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#Post#: 19578--------------------------------------------------
The family who didn't get to say "cheese"
By: Nikola Date: November 5, 2019, 2:38 pm
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This is a story I heard on the news here the other day. A family
bought a used laptop, not realising that it had been stolen from
the previous owner. The owner had installed a program that
allows him to take pictures of people using the device so he
took pictures of the family members and exposed them publicly on
the internet. The family are now making a claim for emotional
distress as they apparently developed PTSD as a result. They say
they didn't know they'd bought a stolen laptop, even though the
price was suspiciously low for that particular model.
Who's in the right? All I can think of is whoever stole the
laptop and resold it having a great time watching as the person
they stole it from and the people they sold it to, confront each
other.
#Post#: 19579--------------------------------------------------
Re: The family who didn't get to say "cheese"
By: Pasha Date: November 6, 2019, 4:21 am
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You shouldn't buy used electronics unless you buying from your
trusted friends.
#Post#: 19580--------------------------------------------------
Re: The family who didn't get to say "cheese"
By: SHL Date: November 6, 2019, 2:42 pm
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[quote author=Pasha link=topic=1385.msg19579#msg19579
date=1573035665]
You shouldn't buy used electronics unless you buying from your
trusted friends.
[/quote]
LOL. Buy from your „trusted friends“?
It reminds of of a story I’ll never forget from the 1990s. I was
working for a law firm near San Francisco and a secretary told
us she and her husband had just gotten a new, big screen TV. The
kind she got usually costs 1,000 $ or more so in those days. I
asked her how much it cost and she said, „Oh, 50$.“ And it was a
new TV too. I asked her where she got it and she said, „oh my
husband bought it off some dude in the TL, out the back of his
truck.“ The „TL“ is short for the Tenderloin
neighborhood/district of San Francisco, which is a really
run-down skid-row area of the City, which is rather dangerous
after dark. They also just call it „The Loin“. The guy who
fixes my computers says he bought a 300$ pair of shoes in “The
Loin” for 20$ or something.
I always that story was funny. No wonder the TV was at such a
bargain price!
#Post#: 19581--------------------------------------------------
Re: The family who didn't get to say "cheese"
By: SHL Date: November 6, 2019, 9:16 pm
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[quote author=Nikola link=topic=1385.msg19578#msg19578
date=1572986280]
This is a story I heard on the news here the other day. A family
bought a used laptop, not realising that it had been stolen from
the previous owner. The owner had installed a program that
allows him to take pictures of people using the device so he
took pictures of the family members and exposed them publicly on
the internet. The family are now making a claim for emotional
distress as they apparently developed PTSD as a result. They say
they didn't know they'd bought a stolen laptop, even though the
price was suspiciously low for that particular model.
Who's in the right? All I can think of is whoever stole the
laptop and resold it having a great time watching as the person
they stole it from and the people they sold it to, confront each
other.
[/quote]
Gosh, Nikola, your story reminds me of being back in law school.
This reads like a law school exam question (in the US at least.
I can’t say if they write law school exams like this in Europe).
This would be in what we call in the US within the subject of an
examination in a torts class. Odd name, I know, but all a tort
is/torts are, are legal actions of a civil nature (for monetary
damages or injunctive relief), rather than criminal ones. The
old joke is „they are not something you eat.“ They are split
between wrongful actions of an intentional or unintentional
nature or can be a mix of the two.
It’s actually a rather interesting question. In analyzing these
questions, I always learned to sort of work backwards, first
asking “what are these people’ damages? How were they harmed, or
were they?” Because if the answer is, they were not harmed, the
analysis stops and they don’t have a case. They lose.
In your story, I find the PTSD claim rather suspect. And the
emotional distress issue a bit hard to believe in general. The
pictures were of the family, but what was contained in the
photos? Were they photos of the mom and dad having sex? If so, I
can kind of get the emotional distress claim. Or if they were
naked photos, same thing. Yes, that’s a better case. But, if not
that, say they are just photos of the family having dinner? How
did they get emotional distress out of that?
I think we have a tort called something like “intentionally
exposing private and embarrassing facts about a person“ or words
to that effect, but I can’t imagine any lawyer taking a case
like that, and running with it.
At least in the US there’s a bit of a free speech problem too.
Facebook is a great example of people here making fools of
themselves online and then having it be used against them in
court. I tried a case last month and used Facebook posts. I
represent the dad in a custody dispute over a 3 year old boy.
The mom has no lawyer and represents herself and is a lunatic. I
had to get a restraining order against her because she was so
nuts. They share custody of their son on a two week on, two week
off basis. At trial, I tried to use the mom‘s Facebook posts
against her wherein she rails against the dad, calling him all
kinds of nasty things, but I ran into a lot of trouble with the
Judge getting them in evidence (even though the Judge was my
former lawyer 10 years ago in my divorce), and then using them
effectively was hard. The mom had posted all this crazy stuff
about how bad my client was and a bad father he was, and how he
was rich (and she was poor) and could hire a lawyer (I even
think she posted some bad stuff about me but I didn’t care and
forgot about it- sort of „he and his dumb lawyer“, that kind of
stuff). I had trouble doing what we call „laying a foundation“
for using her nasty Facebook posts (I only wanted to show what
an awful mother she was), which is sort of like authenticating
what was posted on Facebook were things she actually wrote, not
someone else. So, when she testified, I just ask her if she had
written the stuff and she said yes, thus solving that problem.
But, your question was good. Classic torts question on a law
school exam. The only thing that would be added would be at the
end, the examiner would write „Discuss all legal remedies.“ :)
#Post#: 19582--------------------------------------------------
Re: The family who didn't get to say "cheese"
By: SHL Date: November 6, 2019, 9:40 pm
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Another thing I like about your hypothetical, Nikola, is you say
the family who bought the laptop didn’t know it was stolen, but
they still got it at a suspiciously low price. That’s the key
fact. Suspiciously low price. How low is low?
The obvious bad guy here is the thief who stole the laptop and
then sold it. But it’s also illegal to buy stolen property,
which is what the family did. However, a defense to buying
stolen property is you didn’t know it was stolen. Then the next
question becomes, „well should these people have known it was
stolen because of the low price?“ it depends on what the price
was compared to legitimately sold used laptops. It’s like the
example I gave of the guy buying a 1,000$ TV from some guy for
50$ out of the back of a truck in the TL in San Francisco, with
all the prostitutes walking up and down the street. How’s this
guy buying the TV going to seriously argue, „I didn’t know the
TV was stolen.“ Yeah. Right. No one is going to believe that.
So, it’s the same thing here. If these people bought the laptop
at a crazy low price, yes you can argue that they should have
known it was stolen, hence making them criminally liable and
having really no one to sue for their PTSD (sounds like a bit of
a joke to me). After all, the real owner can install whatever
photo-taking device he wants on his own laptop. What’s wrong
with that? But, then posting the photos on the internet? Maybe
he went a bit too far there. Again, interesting legal question.
#Post#: 19583--------------------------------------------------
Re: The family who didn't get to say "cheese"
By: Aliph Date: November 7, 2019, 6:54 am
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Interesting story and interesting legal analysis by SHL.
I have a question since it happened to me to buy second hand
computers from unknown people. How is this possible. Can
somebody who's tech savvy, maybe Pasha explain this to me?
#Post#: 19584--------------------------------------------------
Re: The family who didn't get to say "cheese"
By: SHL Date: November 7, 2019, 12:59 pm
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[quote author=Nobody link=topic=1385.msg19583#msg19583
date=1573131258]
Interesting story and interesting legal analysis by SHL.
I have a question since it happened to me to buy second hand
computers from unknown people. How is this possible. Can
somebody who's tech savvy, maybe Pasha explain this to me?
[/quote]
I‘m sure if you buy used electronics from a regular store, or
someone you know and trust, it’s safe, especially if the price
is reasonable for the used item. But, buying very new-looking
stuff from some guy you don’t know out of the back of a truck at
some unheard of low price, in a bad area of town on top of that,
is totally different.
#Post#: 19585--------------------------------------------------
Re: The family who didn't get to say "cheese"
By: Nikola Date: November 7, 2019, 1:15 pm
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OK, Steven, let's do this whole cake or tort thing. Let me give
you more details. The original owner had his laptop stolen after
someone had broken into his flat. He found out he could still
connect to it from another device because the thief had left all
the files and accounts as they were. The police failed to find
the laptop so, out of frustration, he decided to start taking
pictures of the people using it and screenshots of what they
were looking at (he actually installed the software from a
distance once it was stolen, I read this after I wrote my post).
He wrote about it on his blog, which is in English and only a
bunch of people were reading it. He posted some of the pictures
there and people immediately started discussing them, giving the
family members nicknames such as "wanker" or "farmer" based on
what they were watching. The media became interested in the
story, they wrote about it in the newspaper and the TV news also
covered it. That was when one of the family members saw their
picture and the nicknames and contacted the police. The
subsequent PTSD was confirmed by an expert witness, apparently.
I read that the price was suspiciously low but I don't know how
much exactly or what type it was other than that it was a
MacBook and the original owner was an IT specialist. Also, this
happened a while ago. They've re-opened the topic now to keep
people updated on the latest development.
#Post#: 19586--------------------------------------------------
Re: The family who didn't get to say "cheese
By: SHL Date: November 7, 2019, 1:58 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Nikola link=topic=1385.msg19585#msg19585
date=1573154106]
OK, Steven, let's do this whole cake or tort thing. Let me give
you more details. The original owner had his laptop stolen after
someone had broken into his flat. He found out he could still
connect to it from another device because the thief had left all
the files and accounts as they were. The police failed to find
the laptop so, out of frustration, he decided to start taking
pictures of the people using it and screenshots of what they
were looking at (he actually installed the software from a
distance once it was stolen, I read this after I wrote my post).
He wrote about it on his blog, which is in English and only a
bunch of people were reading it. He posted some of the pictures
there and people immediately started discussing them, giving the
family members nicknames such as "****" or "farmer" based on
what they were watching. The media became interested in the
story, they wrote about it in the newspaper and the TV news also
covered it. That was when one of the family members saw their
picture and the nicknames and contacted the police. The
subsequent PTSD was confirmed by an expert witness, apparently.
I read that the price was suspiciously low but I don't know how
much exactly or what type it was other than that it was a
MacBook and the original owner was an IT specialist. Also, this
happened a while ago. They've re-opened the topic now to keep
people updated on the latest development.
[/quote]
Thanks Nikola for the details.
What I was about to add, before your post, was that the last
thing in the world anyone would want to take a risk of buying
would be stolen computer equipment. The reason I say this is I
had a recent client who was an IT specialist and had worked for
google, yahoo; those kinds of places in Silicon Valley. What an
IT specialist can do is truly amazing, things the average
consumer would never even think about.
I mean they can find out anything they want about a person using
a computer, with only little information, and bypass easily all
the „security“ installed, see what sites the person‘s computer
has been on, and more. He never told me all the details, but my
impression is that it would be a risky business buying used
computers, except from a regular business or someone whom you
know well (Pasha can address this probably better than I can).
I’m fairly confident that little devices can and probably are
installed on computers so they can be easily traced if stolen.
Then, the end user can be easily found and is going to have some
real explaining to do, especially if he/she bought it at an
unreasonably low price. That’s today. As you said, this was a
dated story, so things might have been different earlier.
On the other hand, the people in your story might have been
totally honest in buying the MacBook. Then, the IT specialist
sort of taunting the people with photos of the people using it
and posting it does raise some concerns. I don’t know the
country this was in, but I’m sure in the US some lawyers would
invent some legal theories of liability. Whether they would come
out successful in the end is anyone’s guess. And other countries
might have particular laws directly addressing this thing.
One thing that strikes me about the story is why the police and
the victim couldn’t immediately locate the end user of the
MacBook. If he could get photos of them, why couldn’t he find
where they were or who they were? That seems a bit odd. And if
the victim could have located the family, which I assume he
couldn’t, why didn’t he just take steps to recover his computer
(using the police, or taking some civil action). I can only
assume he tried to make the family look like fools on a public
Internet forum to draw them out and identify them. Right? That’s
the part that doesn’t make a lot of sense.
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