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Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

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Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#351
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We do NOT need fucking removable storage to fix this. What we need, to fix this, is to enforce felony charges against the kind of fuckers who do this, and put them in prison for 20 years, and stop victim-blaming, and stop the insane medieval attitudes about nudity, and slap every single fucking person who espouses this kind of bullshit upside the head, daily, every single day, until society is finally purged of t…

Because what the United States (where you and I live and this crime took place) really needs is more Americans in prison.

Nobody said that. I certainly didn't mean or say that.

We do need the right Americans in prison, though. I can easily find tens of thousands of folks who need to be released. These fuckers, though, need to be incarcerated. Otherwise, why do we even have prisons?

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#352
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. We do NOT need fucking removable storage to fix this. What we need, to fix this, is to enforce felony charges against the kind of fuckers who do this, and put them in prison for 20 years, and stop victim-blaming, and stop the insane medieval attitudes about nudity, and slap every single fucking person who espouses this kind of bullshit upside the head, daily, every single day, until society is finally purged of t…

I get your anger here, but pure punitive measures won't solve this. This is easy to prove in that it hasn't solved any other sort of crime. One, the correlation between "do a crime" and "do the time" is quite low. Look at the stats for sexual assault (0.25%), robbery (0.2%), and assault and battery (0.3%): https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system Even for murder, the US's clearance rate is only about…

We don't punish out of some fantasy that it will "solve" crime. At least I hope we don't. I'm under no such delusions, I promise.

We punish in order to hopefully deter, in at least some cases, though. And sometimes, we punish because it's simply the right thing to do, because people deserve it. This is such a case. They busted into these phones; that was bad enough. Then they searched for the most personal and compromising stuff they could; that's crime #2. Then they posted it! That's three crimes. This sort of brazenness needs to be punished, at least occasionally, to show people and future offenders that we still have at least some semblance of a functioning justice system. That they can't just do whatever the heck they want and laugh about how it might affect people.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is yet another reason to want phones to have removable storage (micro sd card). So private photos can go onto the card instead of built-in storage, and you can remove the card if you have to send in the phone. I don't take nudes but I tend to use my phone as an impromptu photocopier for stuff like bills and receipts, so the photos are full of private info such as account numbers. I worry about that sometime…

I have a bunch of old USB sticks, HDDs, phones, tablets, etc in my garage because I can't wipe them, but I can't possibly remember what data was stored on them over the years. Micro SD cards are great because they're teeny tiny. Nothing nefarious. I'm just not very trusting with my data, and not going to just hand it over like that.

Can't you just physically destroy them?

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#354
post #221

It was deleted. Here is the OG Text: "Ok so this just happened. Buckle up. About a month ago my wife broke her pixel phone. It couldn't be turned on so we couldn't wipe it. We contact Google and used the device care to get an RMA. Today someone posted nude pictures of my wife and I to her social media accounts. They accessed her Google account and tried to lock us out. They used her PayPal to send someone $5 (a test…

The least believable part of this story is that they _called Google_ and _talked to someone._ How?

I hate posting "this" comments. But THIS so much THIS... Google has literally no support. Not even for their physical hardware. Never buy anything from them...

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#355

I'm sick of people, so I'm not going to read the inevitable comments that are going to come. Look, face it, some people like taking nude photos of themselves and they like sharing them with their partners. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. It's not their fault if something like this happens. People should be able to feel secure in the tech that they use, in the companies that they entrust their information…

Well said, A basic consumer shouldn't be expected to be aware of OPSEC for repairing a broken phone(which in this case seems to be the reason for not wiping data as well).

This also brings an important aspect of repairability, I've been paying for extended warranty and discount on battery replacement for years to an android manufacturer and when the time arrived(during lockdown) they wanted my device sent to the repair-center as there was no policy to send the parts to the consumer's place.

Although I don't believe for a moment that Apple is pro-repair now, I hope them sending parts directly to the consumer would be followed by android manufacturers as well.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#356
post #5

Really should think about just paying another few hundred bucks and just keep the device if it contains nude photos of your wife which you cannot wipe. Don't send that device anywhere... Provided this story is true, I would guess the device might never have reached Google and it might have been stolen on the way there. Don't know what that would mean for liability.

Seriously? You're blaming the victim?

I don't know how you read blame out of it honestly. I am not blaming anyone aside from the one that uploaded the pictures, I though that was understood.

The recommendation to not ever send a device with secret information to maintenance and repair still applies. As I said perhaps the device never reached Google. That is probably relevant for liability, perhaps the delivery service is at fault.

It doesn't even have to be a malicious actor, the repair process could expose such images to the technician in some cases.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like removable SD card is a tech person solution but... As an older person, I find this observation very interesting. Today, I would consider people in general to be much more technically knowledgeable compared to people 20+ years ago. And yet, 20 years ago, removable storage was quite common, and probably expected of most devices.

The majority of young people I know (in Brazil) doesn't know the concept of "file". So adding/keeping files in SD Cards is a task that requires some explanation. Disclaimer: I'm also an older person.

It is an easy concept that was trivial for 10 year olds to learn a few years ago. Abstracting it away had a real cost in my opinion.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#358
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is yet another reason to want phones to have removable storage (micro sd card). So private photos can go onto the card instead of built-in storage, and you can remove the card if you have to send in the phone. I don't take nudes but I tend to use my phone as an impromptu photocopier for stuff like bills and receipts, so the photos are full of private info such as account numbers. I worry about that sometime…

I feel like removable SD card is a tech person solution but ... kinda doesn't solve it for a lot of folks. Most folks are just going to take nudes and not strategize much and expect them to remain private as part of the typical photo taking and sharing workflow.

The technical problem is that you would need files to be encrypted in case the phone gets stolen. Security mechanism like a pin obviously don't help if someone can just pull the card with the interesting data. Still, even the "worst" users are able to understand the concept.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody: "I can't believe it! I like to leave stacks of $100 bills on the seat in my car and my car keeps getting broken into. Outrageous!" Somebody else: "You should probably take or hide the cash when you get out of your car." Offering wisdom for how to avoid a bad situation twice is not the same thing as blaming the victim.

As far as wisdom goes, it's pretty weak and probably doesn't need to be said.

I believe that any egregious behavior is on the one that leaked the private data. I don't think that has to be said honestly.
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