Police Say Mac Tech Installed Spyware To Photo Women

CWmike writes "He was hired to fix their computers, but police say that Trevor Harwell instead installed spyware software that took candid photos of his clients in various states of undress. Harwell had been a Macintosh specialist with a Los Angeles-area home computer repair company called Rezitech. That's how he allegedly had the opportunity to install the spy software, called Camcapture, on computers. While working on repair assignments, the 20-year-old technician secretly set up a complex system that could notify him whenever it was ready to snap a shot using the computer's webcam, according to Sergeant Andrew Goodrich, a spokesman with the Fullerton Police Department in California. 'It would let his server know that the victim's machine was on. The server would then notify his smartphone... and then the images were recorded on his home computer,' he said. Police say they've found thousands of images on Harwell's computers and have identified dozens of victims, all of them women in Los Angeles and Orange County. Harwell was arrested Wednesday by Fullerton police." But was he a good repairman?

Comments

In Apple's defense

[elrous0]

This guy was a rogue and clearly not following Apple policy. Apple states explicitly in their policy manual that spying on customers in any way--through their webcam, microphone, user accounts, etc.--is strictly prohibited for all Apple employees except Steve Jobs.

Re:In Apple's defense

[drinkypoo]

OMFG it's even better than you (or I) thought. Not only can the screen be the camera, but you can also just stick a camera behind the screen. I knew about the first patent but didn't catch Apple getting the second.

Cue breathy voice: View Apple patents and see why 2011 will be like 1984.

Job skills

[i.r.id10t]

Apparently he is qualified to work for one of the school boards in Pennsylvania

Re:Job skills

[Tarsir]

Well, what one wonders is why this guy got caught?

He also had the laptop pop fake warning messages saying that the laptop was malfunctioning, and that putting it near hot steam might clear up the issue. This prompted many victims to take the computer into their washrooms while they showered.

Eventually someone brought their computer to a MacStore instead, and the tech there found the spyware.

Hot Steam

[RazzleFrog]

It had been popping up weird messages. One of them, designed to look like a Mac OS X system warning, said, "You should fix your internal sensor soon. If unsure what to do, try putting your laptop near hot steam for several minutes to clean the sensor."

Now that is creative. Had to be some mighty dumb women who fell for that.

Re:Hot Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

Some victims, tricked by the pop-up warning, did take their computers with them into the shower, Goodrich said.

That's pure genius. Evil genius, but genius nevertheless.

Re:Just get laid already

[base3]

Pretty sure he will, now.

Has nothing to do with that

[Moraelin]

It has nothing to do with liking to see naked chicks. Sure, I like to see naked chicks too. I don't go install spyware on people's computers for that.

Similarly we all like money, but most of us don't go empty someone's bank account with a keylogger or phishing site. And most of us like sex, but we don't give someone some *ahem* surprise sex. And most of us would like something bad to happen to that guy who was the school bully or to some cruel ex or idiot boss or whatever, but we don't go set their house on fire. Etc.

Reducing it to liking or wanting something is ridiculously simplistic. The question isn't what he wanted, but how he went about that.

And frankly, few things piss me off than the kind of person who's only kept from being a bully or a crook by not having the balls to do it IRL, but who turns into a bully or a crook as soon as there's a couple of routers between him and the victim. I don't have much respect for the former category to start with, but the kind who thinks he's so L33T for hiding behind the screen to do it, ranks even lower for me.