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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.
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.
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They based their diagnostics business on a licenced piece of proprietary software that can be, and was, withdrawn completely at the discretion of its owner.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.
I could be wrong about this because I worked in the computer dept not on the Geek Squad, but Best Buy employees are not commision based.
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
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...
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.
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.
That was a simplistic way of describing it, to be sure, but it isn't entirely wrong. I was working in the DRAM industry when mass production shifted from plain SDRAM (PC-100/133) to DDR SDRAM. For some time, the prices of PC-100/133 exceeded the prices of DDR, simply because manufacturers were shifting huge portions of their capacity to DDR. Supply and demand...
FWIW, memory companies that still make EDO and FPM memory can make pretty good money on those, supporting legacy machines (lots of old Sun boxes of that vintage still run fine, for example).
None of this is to defend Best Buy--I don't like shopping there either, and I won't be in one anytime soon.
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
Where can I get a torrent for a new Graphics card?!? :P
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.
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.
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.
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
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)
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...
The irony is, around Halloween, I went ot Best Buy to pick up I don't even remember what now, and the entire Geek Squad dept were dressed as pirates.
If only I had known!
You say you want a revolution....