Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

No Right to Privacy When Your Computer Is Repaired

Posted by Zonk on from the ouch-vaguely-ironic-name-there dept.

Billosaur writes "ZDNet's Police Blotter bring us the interesting story of a Pennsylvania man who brought his computer into Circuit City to have a DVD burner installed on his computer and wound up being arrested for having child pornography on his hard drive. Circuit City employees discovered the child pornography while perusing Kenneth Sodomsky's hard drive for files to test the burner, then proceeded to call the police, who arrested Sodomsky and confiscated the computer. Sodomsky's lawyer argued in court that the Circuit City techs had no right to go rifling through the hard drive, and the trial court agreed, but prosecutors appealed and the appeals court overturned the lower court's decision, based on the fact that Sodomsky had consented to the installation of the DVD drive."

2 of 853 comments (clear)

  1. Re:the police didn't handle this very well by HappySmileMan · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I would have installed some key logger software to monitor him and find his sources Ok so a lot of people here seem to show indifference, but you're the first who actually express an interest in AQUIRING child porn, well done.
  2. This was a good accident by trentkw · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I don't really disagree with your facts Mr ScrewMaster, but what happened here is a good thing. One less person that's consuming images of child sexual abuse is a good thing. I'm not saying that technician's should be trying to find these criminals, but what happened was a insignificant accident, and a good accident at that. ScrewMaster, you almost sound like you are defending the pedophile, and trying to lynch the technicians. This possibly can't be the case, but you sure have put a lot of effort into making undermining the seriousness of the crime they found. Just his bad luck that they found kiddie porn What? This pedophiles' bad luck started when he downloaded those images of child sexual abuse. What happened was deserved, not bad luck. Otherwise they'd just have made copies for their own consumption and nobody would have been the wiser. Why do you say this? Are you speaking from the experience of having been a techie? Is this what you would've done without a supervisor?