Risks of getting your computer fixed....

13 years ago

I use a computer tech that I know personally - he has no interest in my sites or my passwords. If you choose a person or company who has been in the computer repair business for some time - they don't keep their business open by stealing from their customers.

More likely to happen when you choose a person you don't know who doesn't have a full fledged business.

kay

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bretski 13 years ago

Most people that do computer repair have the ability or knowledge of how to do this stuff but no desire to. What do we care? Once you've seen all the freaky stuff that people look at on their computer nothing will shock you and the novelty is gone. We aren't hackers although we have the skills
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KimW

13 years ago

Absolutely correct. If you take it to your son or a friend of a friend that does it on the side, you may have some risk,but those of us that do it or have done it for a living really don't care. Admittedly,there will be times we have a laugh at your expense.Sad but true. For example I once had a "preacher" bring his computer in where I worked. It would literally take almost 30 minutes to boot up. Turned out he had almost 50K of viruses&porn sites on it. No, you read right, 50k.One of the techs I worked with wrote up on the blackboard where we kept notes: A New World Record:50K!
But anyways,most professional techs really don't care whats on your machine as long as it isnt anything illegal.

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Kay King 13 years ago

Kim -

I have a friend (a woman) who is one of those fun, outrageous people we all know at times.

I always thought her dirty jokes and comments about wild goings on were mostly for show. She's in her 40s, attractive but quite overweight - has a teen daughter.

She called to see if I trusted my computer tech when her system failed. She "had a problem" and didn't want to leave the unit in a shop anywhere.

Turns out the thing is loaded with porn. My tech went to her house and did the fixin' for her - he and I both had a great laugh over that one. He said when the system came back up "the screensaver would make you blush".

Made me feel inadequate - I don't have any of that stuff on my 'puter.
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Dear April: I don't want any trouble from you.
January was long, February was iffy, March was a freaking dumpster fire.
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developyourlife

13 years ago

I think a lot of people are just paranoid. I'm pretty sure if they can fix a computer, they can get into your sites. What does that do for them though? Who cares?

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BloggingPro

13 years ago

Originally Posted by secrets2010

Hi I guess that the guy who fixes my laptop will be able to see the websites that my computer has seen, personal files, and maybe some paswords that are stored on my computer?

What are the best strategies to keep all my things private? when I need my laptop fixed? I guess I should delete all personal files and clear cache...but is enough with that?

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I keep all of my personal files on an external HDD and simply have shortcuts on my desktop for the files. For example my financial spreadsheets (one for personal and the other for business) are simply icons on my desktop.

If someone tried to access them without the HDD being connected nothing would happen other than the person would get an error message.

Everything is like this, especially when it comes to my business. All of my sites files are like this too. Shortcuts on the desktop, but can't be accessed without the computer being connected to the HDD.

And why did I do all this? I wasn't really concerned about computer security as much as I was a house-fire. I can literally grab the book sized HDD on my way out of the house in the event of an emergency. Furthermore it backs up to a "cloud" every time there is an update automatically!

I love backups and you should to!

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Barry Unruh

13 years ago

Originally Posted by secrets2010

Hi I guess that the guy who fixes my laptop will be able to see the websites that my computer has seen, personal files, and maybe some paswords that are stored on my computer?

What are the best strategies to keep all my things private? when I need my laptop fixed? I guess I should delete all personal files and clear cache...but is enough with that?

thanks for your help

And he could clone the entire hard drive to look at it later...

Actually, I have seen it all..and as has been said repetitively, we don't really care. Take it to a professional and they will ignore everything but the problem at hand. They don't have time to screw around with the other stuff anyway, if they are good and in demand.

Now, if it is your business laptop, and you are taking it to a corporate repair person, and you have "personal" information on it which should not be there, YOU ARE AT RISK. In most cases they are REQUIRED to report issues which could have negative impact on the company.

Even as a tech who was hired by a company to fix employees laptops, I would ALWAYS report issues I found which could be dangerous to their company. This included pornography, viruses, and even one time a bomb threat in a high school...

If it is your personal laptop, I would not worry too much. If is a corporate laptop...then....

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erichammer

13 years ago

I'll agree -- the vast majority of people who repair computers (I do it on the side occasionally) couldn't care less what's on your computer and won't bother to look. That said, if you are worried, you could always put your browser in a separate, encrypted partition. This would make it impossible for them to access the material you don't want them to see without a password...

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bretski 13 years ago

Nothing is really secure. There are temp files and even if you delete something you really aren't deleting it. Just try booting to a Knoppix live distro of STD and run some of the forensic tools on there and you'll become a believer
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Risks of getting your computer fixed....

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