymond Burr had utterly nothing to do with "Mod Squad"!
What part of "Mod" didn't you understand? When was Raymond Burr ever considered "Mod"?
You're thinking of "Ironside". The reason I remember that show is because Barbara Anderson was one of the hottest blondes on television at the time. They also had an episode where Ironside hooked up with his old flame played by German actress Karin Dor, who was major hot and a fave of mine.
Mod Squad had Peggy Lipton (who was pretty hot), Clarence Williams III and Michael Cole. Everybody remembers Clarence for that bizarre afro he always wore.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Nothing like gaming the system to insure the company goes out of business.
Your service plan will then be worthless.
Okay, I know, Best Buy doesn't look like it's going out of business anytime soon. But you never know.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
YOKU DEKIMASHITA!
(Congratulations!)
You correctly QUICKLY modded into Ironside from Mod Squad.
AND, you're "dating" yourself, too...
hehehe...
Now, I myself will scurry away and play somewhere, hehehe
Cheers!
(WHEW! that should REALLY reduce any chances of a lawsuit, hehehe...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I was a repair tech for about 8 monthes at one of the big chain stores and had a totally different experience. All our four techs were incredibly smart, and only one held any form of certification. We never installed pirated software, though we did keep a copy of XP in the office so we could use the recovery console or copy needed files. Over 8 monthes, and about 20-30 repairs I only ever did 2 clean installs, and both times recovered the majority of the customers files. I think its a bit unfair to say that all the people working in these positions are idiots many are highschool students and the experience is very enlightening, though usually takes you one step closer to becoming a hermit.
No doubt the reason the hard drive suddenly got bigger is that your previous version of Windows was limited to 2GB partitions by using the FAT16 file system. When they reinstalled with a later version, it used the whole disk by using FAT32.
I've had clients with hard drives that "filled up" and when I looked they had 2GB partitions with 4GB sitting there unused. Unfortunately they'd already bought a new 40GB hard drive!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I used to work as a computer salesperson and in the Geek Squad department.
This is not the only thing that Best Buy does illegally when it comes to its Geek Squad department. If you buy a computer that has a recovery disc off of the floor, chances are you will not get its recovery disc, or a legitimate copy of it, because they have already took the copy out of the contents stored and have incorporated it into the Geek Squad's disc collection.
What does that mean?
Well, when you buy a computer, most stores will push for their "ultimate" package, which includes recovery discs, anti-virus, and system optimizations. The copy of the anti-virus will be legitimate, but half of the time, they'll encourage you to go with this because they'll fear you into thinking if your hard drive goes that the recovery partition will not be there. Half of the time, there were discs already in the box, so the extra copy of the recovery discs were pointless. If you bought an open box computer that originally had discs, you would not get the originals because the Geek Squad had already acquired them.
Most of the guys who work as technicians in Geek Squad are working as technicians when there is work to do. Unfortunately, when there is little or no work to do, they go on the sales floor to push their products and basically fear-monger customers into their services. I will admit, most of the time, they are trying to be helpful when the manager/supervisor-types are not pushing for things.
Mind you, Best Buy will do some good for its employees, but some of the sales tactics just appall me. For instance, shortly before I left to the current job I absolutely love, I got in trouble because I didn't use the clipboard to get the person's lifestyle choices over a bloody USB cable for a printer. The clipboard does serve a useful purpose, but do I need to ask if this cable is going to be used for a laser or inkjet printer? Hell, half of the time, I told the customer to get the cheapest cable because the markup was going to be 1000% regardless of what length.
Ah well. If you want to work at Best Buy, work in inventory or in merchandising, because there is no sales expectation there. I was a good salesman and always scored high marks with their sales scoring method, but I didn't like the job at all.
It's quite simple really. When you're playing on a LAN simply have a few of the marines do a double-cross and shoot their own team mates, or have more gamers playing terrorists on pirated copies that you make up at the LAN.
There you go, now much more instances of "Terrorists Win" coming out of your computer's speakers...
Sorry, what?
His name is Robert Paulsen...
Like a Linux Live CD to boot up dead systems and attempt repairs on it in Linux?
There is even a BartPE CD boot that can have shareware programs loaded on it like Adware, AVG, Spybot:SAD, Nero, etc.
Sometimes I just make do with a floppy boot disk, provided the hard drive is not NTFS formatted or something. Still I can piggy back the IDE hard drive onto one of my working systems and repair it from there.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Why wear a tie when you can have an eyepatch!
Windows is very deterministic and easy to troubleshoot if you take the time to learn. It has distinct startup and shutdown procedures, driver installation, file system behavior, thread and process management, etc. These are all publicly documented, if you care to learn about them. Buy a copy of Windows Internals and you'll be amazed at what you didn't know. There are tools and utilities to automate all kinds of useful activities from the command-line, and if these tools don't exist, the APIs are very well documented on MSDN for how to create them.
Ever heard of that management console snap-in called Event Viewer? You might want to look into that. And as for debugging applications or even kernel-mode device drivers, Windows has some of the best freely available debugging facilities of any platform.
Read about Windows System File Protection. Run "sfc.exe /scannow" to validate your system files on XP/2k3. It uses hashes, not checksums.
Task manager? Tlist.exe?
It's pretty clear that you don't know much about Windows, which seems to be a common thread here on Slashdot. You'd rather trash Windows than spend the time to learn about what you don't know. It's easier to write off Windows as "unexplainable" just because you are too lazy to look behind the GUI.
Their "ultimate" package is really a crock of shiat, and really only called "ultimate" because the of "ultimate" income it brings to Best Buy. First of all, recovery disks should come with a new PC no matter what. It should NEVER be an option. I would never buy a computer without recovery disks.
Secondly, their, "system optimizations," are mainly a bunch of useless commercial tools for removing spyware and adware and basic stuff. You can get much better stuff online for either free or cheaper. I will say that a good antivirus application is something you want, though, so that part of the package is worth something.
Instead of giving more money to Best Buy, I would recommend going online once you get your computer and obtaining the following software packages:
Anybody that can't go to these sites and download a few simple software titles themselves, probably shouldn't be using a computer in the first place,...
I am a computer tech,.....*gasp*!! i make a decent livin, working a 40 hour a week plus run my own Computer consulting (computer repair mostly) business on the side. The business i work for now uses winternals, and tis a sweet program. I have always laughed when i see those geek squad comericlas when they come on because i know how much they cost for the service you get. I apparently have a nack for this type of work and can repair most problems about 95% of the time without a wipe and reload you all speak so highly of. If i could spend 2 hours blowing away everything or spend 4 hours fixen the problem, the customer would much rather pay to have the problem fixed do to the time it takes them to reset the computer back to the way it was before you decided it wasn't worth your time to get payed to perform a service that you told them you would perform. i could talk all day/night about this stuff, and it gets me fired up because im actually good at it. and now im being told that i was wrong all a long. I should have just been blowing away computers because its easier and faster. Well i don't always take the easier and faster route. I take the customers keep coming back because they like my work route.
You want dating? I'd love it if I could get "Ironside", "Cannon", "Baretta", "Streets of San Francisco", "Kojak", "Rockford Files", "Barnaby Jones", "Emergency", and a whole host of other 70's cop-type action shows on DVD. Quinn Martin, Jack Webb, and Stephen Cannell were da bomb back then.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I am a technician at an undisclosed Best Buy location and I can verify that this is the case, at least, in our store. An unlicensed version of ERD Commander will not properly boot (it is a bootable CD), whereas our copy of the software does start and displays the message "license information missing". Such was the case with the 2003 version, however, the 2005 version does not seem to work at all.
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Alas, a unique sig!
Yehh, and "Police Story", "Mannix" and "Police Woman"... heheh
heheh... image word: viceroy...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I once brought one of my computers in for servicing under warranty. It was a failed cdrw drive. they replaced the drive and then installed a bunch of random crap on my computer, such as powerDVD, Nero, some wierd music manager, and get this.... some MP3's that weren't mine...
Any tech worth his salt (ok, maybe not "just" a tech) will have taken a clean system, inventoried it software wise and process wise, and then match it with what's on the system. The first step they'll do on a "troubled" system is go through the initial cleaning process of shutting down 50+% of the unecessary services that run by default.
Then, using a process viewing tool after a reboot, track whether the running processes on startup are really who they say they are. Knowing how to stop and remove troublesome processes should also be part of the standard repetoire.
None of this takes a long time to learn. Matter of fact, anyone that's reasonably intelligent and understands the basics of computers, ie, TaskManager in Windows isn't a foreign concept) will be able to pick this up from a document in less than 2 hours.
BTW, I run Linux, Macs, and OS/2. Windows is a last resort.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The first place to look is often the event log (on any of the NT-derived OSes). The quickest way to get there is to right-click on My Computer and pick Manage.
The next things to check into are running processes, what starts with the system and what might be shimmed in elsewhere.
For running processes, SysInternals' Process Explorer is invaluable. Tweak the columns used to show the company, description, and executable path; be suspicious of things of things with no descriptions, things you don't recognize, or anything running from a funky location. You can open up detailed information on any process that includes TCP and UDP ports open for sending or receiving, security information and strings within the executable; you can also get a listing of files, registry keys, etc. that each process has open.
Process Explorer also does one other thing very useful - it lets you suspend a process without killing it. I've had to clean systems where that was the only thing that let me get stuff cleared because I wasn't able to kill the spyware processes off without triggering relaunches by a different process. Suspending processes on the other hand worked just fine.
Also from Sysinternals is Autoruns, which lists off everything that gets started automatically with Windows or at login from any of the many places such things can hide. HijackThis gives a similar set of information broken down a bit differently.
fencepost
just a little off
This is one of those cases where the person and the company both benefit if the company takes the responsibility. Because the person is acting as the "agent" of the company, the company is technically at fault. Though Best Buy would be more likely to fire the persons responsible if the allegations are true, it has the insurance to pay for such allegations, and it has access to much better lawyers.
I had about five minutes before a skinny guy told me to follow him into the security office.
A corollary lesson here is NEVER accompany any store personnel into any area not in view of the public in situations like this. If they have a problem with you, demand that the police be called. If it's not enough of a problem for the cops to deal with and for you to be arrested/charged, then it's not enough of a problem for you to be taken out of the public area of the property. If they ask you to leave, then leave, but you don't have any obligation to compromise your safety and potentially open yourself up to legal problems by accompanying some loss-prevention toady somewhere out of sight of the public and the store cameras.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
About a year ago a client brought me a computer to disinfect. With it he brought a Geek Squad disk that was left in the machine by Best Buy. The contents...Pirated copies of Partion Magic, NAV etc. Yes I am sure they were pirated they still contained the original pirates read me's with instructions on bypassing registration and lists of serial numbers.
Or they could use Debian. It's really not that hard to get rid of things owned by greed heads and get your work done, once you step out of the owned world. When you do, you realize just how ripped off you have been. Until you escape, there's no way you can know just how "guilty" you are.
The kind of "piracy" which is encouraged by greed heads is part of the way they maintain a perception of value. They want you to think of yourself as dirty and stealing, stealing something of ... value. They want you to be greatfull they don't sick the BSA on you for all your stealing, so greatfull that you obediently send in your money and show loyalty. They sue public schools for copying a text editor, why not you for all those pretty fonts?
Non free things are viral and should be avoided. There's no mechanism to tell in the non free world. When you get a font from a friend, can you tell if it is free from Font Fairy or ripped off? What mechanisms are there to keep your employee from not removing that "free trail" paint program? Did they leave their music collection in a shared directory? Only the BSA knows for sure and no one really wants a visit from them to find out. The only way to keep your hands clean is to not use stuff that's owned by people who don't like sharing.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
However, the security sucks. It is too easy to change things that shouldn't be changed. It is too easy to hide and bury things where they don't belong.
Is there any reason for a user-level app to not get a 'chrooted' version of the registry that only allows write access under a certain tree node?
I mean, assuming Microsoft cared about security.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
A little slip there, no?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I've still heard nightmares about it. And why would I want to buy one on the Xbox 360? That was the last time I bought something there and they would not shut up about trying to sell it to me.
I have an on-site computer service/consulting business that happens to compete directly with GeekSquad and others of their type. Whenever I run into the user who "lost their installation discs", I simply explain all of their options to them - and let *them* decide how to proceed.
1. They can opt to do without me re-loading whatever software they don't have. They can try to do it themselves later when they find their discs, or make another appointment to come back and do it later.
2. If they provide me with copies and tell me they really did pay for the program(s) in question, it's not my job to second-guess them. I'm paid to do whatever computer-related tasks they request of me, plain and simple.
3. They can run out and buy the product while I'm doing the rest of the work on their machine.
4. If it's someone I know *really* well and there's a good understanding that "they have no idea where the program came from", I *might* be convinced to help a friend out and load a bootleg copy of some program for them. But officially, no - this isn't a practice you want to get caught up in. (The way I see it though, the user is still the one breaking the law if he/she doesn't buy a legit copy of whatever they begged me to install for them. I'm only moving the bits around from point A to B - and not actually *using* the software in question afterwards.)
Well, I seriously doubt that it's a standard company policy to install illegal software (since they have been around quite some time), so I'm sure this has to deal with management of a few specific stores. And to me, that deals more with those specific people than with the company itself. I don't see anything else happening than a few firings.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
If Best Buy goes out of business, I don't think many people here would be shedding tears.
AnimeFreak: If you are a former Geek Squak employee and would like to help Winternals with its investigation, please fill out the survey at www.winternals.com/survey. Thank you!
I'm working at the Geek Squad in BestBuy as I am attending Murray State University. I hate it, yeah, and I think we are a total rip of most of the time, but it's the only way for me to pay my car insurance and make it through college. I can say that we have done some pretty shady things in the past, but given the resources we are handed, I think we do a fairly well job. Our geek squad is composed of fairly talented people who are just trying to finish school and start a real life. To those who say any self respecting geek would never work at Best Buy, try starting a life with nothing. Working on campus in the CS department or at a local fast food joint is much worse. Even though I have found nice success in working for myself over the breaks.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Unfortunately, Geek Squad members are stuck between a rock and a hard place; the customer, who wants their stuff fixed, and Best Buy, who isn't going to shed out a single extra dollar to help out.
At the bench I worked at (laugh if you want) we actually had several bright individuals who really cared about helping customers. We often under charged for some things, and even more often, had to bring tools from home. Geek Squad Agents aren't supplied with OEM disks for anything. No windows install disk, no real software tools, no nothing.
Sure there's an official Geek Squad disk, but it's essentially useless.
Everything they use is either shareware, free software, or pirated.
I must say in my haste to post I didn't RTFA, so I don't know if the alleged (alleged? suuuuuure) pirated software was included on the official Geek Squad disk or not. However, I'm sure the problem is at least 10 times worse than anyone knows.
Unless things have changed recently, no best buy service plan covers damange, accidental or not.
1) fdisk does recognize NTFS partitions ("that NTFS thingy") /mbr switch resets the master boot record on the hard drive . It has nothing to do with the partitions. You could use it to remove lilo, or grub, or the FreeBSD boot loader if you wanted to. /mbr`
2) fdisk's
3) The Windows 2000/XP/2003 recovery console has a repair function built into it that is the equivalent of `fdisk
Who's the ignorant one here?
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Keeping it as a job on par with burger-flipping keeps out the kind of people who would read or analyse what products -- either open or closed source, from a vendor or the net, or a mixture of all of the above -- and recommending the combination which would best meet the customer's needs and save them the most money. Instead, what you get are lay preachers who help spread the gospel of Bill (and all the urban legends in praise of Bill's engineering prowess, philanthropy, and background) and keep the money trickling in...
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
When I was a tech at Bestbuy 2001-2004 We were encouraged by managers to pirate software and even install it on customer computers. About time someone sued them over it. Personally I never did this, as a student of programming, how could I steal someone else's work?
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
Does anybody else love the subtle disdain that single quotes give the subject of this posting?
You may want to check http://www.winternals.com/legal/Plaintiff's%20App% 20for%20Temporary%20Restraining%20Order%20and%20In junction.pdf . It's a hilarious doc in itself, describing in details how exactly BB employers were caught using unlicensed software (on video included). And there are receipts for their service attached. Nowhere near $30/hour, nowhere near...
It looks like it. According to docs on http://www.winternals.com/legal/ the "license" number on the cracked program was the same in Boston and Pennsilvania.
"and per-user settings go in HKEY_USERS\{SID}"
Programs should not access to "per-user settings", they should only have access to Per-User/Per Application. An Application should only be able to change it's own settings, not the setting of an entire user's registry space.
This way, removing registry entries would be easier. You simply delete the node that an application has access to an *poof* it's gone. The program should not have access to anything outside its own little sandbox that the OS defines, not the application.
Look, it's not worth arguing that the registry is a good design... we wouldn't be having this conversation if there was no problem. But I hope MS is breaking compatibility on this little gem in Vista, because if they don't, I'm not sure Vista will offer the ability to fend off badly written (and malicious)programs from hijacking the registry easily, just as they do in XP/2000/NT.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
They charge $450 for a 20 minutes work (done with a software they have not paid $600 for). Nowhere near jugular for me... Come on, it's tax deductible for the company :)
http://www.winternals.com/legal/ - see Motion for Expedited Discovery there. There is a question eh.. sorry "interrogatory" No. 6:
"Please provide a complete list of all licensed software provided by you to Geeks in the last 5 years..."
our store stopped using Winternals products 6 months ago
First time BB had a license for Winternals was November 2005...
the Security edition assumes that AOL is going to be your only method for acessing the internet, and that your are enforcing controls on the kid's accounts. For some parents this works well. Of course, if you are a 13 yr old looking for funkiness, you might have a problem.
Of course, this might not be a perfect solution, either.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
...according to http://www.winternals.com/legal/ (see Motion for Restraining Order). BB employes were caught with unlicensed Winternals software in 50% of the cases, in Boston, Washignton, Pennsilvania and California. And with same "License No" too...
Wow, that was an in your face, detailed explanation of truth, and a nice solution in conclusion.
Most of the software used in the precincts I've been to use illegal software...they should try getting us licenses for actually usefull software instead of making deals with the cheapest companies. They also issued us copies of ERD Commander which I believe we stopped using shortly after we got them because we have much better PE distributions at our disposal.
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
I worked at a Geeksquad in Awatukee, Arizona for all of 2 weeks. It was a terrible experience. The management approached me and informed me when I was making estimates for customers they needed to be NO LESS than $200. They didn't care what I had to do to make the estimate this large, they said just do it.
.ISO image of tools, burned it to a CD and informed us this is what corporate wanted us to be using. In fairness we decided to take a look and see what kind of tools were on the CD. I remember about 30 different partitioning tools on there and memtest86, thats about it!
There were only 3-4 people working behind the counter in the store who knew what they were doing. The rest of the employees never would have been hired by a real computer repair shop.
One of the more experienced techs brought in some diagnostic software he personally purchased and we would use this to diagnose computers as they came in. When we approached management to buy enough licenses for the software so we could legally use it they barred us from using it at all. Instead, the management downloaded an
We presented a case to management begging them to buy us licenses for the other software as thats what we needed to do our jobs efficiently. They let us know if we couldn't figure out how to use the CD they provided we obviously didn't know how to do our jobs.
Screw Geek Squad, Screw Best Buy. They are Evil.
The same thing could be (and has been) said many times coming from the other side. People who complain about Linux are, 9 times out of 10, just not knowledgeable enough. At least with Linux, you don't have to buy a book (you can if you want, though), and the source code is all readily available. The bottom line is, very few people have enough experience and expertise with both systems to make a fair comparison, even if they weren't biased in the first place. Both systems seem to "just work" for the majority of their users. The difference is that in the open source world, we are fair and open and upfront about our failings and how the system works; sometimes it feels like pulling teeth to get the information you need in the closed source world (how long have you been lurking before delivering this eye-opening post? Why not speak up sooner? Or did you get modded down all the time?).
Nathan's blog
Depriving customers of their restore CDs wouldn't be a waste of time if your goal is to ensure service calls by preventing customers from being able to restore their computers without help. It's clear that a business could benefit from such behavior, even if it is unscrupulous and probably illegal. I'm not alleging that Best Buy did any such thing (someone else did), but you can't simply rule out the possibility as a logic exercise by claiming there's no benefit in it -- there's a clear possible benefit there...
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
I found a disk just like this inside a cd-rom drive from a lot of 50 drives our company bought on e-bay. The disc is marked MRI and then a date from 2002.
I suppose the question is whether Microsoft wants you to have success with Applications third party developers. Most operating systems are designed with the assumption that many of the applications that will be run were written by malicious fuckups, curiously inventive hackers, degenerate sociopaths with CS degrees, and children. Microsoft assumes that applications will be written by Microsoft, or at least by certified developers (not that Microsoft is particularly good at developing for their own system). The attitude is that if you're running applications from outside that cozy little clique, you're probably a dangerous free thinker of some kind and don't deserve a functional system.
Call me whatever you want but on my computers I do not have a single pirated software title. I do download some Warez/pirates/etc as needed but if I find them useful I actually spend the money and buy them otherwise I delete them. (and no I dont make lots of money.. but its a principal thing)
Um, did their lawyer (or anyone else) notice the nice (and apparently active) Visa card number on p. 43 of that PDF, complete with name, address, verification number, etc? Someone might want to point that out to them so they can, um, ya know, get it disabled/changed....
If Star Trek had the internet: Captain, we've received an IM from the romulans. "Surrender or be destroyed. LOL. o.O"
I don't know about the 'Geek Squad', but I ran the most profitable tech bench in the company in 98. I worked for the company from 94 to 98. We acquired our 'Vast Collection' of setup CDs from the vendors, not from stealing out of customers' computers for setups. We had a massive collection and held on to them like gold, especially the Compaq CDs, since the PCs were awful. Piracy was strictly against the rules. I would fire any tech under me that did that. In addition, if a manager told me to do it, I would just call the Regional Tech Manager and that manager would be gone with in a couple of days. Lead Techs had no fear of the Store Management Staff, since we, like the LPs, reported to external management.
The 14.99 (I think it is 19.99 now) system setup was an absolute godsend to us, since some of the manufactures stunk. (CTX and Compaq) Many times, we would wave the 14.99 fee, just so we could verify the PC. (On a side note, we could often charge the vendor more.) Our bread and butter though was vendor warranty work though. Those first year Compaqs were worth Gold, if you did the paperwork, because they came in usually a dozen a week.
Yes, on slow days (usually tuesdays) I would help the PC drones make some sales. In addition, I would push the extended warranty, even though I think it is crap. I had to watch out for some tech being a loose cannon, but I didn't have to many problems. I spent most of my time checking paperwork and doing upgrades for users. Most of the complaints that I have read are just crap.
In God we trust, all others require data.
Best Buy's Geek Squad, is alleged to be using pirated versions of the software since talks on a commercial licensing agreement broke off.
In a related story, Zonk is alleged to miss even the most egregious punctuation, errors.
Entomology is the scientific study of insects. Jeez, people, if you're going to be anal about other people's use of words, make FOR FUCKING SURE yours are correct.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
If I were a woman, I would take a few photos of myself in a sexual position, put them in a VERY obvious place on my drive, but not somewhere in the "open".
For instance, the 'my photos' directory, or "my documents" or something where the techs have no reason to be. The desktop or root directory doesn't county since that is essentially "in the open".
THEN, I would take my computer to the GS for work. Once it comes back to me, I would surf the web for porn and download all the porn I could get my hands on. If I ever find photos of myself, I would then sue GS and BB into oblivion.
I am willing to bet that these types of photos make it to the Net in this fashion more than people care to admit. Ever wonder how many drug-store photo developers make an "extra" print for 'personal use'?
Thoughts? Comments? Issues? Moans? Bitches? Groans? Complaints?
Libertas in infinitum
as far as this ERD stuff goes, originally (maybe 6-8 months back) I heard through the GeekSquad grapevine that some stupid DA (onsite tech) used it to crack the pw of a customer who "forgot" what it was, and it just so happened that the lady worked for ERD, recognized the program and reported it. maybe there was some more recent issue, but considering the tool set I got from GS, there was no call for it at all.
not to mention all the corporate emails from GS higher-ups promising all-holy-retribution to be rained down upon any Precinct that did not purge all pirated software from the bench that went out every few months.
470 seattle is the 4th Bestbuy I've worked at, and if anything is true it's that some managers "get it" and some don't. my current managers don't. luckily, we have an awesome sup who's fightin' the good fight to support the good techs we have (and we have quite a few) and train up the ones who need it. i guess 323 is an example of the latter rather than former, no?
all in all, i actually enjoy working at Bestbuy, and i had a blast on the GeekSquad. I learned a lot of stuff about repair of nearly anything under the sun at 21 Iowa City. there are some techs there that oughta be off making 50 grand a year for what they're capable of..
Well, neither am I, insofar as i've experienced it.
Cheers!
PS. I read someone in an earlier thread mentioning the use of FOSS, figured I'd mention that the MRI is based on Knoppix and the PW crack is based on another ultrasmall distro that is basically just a bootable regedit, although i can't remember what it's called right now...
Rise up in the cafeteria and STAB them with your plastic forks!
If you are an ex-Geek Squad employee and have information about Geek Squad's use of unlicensed software, please fill out the survey at www.winternals.com/survey. Thank you!