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Software on rented PCs can spy on you

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Software on rented PCs can spy on you

Two summers ago, Crystal and Brian Byrd, a young couple from Caspar, Wyo., leased a Dell laptop from a local franchisee of Aaron’s, a national rent-to-own chain. The two made all their payments on time, according to court documents, and by October they had paid enough to own the computer outright. But somewhere along the line at least one of those payments got lost, and just a few days before Christmas 2010, a manager from the rent-to-own store showed up at the Byrds’ apartment looking to take the computer back.

The confrontation that followed lasted just a few minutes, but it was long enough to spark a class-action lawsuit, a criminal investigation spanning at least three states and a major regulatory crackdown in the U.S. Now, for the first time, Canadian officials have confirmed they too are investigating the issues at the heart of the dispute.

According to a lawsuit the Byrds later filed, the manager, Christopher Mendoza, first demanded the Byrds return the computer. He then produced a picture, taken with the laptop’s webcam, of Brian Byrd using the machine. When Byrd demanded to know where Mendoza got the photo, Mendoza refused to answer.

It turns out the picture was taken using a program called PC Rental Agent. Developed by a rent-to-own store owner in Pennsylvania, PC Rental Agent allows store owners to shut down machines that have been reported stolen or whose renters are behind on payments. The program also comes with a feature called Detective Mode. Designed to be used only on stolen machines, it allows the rental stores to capture keystrokes, track locations and snap webcam pictures, all without the users knowing.

Shortly after the Byrds went public with their story, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) started looking into PC Rental Agent. This fall, the agency launched an official complaint against the company that manufactures it, DesignerWare. According to the complaint, PC Rental Agent had been used to repeatedly “reveal private, confidential, and personal details” of computer users, all without their knowledge. Using Detective Mode, rent-to-own stores had captured screenshots of medical records, social security numbers and bank and credit-card statements. It gets more tawdry. “In numerous instances,” the complaint says, “Detective Mode webcam activations have taken pictures of children, individuals not fully clothed, and couples engaged in sexual activities.” One former store employee who testified at the Byrds’ lawsuit said she’d seen a picture taken of a woman sitting at her computer, smoking from a bong.

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DesignerWare was dropped from the Byrds’ lawsuit after the company declared bankruptcy. But that doesn’t mean the privacy issues with its software have all been resolved. As part of its complaint, the FTC revealed that DesignerWare had sold PC Rental Agent to 1,600 rent-to-own stores and installed the software on some 420,000 computers, including some in Canada.

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Kelly says he doesn’t know how many Canadian stores licensed the software, nor would the FTC reveal what Canadian stores were involved. In time, however, the office of Canada’s Privacy Commissioner may provide some answers. Spokeswoman Isabelle Moses says the commissioner is aware of the recent FTC settlement and of the issue in general. “We are currently conducting an investigation, initiated by the Privacy Commissioner, related to the use of this type of software in Canada,” she says.

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reply to lugnut
geez why stop there... With your 31$%"/!$% logic we could sue any hardware company if the user after that use it incorrectly because they did not install a gadget to stop them...

For example : Some one use a knife to kill a person so let sue the knife maker because they did not put a lock to stop every psychopath out there from using it the wrong way.

btw : a lock like you are talking would not have stopped key loggers and the like.

But the story is not about keyloggers. It's about webcam enabled spyware. A REAL invasion of privacy.

And manufacturers SHOULD take some responsibility on what they sell to people as "harmless and useful."

Like I said, it takes less than a nickel's worth of plastic to put a sliding shutter over a webcam lens or insert a physical cam kill switch on a laptop or desktop webcam. The only reason consumers aren't screaming for this feature already is because there haven't been enough publicized incidents where people actually realize they are being spied upon.

According to Panda Labs, 35.51% of ALL computers in the world are infected with some form of malware.

»www.tech21century.com/china-has-···e-world/

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China on top of contaminated countries
The average number of infected computers around the world amounts to 35.51%, almost three percentage points lower compared with 2011, according to figures obtained by the technology of Collective Intelligence of Panda Security. China is again leader in this ranking (54.25% of infected computers), followed by Taiwan and Turkey

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reply to lugnut
It may take less than a nickel's worth of plastic but it takes maybe a penny for a PostIt or some paper and tape. It takes even less to manually disable/disconnect your webcam and have anti-malware software installed.

On a laptop you CAN'T manually disconnect the webcam and mic.

Even on some desktops it's a major pain to reach around under a desk to the back of the box to disconnect a webcam.

And the last thing you want to do is get glue all over an optical lens. Especially if you DO have occasional use for the webcam.

And finally, virus scanners are FAR from perfect. They allow more crap thru than they protect against on Windows boxes.

reply to lugnut
It's not up to the manufacturers to prevent improper use of computer...as mentioned, it also had a key logger and obviously it used the wireless adaptor to send off information (including screen shots that would be unrelated to the webcam). The main culprit is Aaron's for putting this software on the computer, and the software company for selling this software for this type of use.

Even if the manufacturer was to make a physical covering for the laptop's webcam, Aaron's still would have got info. So, maybe make the keyboard useless and the internet useless, then they'd be safe.
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If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. - Albert Einstein

I agree with you. The person responsible should be the person providing the system and if that person claims they can't scrutinize each system when they come back, they should take it to a place that can simply reimage it after every use.

reply to lugnut
No need to think twice about rent-to-own places, they are the most expense way to buy anything. The fact that they have added illegal wiretapping, surveillance, blackmail and coercion to their trade is disturbing, however these crimes do dovetail so nicely with loan sharking anyways, it seems a logical fit.

Even if the device had an off button it would almost certainly be a soft-off device (a physical input tied to the input like of some processing system) which could be changed via software (and therefore remotely) anyways.

reply to lugnut

... if you think banking on a PC is stupid, how do you do your banking?

reply to lugnut

reply to lugnut

reply to TLS2000

Re: Software on rented PCs can spy on you

reply to TLS2000
BTW comedians, it takes considerably less effort to plant a web bug in an advertisement that exploits an unpatched, undocumented, windows vulnerability than it does to tap a home phone line for the sake of stealing personal info.

So Bite Me!

reply to lugnut