Work computers are less private than you think.

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

Good: having a photo of your kids playing in the yard as a desktop background.

Bad: having a photo of your kids playing naked in the yard as a desktop background.

Worse: our user migration tool automatically backs up your Windows profile to my portable hard drive, so I've been carrying naked photos of your kids around for three days now without knowing it. This is how unfortunate misunderstandings happen.

Comments

[melstav]

I think that last sentence should actually read:

"This is how Unfortunate Misunderstandings(TM) happen."

as in:

They could lead to Bad Things(TM).

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Time for a little talk with the user migration tool people, possibly after one with Legal.

[attackgypsy.livejournal.com]

Please, for God's sake, tell me you deleted them. I've had problems with the police over stupid stuff like that. Even gotten ALL of my computer equipment seized. Hell, they even took the VHS tape of my wedding.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

And bear in mind that deletion itself is usually not enough. Multiple-pass random overwrites of free space are strongly recommended. Some platforms are better about this than others.

[polarbee.livejournal.com]

*sigh* This is why I don't take naked pictures of my kids. Because it's STUPID to have that stuff about in any form whatsoever. :p

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

Taken care of, and I've emailed the manager to explain that I've deleted a stored profile because of content inappropriate for anyone but the user. I also have a dated printout of said email in my desk drawer.

[vulpisfoxfire.livejournal.com]

What boggles me is that they think this an appropriate thing to put on a work computer at all, much less as their blasted *desktop wallpaper* where, you know, co-workers and random passers-by can see it?

[superbus.livejournal.com]

I'm sure their kids will be thrilled to hear about this in twelve years. "Oh yeah! I remember when your mother used to have your naked baby pictures on her wallpaper at work! You almost got that nice tech person arrested and prison raped!" "See, Mom? This is why I took up drinking at 14"

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

Well. To be fair, pictures of their kids playing naked in the backyard might not be a big deal for anybody to see, except legally.

Don't get me wrong, that "legally" part is a GIGANTIC exception that throws everything else completely out the window. But it's quite possibly a bit silly to think there's anything particularly MORALLY wrong with it in and of itself.

I grew up in the 70's. Nobody thought anything odd about naked babies or toddlers, or pictures thereof, back then. The current obsession with it is just that - current, and an obsession; not eternal and universally expected.

[utoxin.livejournal.com]

Actually, a single pass of 0's is almost certainly enough. Unless someone is willing to do electron microscopy to analyze the drive, there is /no/ way to recover it after a 0 pass, and no one has successfully recovered a significant amount of data even with electron microscopy.

[caerleon.livejournal.com]

It's such a bloody shame though.. we *should* be able to have perfectly innocent images..