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submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

T-Mobile sued after employee stole nude images from customer phone during trade-in::T-Mobile has been sued again for failing to protect consumer data after an employee at one of its Washington stores stole nude images off of a customer's phone.

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[-] kgbbot@lemmy.ca 194 points 10 months ago

The employee was and is a scum bag human, but what dumbass trades a phone with nudes on it‽ I wouldn't even get a phone serviced with nudes.

[-] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 120 points 10 months ago

Most people aren't all that clear on the distinction of things being "on" a phone. When they switch to their next phone and their photos immediately sync onto it from whatever cloud stuff they use, they may have the illusion that the new phone is where their photos "are" now and not consider the continuing existence of the data on the old one.

Basic technical literacy should be everyone's responsibility and would be in a perfect world, but any IT person will tell you that it can never be assumed of anyone. However on the bright side, stories like this blowing up in the mainstream news will knock a little awareness into more end-user skulls every now and then. Send it to all the non-techies you know and care about!

[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 57 points 10 months ago

After being in IT for a decade it never ceases to amaze me how incompetent people are when it comes to tech.

At my first gig in NYC I worked at a smaller financial firm (about 100 people) and every mid-level and above employee was given a work phone. One time I got a ticket that said "my smartphone is being really slow, can someone please take a look?". I went up there and it was a guy in his 40s (I was like 30), suit and tie, I think he was a Junior VP or something like that. He gave me his Galaxy S5 and I looked at the RAM usage and it was all taken up by Chrome. I opened up Chrome and he had 99+ tabs open, I told him that was the reason and he said "Oh.. I thought those automatically closed when I exited (he meant switched apps, not killing the process)...", I told him they didn't and started swiping them away, after the first few it was about 90 tabs of (teen) porn 🤣. I had to stand there in front of him, straight faced for a good few minutes cleaning up his porn. Afterwards I said "it should be better now, just remember to close your tabs when you're finished with them." and left. Once I got in the elevator I nearly pissed myself laughing so hard.

[-] Usul_00_@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago

That's awesome. Reminds me of having to tell an SVP that yes, per his demand, I did take his request to keep sharing music online illegally at work. He didnt seem to accept that the legal letters the form received meant he needed to change anything.

What could have been an 'oh shit, my bad' and noone has to know - turned into the entire leadership weighed in to direct me to delete the files and tools and be very clear he was putting his employment at risk.

The poor man's ego. He seemed to think the IT guy didn't have the ability to speak to him like that. Even insisted I tell him in front of two of his staff as a power play

[-] PopShark@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago
[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

Yeah, that was about a decade ago and it's still fresh in my memory, probably one of the most difficult times to maintain my composure. I could tell he wanted to die inside the moment I told him the tabs didn't disappear.

[-] nayminlwin@lemmy.ml 10 points 10 months ago

I've seen too many guys, even those in "respectable" positions like executives or club captains, just leave their porn tabs open before asking me for some help with their phones.

When I asked them to open up their browser they would straight up open it up to a previously opened porn tab and start to panic. And somehow, the porn site that opened is always XNXX, lol. Pornhubs' banned here and I guess XNXX just become popular instead.

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[-] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 28 points 10 months ago

Sad but true.

As one of those IT people (who was taught on punched cards), I'd had some hope that by the 21st century only GenX and Boomers would have this issue.

That young adults don't know this stuff is very frustrating.

Most people cant explain how a toaster works - it may as well be magic to them.

[-] WhiteHotaru@feddit.de 25 points 10 months ago

There is actually a theory floating around, that people growing up in the 80ies-2000 were the most tech literate, because they had to tinker to get thinks to work. Want to play a game on DOS 6.2 and it did not work? Edit some system files for more memory. Today the technisch hidden behind false physics and got really well.

My son is nine. I got him a Kano (the old one with a raspberry pie as base) and he has to learn why we need to connect a display to the processing unit and connect peripherals to do things. His friends own a tablet, a smartphone and a gaming console. You cannot see behind the tech in those, if you don’t want to destroy them and explore hobbit works (on a basic level).

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[-] JPAKx4 17 points 10 months ago

It's genuinely crazy. I've had to remove viruses from my friends (16 or 17 at the time) and just didn't understand. Why are you allowing things to make admin changes? Or just having to explain the difference to people what a "zip drive" is and a USB drive. As things get more "convenient" tech literacy definitely goes down.

[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago

I worked in my university's computer lab and one time I had a girl complain that the computer wasn't allowing her to do something (like download or save a file, this was over a decade ago) and she was frustrated. I asked her to show me what the issue was. She did what she was trying to do, a pop-up appeared and without reading it she clicked "no" and then proceeded to bitch about it not working. I did it again and the pop-up was asking for permission but she kept denying it, and then complaining that it didn't work 🤦‍♂️

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

Though I do see that these two have the opposite problems. One clicks yes without understanding, the other clicks no without understanding.

Though I will say I wish the admin access requests had more information about what the app wants to do with that admin access. And that programs that request admin access for things they don't really need it for were generally treated with disdain.

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[-] DrCake@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

We started with Boomers etc who never used tech so had no idea what to do. Then a couple generations of people having to learn tech to use it. Now we are at the point where it’s so easy to use that people can use without ever having to learn about it.

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[-] pete_the_cat@lemmy.world 71 points 10 months ago

People forget, my ex sold her laptop on eBay, but forgot to wipe it and it had a bunch of nudes she had sent me over the years on it. After she realized what she did she told him to wipe the computer because she forgot to 🤦‍♂️ this was like a decade ago before BitLocker/encryption was standard on most laptops. The dude definitely saw her naked.

[-] Maalus@lemmy.world 39 points 10 months ago

I had a friend leave her laptop with me for some maintenance. I think it was probably a reformat or something? I return her laptop, and she asks "have you seen my photos in folder X on the desktop?". I responded "no, why would I". She went "oh, such a shame" and made a "cartoonish" pouty face. From the conversation that followed, they were "raunchy".

Like, bruh, I won't be looking into your data. Want me to see something, send it to me straight, don't expect me to snoop around lol

[-] BleatingZombie@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago

Yeah. We're stupid. Title the folder "/c/Maalus look here" and we might

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[-] June@lemm.ee 28 points 10 months ago

I worked for sprint in a retail store for 3 years, and the number of people that handed me their phones with their own nudes as the backgrounds was shocking.

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[-] xkforce@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago

So what do you do if you literally cant wipe the phone I.e broken screen? Just never have anything there to begin with?

[-] diffcalculus@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

If it's just a broken screen, Google your way in learning how to repair it yourself.

Or, find a shop that will repair it in front of you the whole time. Pay extra if need be

Or, if the material is too sensitive and the above options aren't viable:

  1. accept the loss and destroy the phone. Or,
  2. accept that whatever is in there will be viewed

The good thing with a problem like this is that your options are limited. So there's not a whole hell of a lot of decision tree making you need to do.

[-] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 10 months ago

Stop being logical! We need to find holes!

[-] Chilihuahua@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Plug it into a computer and delete the files that way?

[-] xkforce@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Youve never actually had that happen if you think its that easy.

Guys no...

  1. You cant wipe a phone remotely with your google sign on unless "find my device" is enabled, which it never was.

  2. My phone does not just give access automatically to any device plugged into it. You are REQUIRED to give permission from the phone. Which cant be done because the screen is fucked.

  3. Your phone SHOULDNT be accessible in this scenario because allowing any device to just plug in and download everything with no authentication is a security risk.

[-] wgbirne@feddit.de 5 points 10 months ago

It is still possible to unlock an android phone with a fucked screen.

I had to do this once and managed to unlock the phone with a USB mouse. It took me a while to get the right pattern, but it is possible.

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[-] d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz 7 points 10 months ago

Phones these days are encrypted. If you ever set up a pin/password to unlock your phone, that means it's encrypted. Just make sure your phone is powered off or restarted (or battery drained, if the off button isn't working), before you drop it off at the repair shop.

No one can access your files in this state - not even the manufacturer (unless there's backdoor, but that's a different topic - but even then, there are many "secure folder" type apps you could use to encrypt sensitive data).

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[-] Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi 5 points 10 months ago

Simple, Could've broken it beyond use after taking the noods. Possibly due to holding it an awkward position to get them sick porn angles.

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[-] LainOfTheWired@lemy.lol 70 points 10 months ago

"But 3rd party repair people will install TikTok on your phone if you trust them"

[-] nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

"Stole" nude images? From a trade-in phone? More like "were handed access to". I mean, the employee's an ass, but the customer is in the wrong as well

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 28 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

As someone that had to delete some photos from his Samsung:

Nah, these phones are shitshows that save shit everywhere. I had to delete them three times.

That's just disregarding the fact that you're straight up victim blaming. Might as well ask what they were wearing, there is no excuse, just violation.

[-] Default_Defect@midwest.social 8 points 10 months ago

Might as well ask what they were wearing

They were nude photos, just sayin'

[-] nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info 6 points 10 months ago

I'm not blaming the victim, the employee did act like an ass. All I'm saying is the victim did not take safety precautions people should take regardless of whether they are trading in their phone or not. If that is victim blaming then I'm victim blaming everyone who has no common sense regarding privacy and mindfull use of electronics.

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

"I'm not victim blaming"

Proceeds to keep victim blaming

Regardless of the fact that people just forget things sometimes, expecting people that just want a phone to know how to do a factory reset simply isn't reasonable.

You and I wouldn't trade it in without wiping it, probably, but we're mega nerds on the Fediverse. These things seem obvious to us but they simply aren't that important, or common knowledge, to normal people.

There is, and there only ever is, one person at fault when trust is violated. That there are safeguards you can take is a different discussion.

[-] nudnyekscentryk@szmer.info 7 points 10 months ago

It's not common knowledge to delete data on a device you're getting rid off? What the fuck are you on about?

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[-] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Did the company policy state that they would access your data and save it?

No?

Then you're normalizing criminal behavior because it's possible. Was the phone's data wearing a crop top? Maybe that's why it was violated.

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this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
505 points (100.0% liked)

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