Security → Rental PCs Spy On Users

PC Rental Agent was supposed to stem theft. Instead, it sparked a firestorm.

Brian Byrd was playing video poker on his Dell Inspiron laptop when someone knocked on the door of his home in Casper, Wyoming. The visitor, who drove a truck from the local Aaron's rent-to-own store that furnished the PC five months earlier, said the 25-year-old Byrd was behind in his payments and demanded he pay up at once. He then brandished a picture that was about to cause a national privacy uproar.

"The Byrd's were upset that their privacy had been intruded on and someone was likely looking at C. Byrd while she was undressed," a Casper Police officer identified as L. Starnes wrote in the report.

The allegations contained in the complaint quickly got the attention of officials at the FTC and touched off a national debate about computer privacy.

In September, the US Federal Trade Commission secured an agreement that settled accusations that seven rent-to-own (RTO) stores and a software design firm* surreptitiously captured end users' most intimate moments. The charges of unfair and deceptive gathering of consumers' personal information stemmed from the use of PC Rental Agent, a software package that is also the subject of a federal lawsuit accusing Pennsylvania-based DesignerWare, the rent-to-own stores, and their corporate parent of violating federal wiretap statutes.

There's also ample evidence to suggest computers that ran PC Rental Agent surreptitiously collected huge amounts of data and sent it to DesignerWare servers. Those servers would then send individual stores an e-mail that contained the captured data; much of that data contained instant messages, website transactions, and other data that is fair to characterize as communications. The e-mails were first routed through the mail servers of Aaron's Inc., since they were sent to Aaron's Inc. addresses.

.....not to rain on Mr Byrd or anyone else's financial positions, but WHO in this day and age still RENTS a computer?
In a perfect world, one can walk down to goodwill or an ewaste place and pull enough working pieces to put together
a fairly working system. Toss on a Linux base OS that allows one access to Internet, email, and an Office suite and
you're off to the races.

...mind you, this is not a perfect world.

That's quite an old story and this is was a one person deal, not the company

On Tuesday, seven computer rental companies agreed to a settlement with the federal government after it was discovered that they were unlawfully capturing photos of customers by using illicit software that controlled a computer’s webcam.

The Federal Trade Commission said the seven companies involved had worked with DesignerWare, a Pennsylvania-based software maker, to create a program that secretly captured “webcam pictures of children, partially undressed individuals, and intimate activities at home.” This included people who while engaging in sexual activities in their homes were being recorded on their rental computers.

The webcam software, called PC Rental Agent, had been installed on approximately 420,000 computers worldwide, according to the F.T.C., and as of August 2011 it was being used by approximately 1,617 rent-to-own stores in the United States, Canada and Australia.

In a news release issued by the F.T.C., Jon Leibowitz, the agency’s chairman, said the software had also captured consumers’ private e-mails, bank account information and medical records. In some instances the software was able to capture Social Security numbers, medical records and doctor’s names. Most disturbing, the webcam captured pictures of children.

The reality that nearly half a million people were so intensely spied upon without their knowledge highlighted what some say is a need for more oversight by government officials for people who do not own their own computers. Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general, said: “There is no justification for spying on customers. These tactics are offensive invasions of personal privacy.”

The settlement agreed upon by the F.T.C. will ban the rent-to-own companies from using monitoring software of any kind and prohibit the companies from tracking a user’s location without that person’s knowledge or consent. All of the stores involved are also prohibited from using any of the information collected from the computers to collect outstanding debts. The companies will also be monitored by the F.T.C. for the next 20 years.

The companies involved in the settlement include: Aspen Way Enterprises; the Watershed Development Corporation, which operates under the names Watershed and Aaron’s Sales & Lease Ownership; Showplace Rent-to-Own; J.A.G. Rents, operating under the name ColorTyme; B. Stamper Enterprises, which operated under the name Premier Rental Purchase; and C.A.L.M. Ventures, which also operates under the public name Premier Rental Purchase.

What would be most surprising of all is that anyone would be surprised by this. It's a rental computer...

People rent computers?

It IS backwards for the rest of us. But when people are on a limited but regular income, they can't afford the price of a used computer (a lump sum) but they can afford "easy" weekly payments.

\Sure, it's not going to be the latest and greatest, but for web browsing, email, and some light multimedia usage, perfectly adequate.