As to whether you can uninstall all your stuff when you hand it back? Well, you can certainly try, but unless you actually rewrite over all the sectors on the hard drive, your stuff can likely be pulled back with readily available recovery software.

As Kwame Kilpatrick will tell you, ya gotta keep it separated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Kilpatrick

Clearly, some people in the company knew about it, because they paid for the software. Now it becomes a game of “who knew what and when”- so naturally the company cops the Sgt. Schultz defense, and as long as nobody talks, they’re safe.

So for instance, you work at Wal-Mart and you and your co-workers are working unpaid overtime (this happened recently and a friend of mine received part of the settlement from that case). If they detail in the contract that you signed when you started working for them that you can not participate in a class action lawsuit against them, you and your co-workers would be forced to sue individually, which limits your power to do anything about it.

Before the ruling, whether companies could do this was determined state by state, if I remember correctly, but I could be wrong.

It’s a tricky sort of issue to manage. It’s come in useful a few times for recovering hardware and wiping what’s truly lost, but there’s no real accountability in ours. If I went in and just watched the gps co-ordinates of iphone users, there’s nothing to stop me. If I wanted to take screenshots of work laptop screens with Prey, there’s no uneditable admin log that’ll note down what I do to be reviewed later on by superiors.

We’re just a smallish non-profit (I’m the only IT guy), but we still need that accountability that’s so hard to find in cheaper products. I want to be able to back our use of the systems with hard data showing exactly when and how they’ve been activated, both to cover my own arse and to make sure the company is safe when I eventually leave and somebody replaces me.

I meant: poor people. Not just the folks who have been so obviously wronged by malfeasance and shenanigans, but the poor (like no-money having) that have to use these Totally Rip Off establishments to somehow better themselves.

Furniture rental? That sucks! Remember Remco? Same thing, but at least it was ‘rent. . .to own!’ I hope the customer eventually gets to keep their whatever-the-hell, after paying 300% markup.

Yes, as mellowknees above stated: these places exist for a reason. But, everytime I see a Check-into-Cash! commercial or any similar usurious ‘business’ I see red.

‘We are providing a valuable service to the under-served in our community!’ Fine. Sure. By STEALING money from the Poorest people!!

I suppose if by buying a crappy $300 desktop for $950 helps you build credit, then maybe that’s a good thing. In our Brave New World of Capitalism: not everyone gets to be a winner. So if profit can be made from sucking the marrow from the underclasses; I guess we should just nod in support. . .

Fuck that! save your money! get a bank account! eat the ric. . .aahhh ferget it.

Unicorns you say?

Unfortunately, these rent-to-own places mark up the goods so that although the consumer is “not paying interest”, they are paying twice the retail value (sometimes more) of the product they are renting to own.

However, for folks rebuilding their credit, or who need a computer so their kids can do their homework, sometimes this is the only option. I know it seems simple to tell people not to go to places like Aaron’s, but you need to remember that such places exist for a reason.

@Anon #13
Yes, that’s how most class action lawsuits work. They are set up that way because there are a lot of ways businesses would gladly screw consumers over if the consumer had to shell out $2000 in legal fees to sue for the much smaller damages they would be entitled to. The idea is that by aggregating the cases there are enough resources for the consumers to make their case, and the collective cost discourages the respondent and other other companies from trying to screw consumers or workers that way again.

Were they just walking into the store and slapping down cash every month? And not getting a receipt?

Phone or laptop, both with cameras, microphones, GPS or router/cell tower tracking – is a dream.

It is the greatest wish that a well funded hacker, a private investigator, police detective, military intelligence, security agencies could ever have.

It is so perfect half these people must feel like kids in a candy store.

All you need is a willing judge, in some countries you don’t even need that and when it comes to national security – goodness.

I’ve heard that some phones can be turned on by the telco to listen in on conversations. I’ve heard people reporting their battery time being cut in half due to spyware.

In theory, at the push of a button you can “light up your target like a deer”, you have multiple cameras, multiple microphones, you don’t need to sneak in to put bugs under the lamp.

This in a world where location tracking is part of the Cellphone Communication Network specifications and everybody carries a microphone in their pocket.

Better than that some applications auto update, same way police can listen in on drug dealers they should be able to give their phones “a software update”.

Put your selves in the place of a creative individual tasked with getting their hands on valuable information to catch a really, really disgusting person. Any programmable device is a potential goldmine plus a promotion!.

If Social Networks don’t make their money from offering “special” access to deleted profiles and histories, friends, to “special” parties then they are not fully utilizing their capabilities.

Also you have your ISP with all kinds of potential for deep packet inspection and, well there is no end to it. If you are already running deep packet inspection, why not save that data? (that would include all kinds of private info)

I value privacy but, I kind of have mixed feelings on all this – bad people are easier to catch – and I like that.

On the other hand situations like the article points out or worst yet http://boingboing.net/2010/02/17/school-used-student.html (School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home) can and do occur, this is very bad, very.

When companies like that or just geeks send private data over the networks, intended destination is not the only place the data may end up in.

Your Phone is not a Calculator.

Your Computer is not like a Toaster.

Those are far more complex devices, they are active nodes participating in a global communication network.

(Given complexity of new smart phones, your phone is as capable as a computer, in this context. Both are equally easy to locate I am sure, thin GPS-ing/sniffing routers – mmm, I wonder why )

Deal with it, or study it so that you can do something about it.

Also please note that that game network getting hacked also belongs to this creepy spying business, they didn’t do it on purpose but the result is the same.

Even if it became extremely illegal to spy this way – Blackhat Hackers would do it.

The solution is to read up on these things a little, understand they can be used for good and evil, and get wise about it all.

Don’t let creeps ruin all the fun,
don’t spend all your time in the internet or phone,
get an audiobook, (Cryptonomicon $7! on audible.com) go listen to it in the park (and what out for all the creeps :)

Not that I’m saying it’s OK to spy on idiots, but still…

Unless their legal team are absolute idiots, it makes very little sense to make such a claim, unless it’s true. A few subpoenas would very easily show the relationship between Aaron’s and Designerware if it exists. Obviously, such a bold-faced lie would look very, very bad to a judge and jury, and would likely spell doom for the company.

Let’s let the courts do their job before slandering this company.

But how was he using the pictures to ostensibly show the couple was “in arrears” on their payments? There was a photo of them NOT signing a check every month, perhaps? I don’t’ get it.

Not sure why that would be significant, either they’re paying for it or they’re not, but that’s the logic that was presented in some of the news coverage of the incident.

@schmod: “slandering Aaron’s rental” is as nonsensical a phrase to me as “slandering Osama bin Laden.” They are a leech upon the downtrodden in society and do nothing good for anyone but the owners of Aaron’s.

Yes, of course, the manager’s images came from Wikileaks, which has been clamoring for information regarding computer repossessions by US consumer electronics stores for some time now.

There was a photo of them NOT signing a check every month, perhaps? I don’t’ get it.

This is exactly what ran through my mind when I was reading that bit of the article.

Funny and sad how stupid people can be (the manager I mean).