Careful with your computer

[uwsman2]

Here's a news story that sounds a cautionary note. If you take your computer in for repairs, be cautious about what the techies may find when they are working on it!

 

Court Reverses Suppression of Child Porn Spotted by Circuit City Workers

Asher Hawkins

The Legal Intelligencer

August 14, 2007

 

 

A Pennsylvania Superior Court panel has ruled that a common pleas judge in Reading, Pa., shouldn't have granted the suppression motion sought by an alleged child porn enthusiast whose video collection was spotted by Circuit City workers installing a DVD drive on his computer.

 

Reversing Berks County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey K. Sprecher, the panel concluded that Kenneth Sodomsky had no reasonable expectation the purported child porn files on his personal computer would remain private when he took it in for an upgrade in October 2004.

 

"Contrary to the trial court's conclusion, if [sodomsky] exposed the video contents of his computer to Circuit City employees, he abandoned his privacy interest in those computer contents because those employees were members of the public," Judge Mary Jane Bowes wrote. "If [sodomsky] knowingly published his computer video files to members of the public, he had no reasonable expectation, under the applicable law, that the video files would not be disseminated to other individuals, including police."

 

Bowes was joined in Commonwealth v. Sodomsky by Judge John T. Bender, with Senior Judge Robert E. Colville concurring in the result.

 

According to court records, Sodomsky is a 72-year-old Wyomissing, Pa., resident.

 

In October 2004, he went to a local Circuit City and asked the technical staff there to install in his computer an optical drive and DVD burner, Bowes wrote in her opinion. At the time, Circuit City employees told Sodomsky they would have to check to make sure the DVD drive worked once installed.

 

A Circuit City senior sales assistant involved in upgrading Sodomsky's computer later testified that after store staff put a new DVD drive into a computer, they test the success of the installation by playing a video file -- such as an MPEG -- on the computer's built-in media player.

 

That process, the salesman testified, helps Circuit City technical staffers identify any errors that may have occurred during installation of a DVD drive.

 

With Sodomsky's computer, the salesman testified, the tech staff did a general search of Sodomsky's hard drive for any existing video files -- any video file would have been sufficient, the salesman stated, according to Bowes' opinion.

 

Among the video files uncovered by the general search were a number that appeared to be of a pornographic nature. The salesman testified that those files' titles contained masculine first names, ages of either 13 or 14 and a description of a sexual act.

 

According to the opinion, the salesman testified he opened the first apparent pornographic video file, which showed a hand reaching for the penis of a naked, unidentified male.

 

The salesman stopped the video and called the police.

 

When Sodomsky came to pick up his computer, a local detective who had arrived at the scene told him his computer was being seized on suspicion it contained child porn. Sodomsky reportedly responded that he knew what they had found, and that his "life was over."

 

"The commonwealth maintains that the trial court erred in concluding that [sodomsky] retained a privacy interest in the computer because he volitionally relinquished any expectation of privacy in that item by delivering it to Circuit City employees knowing that those employees were going to install and test a DVD drive," Bowes wrote.

 

Rejecting Sodomsky's argument that the Circuit City staff should have tested the DVD drive by inserting an actual DVD disk, Bowes called attention to the fact that Sodomsky had not placed any restrictions on the tech staff's upgrading procedures.

 

"The trial court noted that [sodomsky] did not give Circuit City employees the right to delete files, access financial information or access his e-mail and so thereby did not lose 'all subjective' expectation of privacy in his computer," she wrote.

 

"What [sodomsky] did not give employees permission to do is not the consideration," she added later. "We must examine whether he did give access or knowingly risk[ed] access to his video files, which were the items discovered herein."

 

Bowes went on to reason that Sodomsky was never "compelled" to take his computer, which apparently contained child porn, to Circuit City in the first place.

 

"[sodomsky] was aware of the child pornography and could have elected to leave the store with the computer rather than risk discovery of the pornographic files," she wrote.

 

Sodomsky's attorney, Pittsburgh solo practitioner Paul Boas, did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

 

Prosecutors from the Berks County disrict attorney's office were also unavailable for comment Friday.

[Guest zipperzone]

Sodomsky ???

That's a joke,right?

Can you imagine going through life with that as a surname?

[fedssocr1]

that was my first thought too.

 

I also don't get why they thought playing a video file he had stored on his hard drive was somehow going to test whether or not the DVD drive was working. That part is nonsensical. IF the court believes that his financial and other files were off limits I don't get why the rest of the files on his hard drive were not also off limits. However, he was pretty stupid.

[Guest novabear22031]

That is why one should never put on the main HDD anything that they would not want the world to see...

[seeker630]

Exactly. An external hard drive is a good investment - both to back-up your hard drive AND to segregate those 'personal' files.

[Guest ReturnOfS]

>Sodomsky ???

>That's a joke,right?

>Can you imagine going through life with that as a surname?

 

LOL!! I don't feel so bad now because I was thinking the same thing everytime I saw his name :+