Seller beware!, of what you leave on your hard drive.
Ripped off ebay buyer gets revenge
by IP_SEC 7 Replies latest social humour
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Dune
Lol, i'm reformatting my harddrive on my old PC right now...
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LDH
He got
POWNED!
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truthseeker
It's not over yet! Police eBay probe 4.29PM, Tue May 30 2006
http://www.itv.com/news/britain_1874824.html
A website, apparently set up by a disgruntled eBay customer, is being investigated by police.
The writer behind the website claims to have been sold a faulty laptop by a 19-year-old student and shows pictures which the writer claims, he found on the laptop.
Amir Tofangsazan has become the talk of internet chatrooms and the site has registered more than half a million hits.
But the teenager from Barnet, north London, said it had made his life into a "living hell".
The mocking first-person blog begins: "Hello. My name is Amir Massoud Tofangsazan and I live in Barnet. I'm 19 but pretend to be a lot older and like to pretend that I'm a big businessman when I'm not actually that clever."
It suggests that Mr Tofangsazan sold his broken laptop computer for £375 on eBay, and goes on to show pictures of his family and friends, a copy of his passport, and pornography the buyer claims to have found on his hard drive.
There are also pictures of him with a bare chest, with a drawn-on moustache and devil's horns, kissing a girl, and sleeping, as well as pictures of women's legs apparently taken on the London Underground.
Mr Tofangsazan told reporters: "I am shaking all over and I fear my reputation is going to be ruined.
"They have put photos of me and my family on there after hacking into my hotmail account, as well as publishing personal details and bits of my CV.
"There are photographs on there from the September 11 bombings, porn pictures and pictures of women's legs which have absolutely nothing to do with me. Some people even think I took them.
"The laptop wasn't even broken. It was in working order. The last few days have been a nightmare, some of my friends have seen it and my father is very angry."
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We have got an allegation of improper use of public electronic communications network that was reported to us on May 29 in person at Fulham police station.
"The allegation follows from a civil dispute. No arrests have been made and inquiries continue. It will be investigated by Barnet police."
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lovelylil
This kid could be getting scammed and the guy maybe blackmailing him to keep the computer and get his money back.
My hubby is more computer literate than I am and he said if you sell or give away a computer, you have to reformat the hard drive first and make sure all your things are removed.
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TD
It's hard to make out clearly, but looks like Amir was only 50% Positive on feedback at the time of the sale.
I wonder if that gave the buyer any pause, or if it's just one more thing he's kicking himself over....
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IP_SEC
My hubby is more computer literate than I am and he said if you sell or give away a computer, you have to reformat the hard drive first and make sure all your things are removed.
Reformatting the drive may not be enough if someone gets the drive and knows what they are doing. Maybe a low level format writing all the data on the drive to 0s. The only sure fire way is to take a hammer to the drive and bust it up into small pieces.
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silentWatcher
you're right. I worked in a classified lab (defense) for several years, and anything that left the lab with storage (memory card, hard drive) was first put through a "schredder". But, for normal people, there are programs that effectively wipe the hard-drive (basically re-format the drive several times). -silent