Need a computer technician's honesty here.....or whoever else may know!!?

Question

Basicly my question is this......how much is/does/will a computer tech see, if you take your computer into them to be fixed??

Its not like we're looking up anything really crazy OR illegal....but my husband and I have both been known to look at porn (Im being honest at least!)....NOTHING seedy or illegal like I said.....but porn none the less. Not to mention our online banking that we do, and other various searches that we may plug into yahoo. Even reasearching my mothers cancer...that NO ONE knows she has yet....

How much does a computer technician see, or GO LOOKING for....when they work on your computer?

I know there are index.dat files that cannot be deleted..that supposeably contain EVERYTHING you've EVER brought up on your computer. Im not to thrilled about having someone look at what I consider our privacy!! Do they actually dig into things like that, or do most just stick to what needs to be done??

another thing I wonder about, we get those spam emails like "make your penis 5 inches longer overnight!"..type of things. We clicked on one similar...and it redirected us to some "hot teen girls" site!! What the he**!??!!?!?!

so if a tech sees that in an index. dat file..or wherever...then WHAT! I hate spam. I hate pop ups. And I hate that you can put in something simple in a search engine...and come up with porn when you least expect it!!

Im assuming techs are watching out more for the "child porn"...more than just "porn porn"....but with all the pop ups and spam, I never know what Im getting into. I deleted one whole email account cause it was all porn spam!!!

Answer 1

everything, unless you have the folder password protected and even then I could reset that, but you would know....

Answer 2

When fixing or upgrading a customer's computer, my only concern is either getting his hardware or Windows operating system working properly, copying all his files/documents/emails over to a new computer he bought, or restoring backups of his files (i.e. in the case of a failed or corrupted hard drive). I don't bother closely looking at any individual files or their contents. Absolutely everybody gets "penis pills" ads and porn spam in their email, it's a common nuisance and no tech seeing it would even give a damn. When you surf to any website, there are local copies of any images and pages stored in your Temporary Internet Files folder and URLs of any recently visited websites in your History folder, and the filenames of any pictures you recently opened are displayed in your Recent folder under the Start Menu. Internet Explorer's "autocomplete" feature can also save passwords to commonly accessed websites, but bank websites generally do not allow your password to be stored on your computer and those passwords aren't that easy to recover anyway unless a tech uses the right kind of software to crack it. If you want to reasonably assure your privacy when getting your PC serviced, just go through and delete all those. There are also all kinds of PC utility suites available on the web (some free, some not) that allow you to easily erase all your tracks with just a few mouse clicks (Iolo System Mechanic Professional is one excellent program I recommend). A forensics technician using special data recovery software might still be able to find out where you've been and what you've downloaded, but that only happens if the FBI is investigating your computer for some reason and it's not something an ordinary service technician would do. One thing I would recommend not doing, though, is keeping any documents on your computer with any passwords, credit card numbers, or other sensitive account information stored in them. Put those on a piece of paper somewhere instead.

Answer 3

I was in the industry since the early '70's...
when depot service was offered to our customers, we started
seeing a lot of 'entertainment' on the systems brought into the shop. Overload occurs quickly- soon you just ignore it and get the job done.

I would be a little concerned about banking or medical data...
back it up to another external medium and then erase them from the drive: you can load it back later.

Answer 4

i used to be a truck motive force and lower back in 2007, drove by using a freak Ice/snow fall in Waco TX, in could. It replaced into the strangest looking sight I ever say. wood in finished bloom, finished green with snow on the floor (a minimum of three inches). additionally in southwest MO, Ozarks (I stay in St Louis area), while coming homestead, total forests have been destroyed by using fact of that freak ice typhoon. It regarded like a nuclear bomb hit the area the way the wood have been, the two bare, knocked over, or purely tall stumps without branches.

Answer 5

If I see that on your computer, I will immediately call the FBI...unless you agree to do some favors for me. If you put on the Basketball kneepads, and are willing to do some head hunting then we can call it even.

I suddenly go blind to everything after that is done.

Answer 6

if the contents of your hard drive is not illegal dont worry about it.
most file recoveries dont involve specific files.

Answer 7

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

(Short answer is that it isn't ethical but some do go looking)