Man Finds Divorce Papers, Tax Docs On "New" Laptop 218
An anonymous reader writes "25-year-old Hidayat Sudirman found that his new laptop came loaded with more than just the usual software, it also contained 10GB of someone else's documents. From the article: "A buyer on the lookout for a new laptop got more than he bargained for at his local computer fair when the 'new' device came loaded with over 10GB of personal documents — including divorce papers and tax returns."
Better solution for Mac than TrueCrypt- File Vault (Score:3, Informative)
The article pushes the use of TrueCrypt rather heavily, but while it is nice for most people on a Mac it's a lot easier to just turn on FileVault (which stores your whole home directory in an encrypted disk image) and then make sure you require a login when you wake the computer.
I believe there's also a similar solution for Windows. In general it's better to promote the solution that works and is most likely to get used.
Similar thing from CDW (Score:5, Informative)
I worked in the IT department for a company, and we ordered a couple of laptops for evaluation from CDW. One of the laptops was defective (the lid closure switch didn't work). So I sent it back and got a replacement. A week later, we ordered a dozen laptops. In that shipment was the defective one I had sent back, still in the same box I shipped back in (I had torn the box trying to get the box open). Needless to say, a nasty phone call was made to our sales rep and he overnighted a replacement and they never asked for the defective unit back. I kept the defective unit as my desktop.
Not a story.... (Score:5, Informative)
This was bought at a computer fair give me a break. Retailers selling returned stuff as new, not a surprise, definitely illegal. Manufacturers pulling it, extremely illegal. I had a friend that bought a "new" external hard drive only to find that it was loaded with someone else's photos, tax returns, etc. We believe that was the manufacturer buying refurb drives to install in the external case. Does that constitute a "new" product?