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Verizon Worker Arrested For Copying Customer's Nude Pictures
An anonymous reader writes "El Reg reports that two employees at a Verizon store in Florida are facing charges after making copies of a woman's naked pictures while helping her transfer data from an old phone to a new one. The two employees later offered to show the pictures to another customer, but the customer happened to be the woman's friend. The woman and her friend filed a police report. The police quickly got a warrant to search the store and found copies of the pictures on multiple devices there. One of the employees, Gregory Lampert, was arrested and charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor. The other employee, Joshua Stuart, is no longer in Florida, but will face charges if he comes back."
can you see me now?
Gently reply
This is stupid and pervy overall, but offering to show it to another CUSTOMER? Can't get much dumber than that.
Where they perchance prior Agents for Geek Squad?
What kind of a world is this when someone you just met feels compelled to share the information you stole? You cannot trust anybody now days.
Show us the pictures!
Unwittingly admitting your crime to the customer's friend and getting himself charged with two felonies - Priceless!
Unfortunately this has been going on since the early days of personal computers. Take your PC in for repair, and often times the 'techs' would scour your drive ( or floppies ) looking for 'cool stuff'. 'Cool stuff" could be anything from hoping they find porn and be fairly harmless ( since back then it wasn't as 'free' ) or in more current times, far more malicious and they may search for your bank records or something to blackmail you with later..
Lesson: Trust no one.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yes, I get this is not upstanding behavior. Is it a 'dealing in stolen property' felony? What the heck is an 'offenses against computer users' felony? Misdemeanor theft, yes. But 'handling lewd materials'? That's a crime?
It feels like most of the laws are on the books just so the police can hit you with a zillion for anything then drop most of them to appear like the good guys.
Pics or it didn't happen.
Seriously... the Internet has an ocean of nude pictures, and in far higher resolutions than any camera phone could hope to take. You can even get movies in full 1080p of women doing damned near anything and everything you can conceivably think of - be it sexual or not. Nearly any 14-year boy on the planet with Internet access know this!
In conclusion, we know that these two "techs" at the Verizon store aren't exactly carrying a surplus of clue here... ] ...so what does that say about Verizon's hiring standards for technically-minded people? Seriously?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
As a corollary, I really wish we could mod posts like yours 'stupid' as well.
Yes, it was a dumb thing to do. No, these knuckleheads shouldn't get a pass for doing it. This is actually why i never let cell phone vendors move my info to the new phone. They SHOULD simply move data from A to B without retaining or examining the data in any way. I don't trust them to. And there aren't nekkid pictures of anyone on my phone anyway.
Ouch!
Hope the creep goes to jail.
When I was younger I felt more like you do. Now I'm in favor of giving them rich, well-deserved beatings.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
We have here a case where we know that some guy should face a charge in the USA. but, he won't, because he's on the other side of some imaginary line IN THE USA and some prosecutor presumably doesnt want to file the necessary paperwork (perhaps sensibly given his/her workload - the problem is the basic system, not this caveat). Meanwhile, this woman will not get the justice she presumably deserves. Insane.
Stories like this shows up all the time. If it's not nude pictures, then it's the product ID for antivirus or something else. The only thing you really can do about it is to avoid giving access to anybody.
Personally I had a computer which died and had to be fixed on warranty. I swapped the HD just in case and swapped back when it returned. The real problem is for people without the knowledge on how to do that, which would likely be the case for somebody paying for getting data transferred. Once in a while my family states they wouldn't know what to do if I couldn't fix stuff for them.
Another issue is why is there nude pictures on the phone in the first place? Stuff you bring around (like phone and camera) could get stolen, which is why you more or less should plan for how to minimize the damage if it's stolen before it's stolen. Also such stuff is often stolen from places where you didn't expect it to be stolen and hence becomes more careless.
Copying customer's pictures to his own device - Wrong on so many levels.
I have to disagree on the first part, as often times techs will bring their own hardware to a site and copy all the customers files of in preparation for a reload. "please save my pictures and music" ( or in a business, CAD files, or whatever ) as no one ever backs up...
A tech should use a company-owned device for that, not a personal device, and treat all backed-up data as confidential.
However, i dont look thru them, and they are deleted before i leave the site.
So you follow at least some good practices for confidentiality of customers' data. Customers should insist that this practice be written into the terms of service.
Be a grown up and admit that they are your nude photos. Then go after the Verizon flumky via copright laws. Sure not as much $ as if you had a registered copyrigjt but it is still money.
Keep accounting or tax records on your computer, or personal files with your information. Then ask some dweeb at a store to copy them over to your new computer???
I'm sorry, but what in the hell did you expect??
Well I actually expected them to copy the files over to the new computer and not make a copy of them. You know, behave professionally and all that.
My old roommate (who was very hot and used to dance at the strip clubs) took a bunch of nude pictures of herself with her Verizon blackberry. When her blackberry died she took out the card and sent the phone back for warranty replacement. When she got the replacement phone and put in the card she couldn't find any of her pictures or anything so she asked me for help.
Turned out she had kept the (completely useless) vodaphone simcard, and left the sdcard full of pictures in the phone. So now some lucky Verizon warehouse tech has an sdcard full of her nudes.
First of all, what is this idiot doing carrying around nude pictures of herself on her cellphone? A lot of phones get lost or stolen. Nice way to set yourself up for a blackmail attempt. Secondly, don't you think it might be a good idea to get rid of such photos before going in to get a new phone? Those devices that are used to copy data from one phone to another...how do you know that the data isn't copied somewhere other than your new phone? Short answer...you don't.
It just astounds me how careless some people are with cellphones. If you want to keep nudie pics on your phone, fine, but don't be surprised when it falls into the wrong hands. I was at the airport a few weeks ago and some lady sitting across from just gets up and leaves. She leaves her MacBook and iPhone and luggage just sitting on the chair. A few minutes later she comes back with a magazine. Anyone could have just swept in and stole all of it. Then she would have been moaning about being a victim of a crime. She's a victim alright...a victim of her own stupidity.
This is just a sign of the times, of course. A time when people are no longer held accountable for their own mistakes and misjudgments. Take out a loan that everyone, including you, knows you can't repay? Blame the bank. Drive around with a scalding hot cup of coffee between your legs? Blame McDonalds. Your kid is doing poorly at school? Blame the teacher.
Heaven forbid that people might actually take accountability for their own actions. If you take your cellphone into the store with nude pictures of yourself on it and some kid working there sees them then you are a fucking moron and deserve to be humiliated. End of story.
This thread is useless without pics.
when she looses her phone ?
So who's the narcissistic vulnerability pimp now, eh? Better change that red to purple.
...Yeah, you know it.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
"I'm sorry, but what in the hell did you expect??"
That the "dweeb" at the phone store would (gasp!) behave professionally and not invade a customer's privacy?
I really believe that the time has come when the Courts should be able to say "Because you're an idiot, and brought this on yourself! That's why!"
Does this American notion of "reasonable expectation of privacy" extend to a person shoving other people his or her nude photos?
Ezekiel 23:20
When I was younger I felt like you. Now I am more forgiving, and dont believe people should be punished with felonies for simply stupid things they did.
Feigned outrage aside, if just about every man out there were in the same position they'd do the same (except showing the pics to customers), given the opportunity.
Not only is it not illegal to be stupid, but stupid is actually a protected class these days.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
...that Verizon doesn't screen their employees with an IQ test. :p
...the only people copying your stuff off your phone are the ones monumentally stupid enough to try to sell your pics to someone else in the store?
Yeah, these guys ordered a side of monumentally stupid and got caught. But you can bet there are Verizon (and AT&T and Sprint and Best Buy...) employees out there doing this ALL THE TIME.
Just say no.
I visited Florida once and purchased a lottery ticket. The drawing was after I got home and it turned out I won $14. I read the directions on how to claim which said to send the ticket in. So I did. After about 10 weeks I got a response saying that they had determined my ticket was not a winning ticket. So I contributed $1 to Florida's education system, and some flunky at the Lottery headquarters got $14.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
They had no reason to open the files when transferring them. Sure she probably knew this was a possible result, but that doesn't make it any less wrong.
None posted - didn't happen.
But he isn't acting as an individual, he's a representative of the company, he was paid during this time. This occurred at a company location, with company equipment. There must be protocols for proper use which were not followed so the employee most likely knew better. If the company made and distributed unauthorized copies of data from your phone and even showed other customers, would you be so lenient had this been your wife/girlfriend/daughter/sister/mother? What if it was tax information?
Let me guess "It's nothing we haven't seen before!"
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
What do the anti-copyright "information wants to be free" people have to say about this case?
But he isn't acting as an individual, he's a representative of the company, he was paid during this time. This occurred at a company location, with company equipment.
the company should be somewhat liable then, right? why should businesses get to have their cake and eat it, too? so many times this stuff is just kicked down to the bad employee. make the enabler for once.
He made an intermediate copy, that's a man in the middle attack. The data was supposed to go from one phone to the other only.
That the "dweeb" at the phone store would (gasp!) behave professionally and not invade a customer's privacy?
More professional pay might encourage more professional behavior.
But everything is about racing to the bottom and squeezing blood from turnips these days.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Funny thing nobody seems to mention. But the customer, the woman's (boy)friend must have taken up on the offer. Otherwise he couldn't have known it was her. Right?
DRM/Walled gardens "protect" the user (yea right), but when it comes to protecting the users files it's useless, and somehow blameless: Nobody in this thread blames the phone manufacturer or Verizon for not locking down the software and protecting the user. We know it's hypocrisy to say DRM and walled gardens benefit the customer, but they still deserve the blame for events like this -- they want to control the device, they should get the blame.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
We just have to wait ... F5 F5 F5 F5 F5...
That they keep trying to justify the verdict. First they try to justify the award by the fact that she was severely hurt. Well it was her fault. It doesn't matter how much she was hurt if it was her fault McDonald/'s shouldn't have to pay. Second. The upshot. McDonalds reduced the temperature of their coffee. Result, people stopped buying it, McDonald put bigger warning labels on the coffee and raised the temperature back. In the end the "inconvenient truth" is that people want McDonalds coffee to be hot. If you don't like it don't buy it.
Sharing of data that does not personally identify an individual (such as music) is *entirely different* than sharing data that does identify an individual (such as a nude pic).
PII (personally-identifying information) can be used to steal real money directly from the bank accounts of real people, or (in the case of nude pics) to harass and publicly humiliate specific real people. That is not even the same sport, let alone the same ballpark, as sharing an MP3 with a friend.
The two categories of data are different, and the consequences of their distribution are different, and therefore the laws that should regulate them should also be different.
I would have thought this would be obvious. I could give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are just trolling...but...you probably really are that stupid.
I guess they wanted to go easy on him. The correct charge would be copyright infringement, but the punishment for that these days is so severe that you're better off charged with theft...
For example at work I'm the Windows support lead, an upper level tech support guy basically. This means I have a domain administrator account, the root account on our UNIX systems, the admin account on our NetApp and so on. In other words: I have full access. There is no system in the building I can't get at everything on it.
This means they have to trust me, they have to trust that I won't go and rifle through shit I shouldn't. Even if you naively believe that people never do anything personal on work systems, there's still all kinds of work related stuff I need to leave alone.
And I do, I respect the need for privacy and understand that my access is not synonymous with permission.
so are they or are they not on the internet yet?
So what did the company do to inherit liability? Did they magically know this guy was going to do this? Of course not. Did they create an environment of unaccountability in which such acts could occur? Maybe. If there's a history of employees doing this sort of thing (especially managers!), then there's a case. But if the company tried to a reasonable degree to prevent such acts, then what's the case for liability?
TSA is hiring.
Bark less. Wag more.
Since the company offers to transfer private data, they are responsible for arranging that they do it properly. Ever heard a bank say "sorry, an employee stole your monry, not our fault"? No, the risk is foreseeable, so the company uses policies, procedures, and equipment which protect from these obvious risks. It appears that Verizon did not take appropriate measures. (One example is that they could have regularly reminded employees that such action could be a felony and that management WOULD call police if anyone was caught stealing customer data, along with methods to detect such actions, Including mystery shoppers watching for it.)
The only thing that saves us is the fact that most criminals are stupid.
I get that, completely .... and you're right. But still, the whole argument that someone acting improperly on company time deserves punishment really only extends as far as reprimanding them, giving them a pay cut or demotion, or firing them.
The police shouldn't really differentiate when it comes to who (if anyone) someone was employed by at the time they did something unlawful. (The courts *might* do so when a case goes to trial -- but that's a different issue, and would typically only come into play if there was evidence the company encouraged the unlawful behavior in some way.)
As far as the level of criminal punishment these guys would/should get for this stunt? I'm of the opinion it's not extremely serious, actually. Stupid and immature? Sure... But on the scale of illegal activities, I think it really does rank among the minor issues. If these guys proceeded to leverage the photos to attempt to extort money from the woman, or started making money with a pay web site featuring "stolen cellphone nude pics" or something? Now THAT would take it to the next level. As it is, what we've got here is a woman who was really too careless or trusting with what she kept on her phone, handing it over to a couple guys who took advantage of the situation for kicks.
If she really just blocked you and never spoke to you again, including never actually called you a creep, she's probably just too embarassed to ever see you again.
Someone with no tech skills and that degree of modesty should not be uploading private pictures, but hey, now she knows that.
Now I know the advantage of working in a Telecom Company's Customer Care Department.. Free pr0n.
And the moral of the story is don't keep nude pics of yourself on your computer, and never, EVER send them to anyone else, because they WILL find their way onto the internet.
This is why companies (and I'm sure Verizon does) have ethics training that employees must complete as part of our employment with our companies. This is the exact situation they do this for. They show that they trained the employees not to do crap like this, so that when an idiot employee does, they are less, or not, liable.
I had pics of my girlfriend and I on my phone (stupid I know) and I went in to do something rather and ended up getting a new phone. This teenage girl wanted to copy over my pictures and the like, and I told her no, she kept insisting I said no, and eventually she did it anyways even after telling her no like 10-times. I watched her do this and her facial reaction was priceless. I don't know if she was a virgin but we had penetrating pictures on that phone her this girl's face just turned pale and her jaw dropped and then her face turned bright red. Once she was done transferring she was talking like she was in a hurry and I looked her straight in the eyes and said "are you satisfied?", she didn't answer but she did change the subject to end the transaction. Verizon, you're so crazy!
This has happened since computer service came into existence.* What I find odd about this is the two oddities put together.
First, the idiot was stupid enough to share it with a CUSTOMER; let's leave the 'other employees' out of this - that's risky enough.
Second, the idiot was STUPID ENOUGH TO SHARE IT WITH A CUSTOMER. That leads to an odd picture (no pun intended). I take a guess that the tech was quite young, first-off. It might have been a full moon day (that's pushing it, I know). Best-for-last: I am guessing it was a set-up. For it to be shared with this "friend", said friend would have had to either play the "I'm a tech at some other place" game, and try to play the role, or the employee was just that young and stupid to actually SHOW A CUSTOMER. The caps indicate my extreme questioning of this logic and risk, in case that's not obvious.
The above items not being the case, it also leads to two other possibilities: 1.) The friend had already schemed with the victim to find the pictures would be shown, not tell management but quietly go to the police and file a police report, and have the place warranted and searched without time for direct deletion of evidence.** 2.) The friend told the victim out of guilt OR in passing, and the victim was smart enough to go to the police instead of management (see 1).
In my head (and I'm just guessing here), from all of the years that this has gone on and nothing like this has made the news***, this reeks of a planned act to get shitloads of money. Call me stupid, but hey.... Time and actions taken into account here, this just seems too well played out (unless, of course, the victim was told in passing AND was pissed enough to call the police; Human behavior taken into account, I'm shocked she didn't report the friend as well out of shame and guilt).
Sorry for the $0.01 in thoughts here, but hey. It's a comments section. :)
* Phones count as computers now
** Deletion doesn't count as deletion due to data recovery potential; it's only called 'direct deletion' in this case
*** With the exception of techs finding illegal material and reporting it to feds
Nice try, greedy but unambitious cell phone repair guy.
Pix or it didn't happen.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
The article reads like it was written by the media industry. Theft, stealing, stolen property... come on people, it's fucking copyright infringement. Nothing was stolen... the girl was not left without her nude pictures. The guys didn't "take" them from her. Data was copied without permission. Simple as that. The only "property" in question is the phones and other computing devices mentioned in the article... and none of that was "stolen" either.
On a scale of 1-10 in right-n-wrong, I rate this a 1. Seeing a naked pic of a cute lady customer of yours is a guilty pleasure that you fakers would enjoy too, maybe enough to keep a copy of the pic for your jerk off sessions in the bathroom you lying phony bastards
the woman in the photos. People need to learn that if there are naked pictures of you on some electronic device somewhere, sooner or later they're going on a web page.
If you're going to have nude photos of yourself taken at least get paid for it.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
agreed.
They copied her sex-based intellectual property? They owe her $1.5M!!!!!!!!!
UTF-8: There and Back Again
If you have ever taken your computer to be repaired by a shop, if you have nude picture of yourself on your hard drive, I can guarantee with about 99% certainty that they looked at them.
I find it amusing that these guys are being prosecuted for doing something that nearly everyone in that business does.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Need to be treated harshly when they do things like this. Fired and blacklisted should do the trick.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I bet if your cleaner stole from your apartment you'd feel the same way and give her a pay rise.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Nice try, greedy but unambitious cell phone repair guy.
Funny, but he has a great point. With labor, you don't always get what you pay for... but you rarely get what you don't pay for.
If you're paying near minimum wage, you have to expect that your employees aren't going to be terribly trustworthy, experienced, professional, etc. Paying more is no guarantee, but you're not going to attract great employees who truly value their jobs at those wages.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
That the "dweeb" at the phone store would (gasp!) behave professionally and not invade a customer's privacy?
More professional pay might encourage more professional behavior.
But everything is about racing to the bottom and squeezing blood from turnips these days.
Utter bollocks. You don't get more professionalism by paying people more. Otherwise investment banking would have the highest standard of ethics out of any business.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's "exclusive rights", such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the copyrighted work, spread the information contained within copyrighted works, or to make derivative works. It often refers to copying "intellectual property" without written permission from the copyright holder, which is typically a publisher or other business representing or assigned by the work's creator.
Were these pictures copyrighted (Under Copyright)? Highly doubtful!
Tell me what would have changed had the Verizon employee found kiddie porn on the phone instead and made a backup to present to the authorities.
Still "unauthorized copyright violation" and "invasion of privacy"?
captcha: peeper
Pics or it didn't happen.
All works are automatically copyright by their creator, so yes, they were under copyright.
But still, the whole argument that someone acting improperly on company time deserves punishment really only extends as far as reprimanding them, giving them a pay cut or demotion, or firing them.
Do you still feel this way if they were employed in the Military or worked for the state (Police Officer etc.)? What about someone who failed to secure a laptop with 1 million SSNs? There is such a thing as criminal negligence. HIPAA is very specific how it comes to handling data, in cases making the worker responsible for fines - not the organization alone. I realize this isn't a HIPAA issue.
As far as the level of criminal punishment these guys would/should get for this stunt? I'm of the opinion it's not extremely serious, actually. Stupid and immature? Sure... But on the scale of illegal activities, I think it really does rank among the minor issues. If these guys proceeded to leverage the photos to attempt to extort money from the woman, or started making money with a pay web site featuring "stolen cellphone nude pics" or something? Now THAT would take it to the next level. As it is, what we've got here is a woman who was really too careless or trusting with what she kept on her phone, handing it over to a couple guys who took advantage of the situation for kicks.
I agree with the criminal punishment being a bit much, fines would be more appropriate in this case. I'm against having people labeled as sex offenders for minor infractions (it waters down what it was intended to do - identify serious creeps). It's a bit ridiculous that human intervention is needed to facilitate copies since this is a solved problem. They have HD duplicators which are appliances, is it really such a leap to make exporting or syncing of data? Apple can do it easily.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.