Bloomfield Actor Charged With Possession of Child Porn

A technician found the images, police said, and alerted a police detective working security at the store.

Wow. That's just plain st0pid of him.

I hope he gets what he deserves.

I believe that the iomages remain, even if one deletes them. Somone I know told me that. Is it true ?

I'm pretty sure it is. But, if you then defrag your hard drive, it *should* completely remove them.

I don't know what he brought his PC there for, but I doubt the service tech would have been looking to recover deleted images.

Plus, it doesn't change the fact that they were on his computer in the first place.

Unless his lawyer can prove that his computer was hacked and the images placed there without his knowledge; he's screwed.

Well, you can try and hide it, but it's well known that the Best Buy "Geek Squad" intentionally search for and copy your porn when you drop off a computer to be fixed. Looks like this tech found a little more than he expected.

No problem, you say? Sure hope you don't have any nekkid "art photos" of the missus when you drop off your computer for fixin'.

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest!
Uh-oh. I have lots of nekkid Labradors on my hard drive. Am I in trouble?

That might depend, Miss Martta, on whether the "Labradors" you have naked on your computer are either human residents of that part of Canada or canines.

You'd probably be in more trouble, in any case, if the canines were clothed, rather than naked. And enjoy your trip out West!

The technician should have minded his own business.

I have to agree with that!
I don't have any kiddie porn on my 'puter, but I do not think that having such is that bad, unless you actually sign up to be a member of such a group, thereby creating a source - a "buyer" for such, thereby creating a demand for it. But if you are scanning the web, and all of a sudden POOF, there it is & you take a look see...are you really commiting a crime?

Signing up & paying a fee to be a "member" of such a club, is a different story, and then the law shold be impossed.

Hiding In Baristaville,

I don't agreee. The technician was right to protect children. We all should be looking out for kids.

Child porn is child porn - it is illegal here in the US of A, punishable by time in jail and rightly so!!!

Looking at it is bad enough. Saving it on your computer is a crime. If I happen upon an offensive site by accident, I leave it asap!

Defrag won't do it. You need to get some software that completely cleans your hard drive. Not a bad idea anyway -- nekkid Labs or not -- if you are at all concerned about identity theft or if you are about to recycle your computer.

or about to have your computer examined by the authorities...

" don't have any kiddie porn on my 'puter, but I do not think that having such is that bad, unless you actually sign up to be a member of such a group, thereby creating a source - a "buyer" for such, thereby creating a demand for it. But if you are scanning the web, and all of a sudden POOF, there it is & you take a look see...are you really commiting a crime?"

sandy,

yes you are!

I don't know if you have children but imagine that your kids faces or a friends kids are on the bodies of those kids who have been taken advantage of by child pornographers. make it personal for yourself and see how you feel then.

But, yes I understand what you are saying, and yes we have 1-23 Y.O. But you do not understand what I am saying.
You are on line, and you are scanning the web. Suddenly up pops a pic of a young child waving at you, and the words, "click here to see more" so you do. Next images are those of kiddie porn. You delete. it's now ON your computer.
-or- you have never seen such, and you are amazed at what you are looking at, and you spend 60 seconds looking around. You've heard of kiddie porn, but never ever seen it. Out of human curiousity you look around for 45-60 seconds, and then "delete" it and go back to what you were looking for......so, now it's on your hard drive, for what? Forever? (and) if found you go to jail?

Perhaps I did not make myself clear.

Now, yes, that happened to me.
So, yes, I took a look. After under a minute I was pretty discusted, so I deleted & left, never to return.
It is it still on my computer?
It was like 6 or 7 years ago.

People, while I'm glad this guy got caught, are you really saying you want some guy at Best Buy combing through all of your personal information, pictures, etc. every time you bring a computer somewhere to get it fixed. Just in case there is kiddie porn on it?

Are you also willing to have the Govt. read all your emails, listen in to all of your phone conversations, becasue you might be a terrorist?

Are you willing to have the police pull over every driver and search their car in case they have drugs?

BTW, do you have to sign something at Best Buy that allows them to do this?

no you just bring your computer in and they perform the search for free!

>>

RIGHT ON!

does that mean I have to go over every website with a passowrd and delete it? Do I have to check every email a lover may have sent me? Every picture I have taken and have it pass the conscience police?

And if my hard drive crashed...what is that dork doing looking for that stuff???

While I'm not thrilled at the Geek Squad invasion of privacy, I am more then willing to deal with it in the name of protecting children. In this country we've given up freedom and privacy in the name of security since our beginning.

Suddenly up pops a pic of a young child waving at you, and the words, "click here to see more" so you do. Next images are those of kiddie porn. You delete. it's now ON your computer.

I do not believe this. I've had pornographic pictures of adults pop up on my computer, but never, ever children. I don't for one second believe that happens.

The technician should have minded his own business.

It may be a law for him to contact police if he sees child pornography, but I could be wrong.

It's a fine line here. I don't really want Best Buy techs combing through my computer, but they may come across pics/videos when they do what they need to do to fix computers.

Of course, here's a link to a site that did an investigation and found that a Geek Squad tech purposely copied (adult) porn from the customer's computer to his own computer when all the tech was supposed to do was install iTunes.

http://consumerist.com/consumer/investigations/video-consumerist-catches-geek-squad-stealing-porn-from-customers-computer-271963.php

are you really saying you want some guy at Best Buy combing through all of your personal information, pictures, etc. every time you bring a computer somewhere to get it fixed.

Of course not, but we don't know why this guy brought his computer in. Captain Vegetable's link above not withstanding, it is entirely possible the Tech came across these during the course of his service.

If Mr. Insinnia brought his computer in because it had a virus or was running slowly due to massive amounts of spyware (which sites containing porn, child or otherwise, often have) then the tech would have also had to remove or fix the source files that had these pieces of mal-ware embedded in them. In this case, it turned out to be child pornography.

I'm not saying this IS what happened, just one very plausible possibility that would have the tech doing NOTHING wrong.

(One of the many hats I wore in college was student tech support. I saw plenty of porn on fellow students’ computers, always in the course of removing or fixing root causes of the “mysterious” problems they were having. Of course, the one or two times I tried to explain how it happened they had “no idea” how the porn got there.)

does that mean I have to go over every website with a passowrd and delete it? Do I have to check every email a lover may have sent me? Every picture I have taken and have it pass the conscience police?

And if my hard drive crashed...what is that dork doing looking for that stuff???

Posted by MsSumida | August 15, 2007 8:59 AM

No it does not- You just have to do that for ALL the lovers that you have that are under the age of 18.

"While I'm not thrilled at the Geek Squad invasion of privacy, I am more then willing to deal with it in the name of protecting children. In this country we've given up freedom and privacy in the name of security since our beginning."

That's fine, I won't argue as it's your opinion.

But to follow that through, would you be willing to have the Govt. read all your email and the post office to go through all your mail as those are the two most commo way to catch peds.

"But to follow that through, would you be willing to have the Govt. read all your email and the post office to go through all your mail as those are the two most commo way to catch peds."

Who is to say they don't? They could be reviewing my netflix account, or recording my keystrokes as I type this for all any of us really know.

from March of this year - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11100916/from/ET/

"Justice Department: FBI acted illegally on data
Audit finds agency misused Patriot Act to obtain information on citizens"

One of the most sobering days of my life was when the Freedom of Information Act people at John Mitchell's Justice department finally informed me that contrary to my deepest suspicions I had no "subversive activity" files on record, and that I was not, therefore, on Richard Nixon's enemies list. I wasn't even on the "do not invite to tea" list.

Crushed. Crushed, I say. Sold my guitar the next morning, bought a suit and went to work for IBM. :(

http://imdb.com/name/nm0409386/

So you are willing to give up that privacy to the federal govt?

And you're also willing to give up your privacy to some guy who has ascended through the ranks to the position of "guy who installs a ram chip in your computer"?

I have no child porn on my computer and I'd rather the geek squad wasn't routing around through my private files, including pictures, financials, letters, etc. on a fishing trip looking for something illegal.

I'd might believe they just stumbled upon it as exit 151 stated exit for the sting were they were caught as posted earlier in the thread.

"So you are willing to give up that privacy to the federal govt?"

I don't have a choice and I don't bother getting my panties in a wad over things where I don't have a choice.

If geek squad's nosey policy saves a few abused kids I'm going to call them nosey but I'm going to be glad some pervy freak was caught.

One of the most sobering days of my life was when the Freedom of Information Act people at John Mitchell's Justice department finally informed me that contrary to my deepest suspicions I had no "subversive activity" files on record, and that I was not, therefore, on Richard Nixon's enemies list. I wasn't even on the "do not invite to tea" list.

Crushed. Crushed, I say. Sold my guitar the next morning, bought a suit and went to work for IBM. :(

Posted by Conan | August 15, 2007 10:45 AM

Conan,

You have a file now- you shouldn't have filled out that form!

"I don't have a choice and I don't bother getting my panties in a wad over things where I don't have a choice. "

Well, I'll try not to get my panties in a wad.

You do have a choice.

Look back in the thread and see they are not just catching pervs, they are downloading legal personal pictures as they go trolling through people's computers.

What's next, house searches just in case you are doing something illegal...no warrant required.

You're trusting your privacy to some "geek" as they are called. Have you signed away your right to privacy when you pay them to fix your computer?

It's scary when people are so figthened they are willing to give up all freedom of privacy.

Oh, I lied on the form -- not to worry. (It was the Nixon years, after all...:)

I just find it ironic that he played a good guy on Special Victims Unit.

It sure is a fine line, isn't it? I certainly don't believe in child porn, and if the guy had downloaded it to his hard drive, then it obviously wasn't a mistake. (Unless he uses the old "But I thought she/they were 18!" excuse). But I don't like the government digging in to all of our personal files, nor the Geek Squad for that matter.

To clarify - it is not official Geek Squad policy to look for illegal stuff.

Unofficially, however, it seems to be common practice for Geek Squad techs to look for your porn and copy it - it's like an easter egg hunt for them.

And also, before we bust out the torches and pitchforks, according to the article, he claims it was a work computer that belonged to several people before him. Certainly could be a valid explanation.

Once again we have judged our newest criminal already guilty before his trial. And yet, it seems fitting.

The Geek Squads just look at your sh@t for porn then call the police if the subjects lack the requisite (ahem), development? And then the police arrest you for kiddie porn and post your name out there for all to see?

Really,since this seems to be a free-for-all, if you let me in your house, I'm going to be looking for things I can rat you out for. It should be fun until my rat-fink status spreads and all my friends end up in jail for some reason or antother.

Frankly i don't see that the terrorists are jealous of anymore. We have reverted to the Napoleanic code of justice, we have illegal search and seizure by the boat load, we devise these unconstitutional laws like Meghan's Law and hide behind the "...well throw that Constitutionality argument out... this is for kids." How about the Patriot Act? Love that one. Privacy.. .what privacy?

""I do not believe this. I've had pornographic pictures of adults pop up on my computer, but never, ever children. I don't for one second believe that happens.""

Sorry, but it did! Now, perhaps because I bought this computer back in 1999, and maybe back then it did happen.
I recall it vividly. Like I said, I clicked & looked for a minute, or so, definately no more than 75 seconds, I assure you. It was discusting, I was not "turned on" by it, it came from a sickO, for sure, and I deleted it & went on. So.... it's 8 years later. It's still on here, 60 seconds - 8 years later ??

Okay then John Doe - how do I end the use of the patriot act? I'm not frightened - of anyone finding porn on my computer, of cops pulling me over, of terrorists, or fighting the powers that be.

So you know so much - again - how do I end the use of the patriot act? Tell me and I'll do it.

hey he's an actor. Maybe like Pete Townsend claimed a few years ago, he was just doing research?

Pete Townsend's PC didn't have any 'saved' images only a log that he had visited web sites that were know purveyors of child pornography. After a thorough investigation he was never charged with any crime.

Thursday April 19, 2007
The Guardian

Operation Ore has become embedded in public consciousness as the landmark police operation that tracked down people - almost always men - who allegedly paid to access child pornography via computer. In all, 7,272 British residents were on its target lists, more than 2,000 of whom have never been investigated; and 39 men have killed themselves under the pressure of the investigations. Ore has dragged big names into the spotlight - such as the musicians Pete Townshend, the Who guitarist, and Robert del Naja of Massive Attack, both falsely accused of accessing child pornography.New evidence I have gathered for my work as an expert witness in defence cases shows that thousands of cases under Operation Ore have been built on the shakiest of foundations - the use of credit card details to sign up for pornography websites. In many cases, the card details were stolen; the sites contained nothing or legal material only; and the people who allegedly signed up to visit the sites never went there.
The probe - Britain's biggest ever computer crime investigation - started from 1990s activity by a Texan porn portal called Landslide.com. People could sign up with their credit cards to access affiliated porn sites: the porn site got 65% of the sign-up fee, while Landslide took the rest, and dealt with the credit card companies.

In 1999 the US Postal Inspection Service investigated sites linked to Landslide that seemed to be dealing in child pornography. The company was raided by 50 agents, who took computers listing the credit card details of thousands of Britons. These were handed to the British police, who thought they had a goldmine. All they needed to do was seize the computers of those people, find evidence of having viewed child pornography on the sites and secure a conviction - the perfect case. Society would be protected and the police's reputation for defeating computer-based child abuse would be boosted.

The fraud factor

But the police had not allowed for fraud - which was carried out to a huge degree against Landslide and unwitting Britons by website owners acquiring or trading in stolen credit card details.

Late in 2006, copies of six hard drives seized from Landslide were flown to Britain to be examined by defence computer experts (including myself). They showed that Landslide had been plagued by a range of credit card fraud rackets, known in the industry as Card Not Present (CNP) frauds. In the UK, CNP fraud has increased exponentially in the past decade, from £6.5m in 1996 to £212.6m in 2006, becoming the largest type of card fraud. Online, criminal groups trade thousands of stolen credit card details (including number, expiry date, name, address, and even date of birth, email, password and mother's maiden name), priced by potential fraud value, ranging from $30 (£15) for an unexploited Visa Gold card to $2.50 each for a bumper file of 4,000 stolen American Express card and user details. There's everything required for complete and convincing fraud.

One method used from 1999 by criminals, including the Gambino mafia family in the US, was to offer free tours, or access for a credit card payment as small as $1.95, to adult sex sites. Customers had to provide name, address, card details, and email address and password. The criminals then reused the data or traded them online with other fraudsters.

Operating out of Indonesia, Russia or Brazil, many of the webmasters linked via Landslide appear to have obtained and swapped lists of stolen cards and charged them up through different portals, usually for amounts of less than $50 - small enough that unwary people might not spot them on a credit card statement.

Computer experts employed by the police have claimed in court cases they could find no evidence of hacking or fraud when credit card details were provided to porn sites. But when Dr Sam Type of Geek Ltd was asked during one case held at Northampton Crown Court whether she had looked for evidence of fraud, she replied: "No I didn't, no ... I haven't specifically looked for it." The defendant was convicted, but is now appealing, based on the new evidence uncovered (but not disclosed by the Crown Prosecution Service) that fraud was endemic.

Tens or hundreds of thousands of people fell victim, including some who later became targets of Operation Ore. One was 'John' , a top city banker. In 1998 and 1999, his family credit card was repeatedly charged by Gambino internet organisations, and its details then shared with other fraudsters: in June 1999, his card was charged twice more to make payments to one of Landslide's top-earning webmasters - who was also a child porn merchant.

Seven years later, 'John' was targeted in Operation Ore: in May 2006, he stood aghast as police entered his home and trawled through his family's intimate possessions. He says that police officers "sneered" when he and his lawyers told them about credit card fraud. "They said they had never heard of it happening," he told me. Only after a two-day High Court case last September did the police agree that he was above suspicion, and apologised to him.

Police mistakes

Even innocent transactions were not safe. Some British victims of card fraud who later suffered from police mistakes in Operation Ore believe their troubles began after they bought bicycle parts - or even a honeymoon hotel stay - over the internet or on the phone from the US.

Landslide's computers also contained 54,348 sets of stolen credit card information, including information on dozens of UK residents apparently stolen from a Florida-based luxury goods company; some were later used to pay for porn websites operated by Landslide. The company whose customer data were stolen, Levenger Inc of Delray Beach, Florida, has declined to comment.

Were the big frauds coming from outside Landslide? Certainly. Its owner, Thomas Reedy, first spotted systematic fraud late one night in August 1998. "I was running over the logs and saw something funny," he told a friend in an email. What he noticed was streams of different credit cards being signed up in batches from the same internet address to the same website. It could only be fraud.

That meant trouble for Landslide, and Reedy. When someone signed up via Landslide to view a particular porn site, the linked site was passed 65% of the sign-up fee, while Landslide did the transaction with the credit card company. If someone used a stolen card, Landslide had to bear the loss if there was a chargeback from the card issuer - often for the original amount and a penalty fee. So a stream of stolen cards was bad news for Landslide.

Reedy quickly traced the source of the traffic to Pakistan-based webmaster Imran Mirza and his Rare Nude Celebs website: in just three days Mirza had charged more than $14,000 to stolen cards. Reedy knew that the credit card industry imposed a 1% maximum for chargebacks, and required a penalty fee every time one was applied. Landslide would end up the loser.

Reedy reacted by setting up a new web service, Badcard.com, to trap card numbers coming from the same internet address, and drew up checklists of addresses and card numbers he suspected were in the hands of criminals. It didn't work well enough: fraudsters started switching internet addresses with each new, false sign-up.

Topping the league were a trio who traded under the pseudonym Miranda, part of a gang of Indonesian webmasters who had registered over one thousand real or fake websites, and supplied their names and addresses for, sometimes, $100,000 monthly cheques.

More than half of the money Landslide took from credit cards was paid to their ring. The gang was supplying extremely unpleasant pornography over the internet, some of it depicting young children being raped and abused. But the undisclosed computer evidence shows they were also in the simpler and less risky business of card fraud.

And every time a stolen British card was used, its owner's name was added as a potential suspect for the future Operation Ore. On Landslide websites which computer records show were simply vehicles for fraud, 90% of the people cheated never noticed or complained. The total level of fraud was probably well over 50%.

By August 1999, the enormous level and cost of chargebacks had sunk Landslide. Reedy is now in US federal prison serving a 180-year sentence for allowing it to be used for child porn trafficking.

But how can we be sure that the card details really were stolen, and not being used by their owners? Jim Bates of Computer Investigations, who acted as an expert witness for a number of defence cases, examined the newly uncovered Landslide website log of all recent activity. The log recorded when credit cards were signed up and charged - and, critically, whether the person putting in the card details then went on to visit the porn site they had paid for. Bates found that not only did thousands of the supposed porn buyers not go to get their porn; many of the sites had been set up purely for fraud. His checks were evidential tests that the UK police seem to have forgotten to take.

The CPS was asked by the Guardian to comment on whether this step was taken, but at the time of going to press, it had not responded.

Top of the list of spurious websites was Keyzsexyplace, set up on April 4 1999 by young Brazilian hacker Antonio Francisco "Nino" Tornisiello, from Piracicaba, near Sao Paulo in Brazil. By the time Landslide collapsed, Tornisiello had logged 3,181 sign-ups, most of them using stolen British credit card data. "Tornisiello's hacking stood out like a sore thumb," Bates told me. "The police experts couldn't have failed to notice it if they were competent, but they claimed they saw nothing."

Among Tornisiello's many British victims were prominent computer programmers and businessmen. Some were lucky. The Operation Ore police haven't got round to knocking at their doors - yet. Nevertheless, their names are now falsely listed in police files as suspected child abusers. This month, Tornisiello admitted to me that his Keyzsexyplace website had been a sham that held only "a page with pictures of celebrities I found over the internet. It was nothing to do with child pornography." He said he was "choked" to learn that his actions meant innocent people have been accused of paedophilia.

Operation Ore has become a byword for our police's investigation into the murkiest of online worlds - but hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the cases show that the police were misled and confused by criminals whose computer expertise was years ahead of theirs.

"Okay then John Doe - how do I end the use of the patriot act? I'm not frightened - of anyone finding porn on my computer, of cops pulling me over, of terrorists, or fighting the powers that be.

So you know so much - again - how do I end the use of the patriot act? Tell me and I'll do it. "

Great, you can't end the patriot act so you give in to all invasions of you're privacy...all.

You shouldn't be frightened of someone finding porn on your computer, you should just be frightenede that someone is rifling through your private information.

But you are right about one thing...I do know so much.

So much - except how to read, comprehend and answer the question.

My point - that you missed - is we don't knwo who, what, where, when or how anyone is rifling through our personal information - be it the US Gov., some pc hacker or anyone you trust to repair your compluter.

"In this country we've given up freedom and privacy in the name of security since our beginning."

Posted by hrhppg

May I remind everyone that from the begining the reverse was true.

"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
Benjamin Franklin

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action"
George Washington

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined"
Patrick Henry

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it"
Thomas Jefferson

Yes those boys could talk a good game - but from the start - for reasons of security - only white, wealthy, landowners could make decisions, create laws, etc.

are you guys crazy? PEDOPHELIA is a DANGEROUS SICKNESS -- people who possess kiddie porn are turned on by PRE-PUBESCENT CHILDREN, usually under 9 years old.

are you guys crazy? PEDOPHELIA is a DANGEROUS SICKNESS -- people who possess kiddie porn are turned on by PRE-PUBESCENT CHILDREN, usually under 9 years old.

are you guys crazy? PEDOPHELIA is a DANGEROUS SICKNESS -- people who possess kiddie porn are turned on by PRE-PUBESCENT CHILDREN, usually under 9 years old.