Comments on: broken laptop

broken laptop

bluefin — Fri, 26 May 2006 08:55:03 -0800

If you are going to sell a broken laptop on ebay, make sure you wipe the harddisk first (some photos NSFW)

By: chunking express

chunking express — Fri, 26 May 2006 08:57:19 -0800

Maybe a NSFW is in order?

By: digaman

digaman — Fri, 26 May 2006 08:58:17 -0800

"Instant karma's gonna get you."

By: dopamine

dopamine — Fri, 26 May 2006 08:58:18 -0800

Is this retarded? Someone make up my mind here... I lack the capacity to do it myself now.

By: Optimus Chyme

Optimus Chyme — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:00:13 -0800

This is wonderful.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:00:35 -0800

That was fairly mild - I'd've been tempted to broadcast the bank details. But then I'm pretty sure I'm in the middle of being scammed on eBay, so may not be thinking clearly.

By: zenzizi

zenzizi — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:05:11 -0800

if it happened as described i say he had it coming. unfortunately for us the content is not exactly so humiliating.

By: brownpau

brownpau — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:06:53 -0800

Particularly funny are the sockpuppet comments left by the scammer in the comments thread.

By: dammitjim

dammitjim — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:07:52 -0800

Is what retarded? The fact that the scamm-ee created a Blogger site to embarass and ridicule the scammer that sold him a broken laptop? I don't think so. Caveat scamm-or.

By: bluefin

bluefin — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:09:12 -0800

Should have added some of the contents are NSFW. The comments are particularly good, as it appears the scammer replies, using a false ID and terrible spelling

By: skallas

skallas — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:10:51 -0800

Someone is going to get their ass kicked by a shirtless mini-hulk.

By: troybob

troybob — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:11:57 -0800

By: [expletive deleted]

[expletive deleted] — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:13:26 -0800

This is a good start, but this guy needs to do more. Judging by the scammers name, I would guess he's of Iranian heritage. I suggest that this blogger put a fake items in the kid's outlook to do list. Maybe something along these lines: 1. Pick up mom's dog from the groomer. 2. Finish term paper for Econ 210 3. Meet with representatives of Hamas and al Qaeda to deliver briefcase nukes. 4. Sip chilled milk tea while the Zionist Occupational Government and the Infidel America crumble. Then just post the hard drive to the NSA. Next time this punk gets on a plane it's bam, straight to Egypt. The moral of the story: if you're an eBay scammer, getting your balls electrocuted in an Egyptian prison is called justice.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:14:09 -0800

That was fairly mild - I'd've been tempted to broadcast the bank details. I'd have been tempted to write back Amir and point out that a full refund would be a great alternative to me calling up the British equivalent of Homeland Security and telling them I just purchased a laptop from someone named "Amir" filled with pictures of terrorist attacks and all of his personal contact information.

By: antifuse

antifuse — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:15:44 -0800

Simple solution - use the bank details to forward the money back to yourself. Duhhhhh.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:16:05 -0800

This is very, very good action. I was hoping it was about airnxtz but that would have been too awesome.

By: DuckFOO

DuckFOO — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:16:28 -0800

This is funny as hell. Thanks Bluefin.

By: [expletive deleted]

[expletive deleted] — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:16:35 -0800

Troybob, I assume that he matched the eBay account with this guy, or otherwise did something to confirm his identity. If he paid by money order then it would be trivial. If this guy's name was on the money order, then he's the dude who used the laptop.

By: BillyElmore

BillyElmore — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:17:39 -0800

Could be a phony post, but fun anyway.

By: justkevin

justkevin — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:19:36 -0800

maybe i'm missing it, but is there something here that would verify that the laptop was sold to this guy by its owner and not by someone who stole it from the owner? it would suck to have your laptop stolen and then have someone posting your shit online because the thief screwed somebody over... The only clue I could find was that the seller's name was Amir6626, but the buyer may have learned more during his communications with the seller.

By: Balisong

Balisong — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:21:18 -0800

Best of teh Web.

By: troybob

troybob — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:21:42 -0800

...that's assuming quite a lot, i think...for all we know, the guy who made this post stole amir's laptop and tried to get him to buy it back...or just thought it would be fun to post his shit online...

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:25:14 -0800

I have reported you to the internet watch foundation and you will find they can also trace who ever leaves a comment. Heh. That's funny.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:25:32 -0800

P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-powerbook!!

By: raedyn

raedyn — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:26:32 -0800

I imagine it was satisfying for the person who got scammed.

By: Keith Talent

Keith Talent — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:29:36 -0800

He should have called Carl Monday to help sort it out.

By: nylon

nylon — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:29:40 -0800

Shit, though, laptopguy had better not get too carried away, bearing in mind that Amir knows his address. I'd be very wary of publically humiliating someone that knows exactly where I live.

By: truex

truex — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:32:14 -0800

Does anybody know if there are any laws or the like concerning who actually owns the data on the hard drive? Does the purchase cover the physical goods only, or also all of the data on the drive? Let's say the drive was reformatted or wiped - is it still within the buyer's rights to recover and undelete the data?

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:36:15 -0800

troybob writes "maybe i'm missing it, but is there something here that would verify that the laptop was sold to this guy by its owner and not by someone who stole it from the owner? " My first thought. TrueCrypt is your friend. [expletive deleted] writes "Troybob, I assume that he matched the eBay account with this guy, or otherwise did something to confirm his identity. If he paid by money order then it would be trivial." Of course a theif would have access to the ssme information as the blogger, including all his bank information and probably his eBay accounting info.

By: JWright

JWright — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:38:07 -0800

What nylon said. I'd be especially wary about publicly humilating someone who knows where I live AND who knows I have a hard drive full of his details AND who has a fetish for terrorist attacks. Gutsy, funny, but ultimately kind of stupid.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:38:27 -0800

Look at that eBay listing. The buyer should be too ashamed to ever raise his head in public after bidding on that laptop. Looks like it was composed by an 8 year old.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:38:53 -0800

Funny though.

By: A189Nut

A189Nut — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:44:02 -0800

This is a phony.

By: moonbiter

moonbiter — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:52:36 -0800

Judging by the scammers name, I would guess he's of Iranian heritage. Uh, Amir is also an Arabic name (as a friend of mine from Jordan named Amir would attest). It's not particularly Iranian.

By: eddydamascene

eddydamascene — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:55:32 -0800

Of course a theif would have access to the ssme information as the blogger, including all his bank information and probably his eBay accounting info. Somehow -- that someone stole a broken laptop and then, using ebay account details discovered within the hardrive, auctioned it off under the identity of the original owner -- doesn't seem the most plausible backstory.

By: bluesky43

bluesky43 — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:57:15 -0800

This looks like a scammer's scam to me.

By: gigawhat?

gigawhat? — Fri, 26 May 2006 09:59:22 -0800

I want to believe.

By: psmealey

psmealey — Fri, 26 May 2006 10:06:51 -0800

Whether tis true or not, this was amusing read. Great find!

By: fleetmouse

fleetmouse — Fri, 26 May 2006 10:07:25 -0800

Always, always, always use Eraser to wipe drives before getting rid of them. Format, then wipe free space.

By: patr1ck

patr1ck — Fri, 26 May 2006 10:17:46 -0800

By the way, www is dead. [www particularly bugs me when there is already another subdomain, as is the case with blogspot websites.]

By: awesomebrad

awesomebrad — Fri, 26 May 2006 10:19:32 -0800

Haha, someone got p0wn3d.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Fri, 26 May 2006 10:30:38 -0800

patr1ck: "By the way, www is dead." People who think that example.com should always be a CNAME to www.example.com are just a subset of people who think "the Internet" refers to just the web. There are other services and other Internet protocols. Why favor the web when something like 90% of visitors just come in from a hyperlink or Googles your URL anyhow?

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Fri, 26 May 2006 10:47:16 -0800

You know, this really might be fake. My brand new Dell laptop came with a bunch of bisexual porn and phonecam leg shot pix on it, as well as some dudes bank details. When I called MS to complain, they said it was essential to the operation of the whole OS and couldn't be removed. It's a feature. So I switched to Linux, but when the dvd arrived it was just 4.7 gigs of the same PNG of a Japanese girl eating a fresh poop in a hotdog bun. I'm going back to BEOS I guess.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Fri, 26 May 2006 10:57:19 -0800

that's pretty awesome. the foot fetish is really what makes it special. that and the thought of getting a small amount of payback on a guy who scammed your ass out of a good deal of money. Assuming, of course, you refuse to contact Trollhunters

By: psmealey

psmealey — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:08:02 -0800

Divine_wino, you owe me a new keyboard. I just spit coffee all over it.

By: zaebiz

zaebiz — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:14:22 -0800

Its far FAR more likely this laptop is stolen. A scammer is going to keep a broken laptop for a few months before finally sending it ? Just doesn't make sense. So a guy gets his laptop stolen and has to be publicly humiliated for it. Good job, internet avengers.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:15:53 -0800

Metafilter: 4.7 gigs of the same PNG of a Japanese girl eating a fresh poop in a hotdog bun

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:23:25 -0800

Its far FAR more likely this laptop is stolen. A scammer is going to keep a broken laptop for a few months before finally sending it ? Just doesn't make sense. I find myself unable to follow your logic. Your saying that most scammers complete their transactions with alacrity, and becausethis didn't happen, we must assume the extremely unlikely scenario that a thief has decided to expose himself by posted the content of his victims hard-drive online, rather than just wipe the hard drive and resell the computer, which, presumably, would be the point of the theft? And then the thief created multiple sock puppets to sound like his victim, none of whome claim the computer was stolen from them?

By: Stauf

Stauf — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:34:01 -0800

PNG of a Japanese girl eating a fresh poop in a hotdog bun. Oh god, I didn't need that mental image.

By: nyxxxx

nyxxxx — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:36:57 -0800

So, from the pictures the guy is a vain, bisexual, terrorist?

By: Jairus

Jairus — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:39:18 -0800

Always, always, always use Eraser to wipe drives before getting rid of them. Format, then wipe free space. Eraser is for suckers. Pros use DBAN.

By: fleetmouse

fleetmouse — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:45:38 -0800

DBAN comes with eraser. Anyways I figure a one pass wipe with pseudorandom data is sufficient unless you're running a casino or planning to overthrow a government.

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:48:20 -0800

Pros pull the drives from the computers, open them up, sandblast the platters, crush the blasted platters with a sledgehammer, and deposit the resulting find dust in a blast furnace. It's the only way to be sure.

By: bardic

bardic — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:51:13 -0800

internet watch foundation That's like the Better Business Bureau, right? The illusion that you have rights and/or protections as a consumer of product or information?

By: fleetmouse

fleetmouse — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:51:36 -0800

What, and then you leave the blast furnace intact? Novice.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:53:27 -0800

This is more like the sort of thing I might create if I was the buyer of the broken laptop- a fake blog post that exposes the original seller as a total muffinhead. Not that the original buyer is particularly brilliant., since he bought a broken laptop on Ebay...

By: dejah420

dejah420 — Fri, 26 May 2006 11:57:07 -0800

It's the only way to be sure. - mr_roboto Wait, I though nuking them from space was the only way to be sure?

By: cell divide

cell divide — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:01:45 -0800

Uh, Amir is also an Arabic name (as a friend of mine from Jordan named Amir would attest). It's not particularly Iranian. Amir is a named used in many parts of the middle east, including Israel. However it's the last name that is almost surely Iranian.

By: Parannoyed

Parannoyed — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:05:13 -0800

Real pros use antimatter versions of their hard drives. Drop one onto the other and *POP* the individual atoms are disintegrated! along with the planet.

By: dgaicun

dgaicun — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:08:11 -0800

Its far FAR more likely this laptop is stolen. Since the Revenger had full access to all the email/Internet accounts of our good friend, presumably he could have easily checked if it was the same Amir fellow that he bought the computer from on eBay. Simply go to eBay and view the Firefox saved username. Go in his email accounts and find your own months worth of angry emails in his inbox. I assume all of this was done in the midst of all the privacy-destroying fun.

By: squarehead

squarehead — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:11:22 -0800

oneirodynia: "This is more like the sort of thing I might create if I was the buyer of the broken laptop- a fake blog post that exposes the original seller as a total muffinhead. Uh...That's what this is. Not that the original buyer is particularly brilliant., since he bought a broken laptop on Ebay..." From someone with only 50% positive feedback. He was asking for it.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:13:51 -0800

People who think that example.com should always be a CNAME to www.example.com are just a subset of people who think "the Internet" refers to just the web. There are other services and other Internet protocols. Why favor the web when something like 90% of visitors just come in from a hyperlink or Googles your URL anyhow? Which is why TCP has more then one port. Duh.

By: eddydamascene

eddydamascene — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:14:23 -0800

From someone with only 50% positive feedback. He was asking for it. At the time of the auction he was 100%.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:15:57 -0800

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:16:41 -0800

Its far FAR more likely this laptop is stolen. A scammer is going to keep a broken laptop for a few months before finally sending it ? Just doesn't make sense. It's not a "scammer" it's just someone who lied about the amount of memory and the laptop's working condition.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:19:47 -0800

oneirodynia: "This is more like the sort of thing I might create if I was the buyer of the broken laptop- a fake blog post that exposes the original seller as a total muffinhead. Uh...That's what this is. Ah... right. For some reason skimming all the "is this real?" comments didn't quite add up. Good thing I'm not in the market for a used laptop, as I'm clearly not paying attention.

By: funambulist

funambulist — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:25:03 -0800

The seller is an idiot and a scammer and has a thing for terrorist bombings. Is that enough for his privacy to be violated like this? I have a vague feeling that laws don't make exceptions of this kind. Nevermind fear of reprisals from the clueless Amir, the legality of publicising this information is what the buyer should worry about.

By: squarehead

squarehead — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:26:44 -0800

eddydamascene: "From someone with only 50% positive feedback. He was asking for it. At the time of the auction he was 100%." Oh, well then from someone with 100% positive feedback, but only one person providing that feedback (and that one person having a feedback score of only 2 himself). Not a good idea.

By: bitmage

bitmage — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:28:04 -0800

One of thes days I'm going to grind down the platters for a hard drive, collect the filings, and then cast them in a lucite paperweight. Anytime someone asks me how to wipe the data off their drive before selling I'm just going to point to the paperweight. One overwrite with zeroes is sufficient unless you expect the new owner to spend thousands trying to recover the data. Once you've written a zero to the sector, the drive's electronics are going to return a zero when you request that sector. Now if the NSA has ahold of your drive, then they can take an magnetic force microscope and recover data from the sides of the tracks. But if you're expecting the NSA to be after your HD then you have bigger problems.

By: greycap

greycap — Fri, 26 May 2006 12:29:17 -0800

Best. Thing. Ever. Ah, revenge is sweet. Is it his privacy being violated though? If you sell someone a (dud) laptop with photos on the hard drive, are those photos then your possessions? Who owns the content then? Interested to hear what others (with better knowledge of copyright laws etc) make of this.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Fri, 26 May 2006 13:14:00 -0800

bitmage writes "One overwrite with zeroes is sufficient unless you expect the new owner to spend thousands trying to recover the data. " Oh I know, but a disk that has 40GB of data and one that has been overwritten with zeros or random bit streams look exactly the same. And neither looks as cool as a little pile of slag and filings encased in plastic. One has to keep up the appearance of eccentric genius or the users start getting restless. Next thing you know you are wearing a tie and submitting time sheets broken down in 15 minute increments.

By: bitmage

bitmage — Fri, 26 May 2006 13:19:23 -0800

One has to keep up the appearance of eccentric genius... Oh. In that case, thermite. In the company parking lot.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 26 May 2006 15:02:50 -0800

By: FormlessOne

FormlessOne — Fri, 26 May 2006 16:50:15 -0800

"Made you eat your parents! Made you eat your parents!" Almost as good.

By: SuzySmith

SuzySmith — Fri, 26 May 2006 20:46:08 -0800

That is hilarious. It's nice to see an eBay liar/scammer get tossed to the wolves for once.

By: asok

asok — Fri, 26 May 2006 23:31:20 -0800

Funny and karmalicious! Ebay is not great at sorting these things out itself, aparently. The 'people are basically good' idea is nice, but there seem to be plenty of people who like to take advantage of this presumption.

By: rough ashlar

rough ashlar — Sat, 27 May 2006 06:45:50 -0800

That's ok. If Microsoft buys Ebay, I'm sure Microsoft's quality wioll be brought to the EBAY customer service department

By: Hildegarde

Hildegarde — Sat, 27 May 2006 08:08:25 -0800

I really don't see why what this guy has posted is a problem. He didn't post the banking information, or the passport information. He posted some pictures he found on a busted laptop he bought. I'd be very surprised if the data is still legally owned by the seller.

By: ryanrs

ryanrs — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:09:19 -0800

Nobody tell Amir about the DMCA. Shhh!

By: ryanrs

ryanrs — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:24:24 -0800

Also, the buyer really shouldn't be worried about copyright laws and privacy laws. If he gets nailed, it'll be for extortion. Not that I expect that to happen. It appears the buyer and seller are equally clueless.

By: allterrainbrain

allterrainbrain — Sun, 28 May 2006 22:03:47 -0800

The many mentions of terrorism on this page (!!) are frightening and pathetic. I'm fairly new to mefi but this thread is all it took for me to lose all my remaining illusions about mefi members being more enlightened than average.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Mon, 29 May 2006 03:44:24 -0800

The many mentions of terrorism on this page (!!) are frightening and pathetic. In what way? (Actual question, not snark!)

By: antifuse

antifuse — Mon, 29 May 2006 07:44:03 -0800

Seriously... there's 4 mentions of terrorism/terrorists on this page. And all of those are just making reference to the fact that the scammer who previously owned the laptop had a fetish for terrorist imagery. What, exactly, is the problem?

By: allterrainbrain

allterrainbrain — Mon, 29 May 2006 18:20:14 -0800

What are you talking about when you say he had a "fetish for terrorist imagery"? I don't see anything but snapshots of people in his photos, and the word terrorist appears nowhere on the page with all his photos and info. What I see here on mefi are people using the word terrorist based on nothing more than his name. I'm all ears if you see something I don't.

By: nyxxxx

nyxxxx — Tue, 30 May 2006 07:37:42 -0800

It appears that the page has been changed. When it was first posted there was an animated gif of the wtc bombing and some pics of the London bombings. The site also stated that there was a lot of pictures of terrorist bombings. All that appears to have been removed from the site. It's not that the people of metafilter saw the name and jumped to the conclusion, "Terrorist!". What happened was that before you saw the page it was different and had several references to terrorism and all of that has now been removed.

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Tue, 30 May 2006 07:57:57 -0800

From the Press Association: Amir Tofangsazan has become the talk of internet chatrooms and the site has registered more than half a million hits. But the teenager from Barnet, north London, said it had made his life into a "living hell". Mr Tofangsazan told the Mail: "I am shaking all over and I fear my reputation is going to be ruined. "They have put photos of me and my family on there after hacking into my hotmail account, as well as publishing personal details and bits of my CV. "There are photographs on there from the September 11 bombings, porn pictures and pictures of women's legs which have absolutely nothing to do with me. Some people even think I took them. "The laptop wasn't even broken. It was in working order. The last few days have been a nightmare, some of my friends have seen it and my father is very angry." A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We have got an allegation of improper use of public electronic communications network that was reported to us on May 29 in person at Fulham police station. "The allegation follows from a civil dispute. No arrests have been made and inquiries continue. It will be investigated by Barnet police."

By: funambulist

funambulist — Tue, 30 May 2006 08:32:57 -0800

Ha... since the idiot buyer removed those pictures of the terrorist bombings from his blog, could it be because he put them there himself just to give a bit more colour to the story by association with the name Amir?

By: matthewr

matthewr — Wed, 31 May 2006 03:10:07 -0800

BBC

By: cribcage

cribcage — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 08:25:22 -0800

If you check the page now, you'll find it's been updated with Google AdSense. The buyer is also auctioning an opportunity to post your ad at the top of his blog.