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I recently blew up one of my computers so it's in the repair shop. I didn't even realize till I left the store that all my personal information is on that hd. So I just got done resetting all my passswords but is there some way of protecting people against malcious computer repair people? Has anyone ever had a malicious repair person raid they're accounts and such?
I'm really interested in what my options are incase something like this happens.
I was a repairperson for a while, and truthfully most of us where honest...but none of us was paid enough to guarantee that. I did know a few people who would grab passwords for AOL accounts and what not to get free Internet, but they would eventually get caught and fired (that doesn’t help your bank account though). I don't know of any tech that didn't snoop on the client’s computers just to see what was there. Your best bet is to encrypt anything important. But make sure your key isn't sitting on the system.
Thinking back now I remember that SOP for a lot of the techs was to search the system for any .jpg/mp3/mov ect. Files and grab the ones they wanted....Word of advice make sure there are no incriminating / embarrassing images/files on your system. On the other hand we did bust a pedophile because of one techs obsession with searching client computers for porn (this was an easy one though the incriminating photos where set up as this guys screen saver). He had brought the system in to get a video capture card installed :eek: *shudder*.
if you blew it up, and had to bring it in to be repaired, then i would take the hard disk out of it altogether if i was you.
but i fail to see what they could repair? they are not going to go replacing transistors on your motherboard, you would get a new motherboard. and up until now, i was under the impression that if it breaks you buy a new one - power supplies, ram etc, or send the broken part into be repaired, i'm sure they would have a test system lying around. sentimental value aside, in most cases is it not cheaper to get a new item? monitors, floppy drives etc...
if it is the case where you don't know what is wrong with the computer that is broken and you are left with no alternative course of action other than to send it to the repair people or the fellars where you purchased it from, take the hard disk out of it and if they find nothing wrong, then using our powers of deductive reasoning we can conclude that
A) it's the hard disk (purchase a new one, and try to recover what you can)
B) the repair people are cowboys and probably don't know the difference between bit rate and baud rate.
where i live, there seems to be a very fine line between repair people, and sales people. often they will try sell the consumer a new product even though there is nothing wrong with the item in question.
if ArmyOfOne is readin' this, come to my country and set up a computer repair shop :D
So really all I can do is change all my passwords to accounts that I have and probably reformat the hard drive when I get it back just to make sure they didn't but anything on it. I'm really paranoid about my information. It's probably a good thing to be safe then sorry.
Vax I did try to fix it i determined that it was probably the power supply but since the parts and the computer was still covered on warranty I figure it's the best thing to do and that way I only have to pay about 20 - 30.00 for the repair.
pull the hard drive or at least have all of your passwords encrypted. I hope this helps you. ciao
I agree with (V)/\>< in that you should have removed the harddrive to maintain your privacy. Changing account passwords doesn't do you too much good if someone installed a keylogger. I used to do computer repair for Best Buy's service center and let me tell you, I've seen techs steal memory, copy entire harddrives, search threw people's personal stuff and leave behind trojans. My advice for your future repairs is to remove the harddrive and also inventory all the items in the pc, amount of memory, brand names, models and serial numbers. That will protect you from those things I've list above. And definately make sure that someone signs off on your list, so you have someone on the inside that knows your not lying when you say that someone swapped out your 40gig drive for a 20.
PuRe
I have seen many parts swaps before especially with memory. A standard practice with e-machines was tow pull the ram before shipping it to the vender...I doubt you need to reformat your system when you get it back a good firewall/ Anti-virus combo will remove most of the nastys...just make sure no new ports have been opened on your system and run a full intrusive scan on it.
Remember that repair you pay $50+/hr on the techs make >=$8/hr for so they are not paid enough to care when they see a coworker stealing from you.
next time if its not booting at all pull the harddrive....or pay the extra hr charge to get in house service then stand over the guy while he works.
Having your Pc repaired is a bit like having the decorators in. If you came home from work and found a decorator looking in your personel draws what would you do?. Probably kick up a fuss then sack them.The differnance is you don't no if a repairer has had a look at your hard drive. So i would be tempted to remove my hard drive before i sent my pc for any sort of repair.
Edit: Ok so that only deals with some hardware faults. But would you let someone into your bank account to fix a debt you may have?
If your pc is broken format :c/ s if that don't fix it then send it to the repair shop.
Another thing that you could do would to back up all of your important data and put it on a cd, then erase the important stuff off of your computer. Then when you get it back just put it back on.
July, when I finally break down and take the ol' sys to a repair shop, I have this crappy 2 gig drive that runs Win95, and has NOTHING on it, but the drivers that run my hardware. I also use it as a base for Ghosting other drives like 166' <shudder> (where I work, we have some crappy computers that can only handle Win95) That way, they can snoop all they want, and they wont act suspicious when I turn in a system with no harddrive.
Well You could ask what the firms privacy policy is..
I have this happen on a regular basis.. And if the people Ask we are obliged to tell them.. or atleast show them a copy of the instructions that are given to our techs regarding what they can look at freely on a customers machine with out prior consent.. Which is next to nothing..
But If you don't ask, or the Repair Centre dosen't display some form of privacy statement, you just won't know and they will assume that you don't care either. And if the center has no policy or treats your request as a joke.. Contact the manufacturer and find anothre repair center.. This is assuming a major manufacturer ie IBM, Dell, H/P..
Sorry but no comfort.
i bought a computer from a major chain store (already mentioned above) where i used to work. It was supposed to have 32 MB of video RAM automatically on the Mother Board, but this one only could be configured to 8 MB. The techs had incidentally fixed it under "warranty" service, but had replaced it with a lower end motherboard. no AGP slot, no 32MB RAM, and none of the other goodies that are supposed to come with it. ... Needless to say, that customer got a new computer, and I bought the old one for like 200 bucks.... I guess the point i'm trying to make is make sure that you get at least the same specs from your computer when you get it back. Tech Service Depots are out to make a profit, and if they notice that you only do word processing and email and probably won't miss your extra 32 megs of video, they may not give it to you.
If possible, do all your own repairs / upgrades
OK well if you "blew up your system" and are "taking it to the repair shop" Then it is a hardware issue. Which means you are just swapping out parts. If you "blewup" the OS then why dont you fix it yourself. Changing you passwords on local accounts isn't going to help you. You have to give the PC shop a password to log into the system that has administrative priledges so...... as an admin they can "do anything" What OS was it 95/98/ME sorry you are SOL.... no security protection at all Is it W2K maybe a little. XP Pro.... try EFS.... Encrypted File System.
As for everything else. If you dont want someone to see it don't put it on you PC and let you PC out of your control... If you are giving up control REMOVE ANY INFORMATION YOU DO NOT WANT ANY ONE ELSE TO SEE. then of course of they really wanted to they could always to a data recovery on the HD and get all that information back too... But most likely you are not under FBI investigation so that won't happen...
So in the long run.... let me give you a peice of advice.... 80-90% of the system have pron on them.... How do I know. Use to do support for companies National Conventions.... we use to work on upto 800 laptops in a weekend.... didn't search them all but.... You get the idea.... We decide it was one of those lowest common demoniation things..
This type of paranoia made me learn everything I could possibly learn about home computers and the guts of the system. Because of this I spend probally $300-400~ or so over the course of the year upgrading misc parts, breaking and fixing internal componets. But all in all now I know how to build my own pc from the ground up, which I am doing at the current momment.
Also if you are new to hardware, pulling the hard drive out is not that big of a problem, just a matter of undoing some screws, pulling some wires and placing the cover back on.
You might want to ask how long the repair takes, or schedule an appointment, then when the time comes take it the shop, and if it takes an hour or two he probally won't have enough time to do any snooping unless he is really fast about it.
Like other people said snooping does happen so be paranoid. Now I must correct some of you, deleting files will and is not problem for most people to recover, even after you reformat there are ways to recover files from the hard drive. The only true way to get rid of the files is to overwrite them, so its a good idea to defrag often right after clearing some files.
There are several websites I encourage you to visit if you have some questions first off a small community but growing....
www.digitalferret.com visit the forums they are real nice there and several of them have YEARS, and I mean since early 1980's experience working with PCs.
Another one for useful guides and what not is www.extremetech.com
Some people prefer www.tomshardware.com but I do not like the website.
Feel free if you have any questions to ask me and if you want to build your own pc check out www.pricewatch.com and my favorite website www.newegg.com
kOc
You could add some baselining software to your system next time such as Redhand www.redhand.com this comes in two versions single user and network user. So that you can audit your machine before and after. Or you could run a file search for anything that has been altered after the date you sent the machine for repair. Removing the hard drive could possible invalidate the warrentee so is unadvisable. And encrypt the system and pw protect what you want hidden. Hope this helps.
Damien Harrison
The only other thing that i don't think has been said is that if you are sending the pc back to the manufacturer take out any personal additions, ie i bought mine from Msquared but have since added parts to it. When the motherboard blew it was still in warranty so i called a guy out for free. He noticed that i had added 128 Mb of RAM and warned me that if i had sent it back to be repaired i would probably of lost the RAM as when they were changing the motherboard everything would have been out on the desk and to put it back again the origional sales invoice would have been followed which obviously didn't include my extra RAM.
As a tech just like the type your describing, I'd have to agree fully with the - either NO HDD or one with a default install of your OS and let them take care of the rest.
It's waaay too tempting to go through users files and such. As has been stated; I'm not paid enough to guarantee anything, I can't say installing trojans ever crossed my mind, but the possibility is definitely there. I'd like to thank you for brining this up, as I hadn't thought of it this way before. You see, where I work, we do work for a lot of doctors offices, so this sort of thing is out of the question, as getting caught would get me fired in a second with possible criminal charges, and I had a tough enough time getting this job :)
Normal repair shops like the others in town, however, would probably have no real reason not to swap out parts randomly and go through clients data. It would have to be tempting for any goofball who wanted to hack or something to inocently set up netbus and a script to email him ip info.
Thinking about this stuff makes me glad I can do my own stuff, i.e. if I can't fix it, it's not reasonable to fix...