Computer Repairman Steals Hard Drive, Tries To Charge Company For 'Retrieving' Data
from the so-close-yet-so-far dept
It's widely known that internal staff are the biggest threat to IT security, but what about your computer repairman? After a hard drive was stolen from Real Living Action Realty in Pennsylvania, the company called Kevin Andrew Lutes, who had done repair work for them in the past, to fix the machine. He told them he could retrieve the files, but the owner later called the computer manufacturer and learned that it's impossible to do this... without the hard drive. Oh, and the police learned that Lutes' car -- computer repair sticker and all -- was spotted outside the office on the night of the break-in. When he returned a few days later with the stolen hard drive back inside the computer and tried to charge the company $2000 for the "repair," Lutes was arrested and charged with theft. You'd think that with potential access to the machine, he could have done something a little more subtle or sinister, but, lucky for the company, their repairman turned out to be a pretty dumb criminal. Someone should let him know that basing a business model on artificial scarcity is a bad idea...Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: hard drives, scams, theft
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innovative business model
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Re: innovative business model
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I love that part. Why did the guy ever think anyone would believe he could magically pull those stolen files out of thin air.
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Apparently you've never worked at an IT helpdesk before. There are a plethora of users out there that think IT people are magicians that can make a computer do just about anything, including teaching pigs to fly. Granted, this one does have a pretty high "DUH" factor, but I rate it right up there with people who can't understand that their office PC has to be left powered on in order to access it remotely, and I've dealt with plenty of them.
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This criminal is a shining example of the idiots we have next to us every day!
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Idiot
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Re: Idiot
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Re: Idiot
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Re: Idiot
Other gems are charging people for replacing a network card when the issue was an unplugged cable, $150-$300 to "clean out a virus problem" that involved running Spybot for 10 minutes, etc.
Part of the problem is that computers and parts have become so cheap that it is usually far more cost effective to just replace something than keep it serviced. So, the service guys have to pad the bill or outright lie to make a profit sometimes.
If you don't have someone in your family or friends who is techie, network a bit and find someone in your kid's friends, or a co-worker's kid. They will be much more honest about the problem, probably fix it faster, rarely force a format/reinstall OS on you when it isn't necessary, and they are usually very happy with whatever you think is a fair payment.
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at least say...
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And, why, pray tell, are both businesses struggling to keep up with modern technologies and seeing their revenue shrink?
Artificial scarcity may work for a short period of time... but it leaves itself wide open to being disintermediated.
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Missing from the news
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Re: Missing from the news
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It Could Happen
I have always tried to concentrate my clients in a small area so that I can go door to door, or be on hand quickly.
The question is who but a computer guy would steal ONLY THE HARD DRIVE in the middle of the night ?
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Srsly?
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Unless he left the case open, or someone at the company actually opened the case to look inside, how would they even know that the drive was missing? I mean, you turn on the system, it doesn't find the drive and it display an error message, or just beeps. That someone physically removed the drive wouldn't be my first assumption. I'd think that the drive died.
Maybe he was counting on them thinking that and he'd e able to tell them that he fixed.
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There are a lot of on-line boards
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Meh.
I'm still waiting for a Mac that has every part replaceable by the end user when a fault comes to call. This is why PCs still remain, to this say, better than a Mac. I'm not citing the fact that PCs have the exact same variety of hardware for much cheaper or technically superior operating systems available. (Except Windows. Windows sucks.).
Do many Mac users even understand what UNIX is or why it's a big deal OS X is a UNIX? IF not, then the entire UNIX component of OS X is wasted.
I'm saying this frankly as a Linux user.
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cool
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