AfterDawn: News

Man sues Microsoft claiming IE did not delete his pornography

Earlier this week, Michael Alan Crooker filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in the Massachusetts Supreme Court claiming that Microsoft falsely advertised that its product, Internet Explorer would keep his information and browsing habits secure.

In 2004, the FBI raided Crooker's home based on reports and evidence that he had bomb-making materials. Federal agents did find "laboratory devices, apparent IEDs, fermenting castor beans, chemicals and chemical equipment appropriate for the processing of castor beans into ricin, and what appeared to be ricin and ricin precursors in various stages of development, indicating that Crooker was successfully manufacturing ricin."



After finding all these materials, the FBI then confiscated Mr. Crooker's computer. The FBI broke through his Compaq DriveLock security layer encryption mechanism and found a vast array of file including homemade sex videos and and cached hardcore pornography. The embarrassment of this led Mr. Crooker to start the lawsuit.

He claims that he set Internet Explorer to automatically delete his browsing history every 5 days but that the browser failed to do so. In his words "Any day beyond those parameters is supposed to be permanently deleted and is not supposed to be recoverable." Mr Crooker seems to have a valid claim, but the larger problem appears to be that Circuit City, the retailer he purchased his computer from specifically told him that Windows XP, Internet Explorer and the DriveLock would completely keep his information secure.

Mr. Crooker is seeking $200,000 USD in damages from Microsoft and claims to have settled out of court with Circuit City and Hewlett-Packard, the computer brand.

Source:
Arstechnica

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 3 Mar 2007 12:03

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• 20 comments

• veyron

  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! That's the funniest thing I ever heard! WindowsXP
  and IE keep your habits secure! HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH!!!!!!
  
  Seriously though, good job FBI!

  3.3.2007 12:08 #1

• ahrel

  Why is this guy not in jail? And who cares about porn; so long as it's not kiddy porn. If you're into hardcore stuff, and get embarassed when someone sees that you're into it, you obviously shouldn't be into it; because if even you feel ashamed about it, why look at it?
  
  But seriously why is this guy not in jail for the bombs?
  
  And MS won't lose this. it delete's the cache just like any other file on any many file systems. If you want to zero out the data you need to do a deeper / longer deletion or have it ovewritten. I'm sure the FBI used a recovery method, they just came across the porn, while looking for incriminating bomb evidence.

  3.3.2007 12:44 #2

• xhardc0re

  z0mg time for me to file meez a lawsuit!!1! (/deletes his cache & checks it twice because the feds will know that i've been naughty or nice or maybe both LOL)

  3.3.2007 12:57 #3

• Attin

  This guy must be joking... :D :D :D
  
  Hell just lose and will pay alot for suing MS
  
  roflcakes are good xD

  3.3.2007 14:48 #4

• ducebag

  ha ha another porno bust!
  but seriously no computer lock is 100% secure and no program should be trusted to delete your browsing history. but this guy should be in jail for the bomb makins and he ows microsoft for all the crap he has put them through!!

  3.3.2007 15:47 #5

• ducebag

  If this guy really wanted security he should have checked the browsing history more often and had several fire walls.

  3.3.2007 15:56 #6

• Andrew691

  I would recommend people to have a look at http://www.totse.com/en/technology/compu...ogy/163148.html , a very good reason not to ever use a Microsoft product. It says its aimed at Win95 users so I dont know if its still the same in XP (was written in 2001) or others, but it tells of ALL internet explorer files are not deleted when cleared but moved to a hidden place that cant be accessed at all by a user through windows.
  Internet Explorer and Outlook Express users beware, you are not safe.

  3.3.2007 16:27 #7

• scorpNZ

  There's only one step to take to remove for ever anything written to a hdd and that's to see it go thru a metal recyclers shredder and even then is your surf history really gone, after all you logged onto the net with a isp, so know doubt you could ask them for a printout of your surf history...lol

  3.3.2007 19:10 #8

• ZippyDSM

  Unless the sex vids are kidie porn they cant get him on that.....and everyone has bomb making matrails in their homes.....so we need more information abotu the raid to know more abotu what got the FBI in a tisszy

  3.3.2007 22:13 #9

• chubbyInc

  On this so called warrant, only what they were originally after would be used against him. In this case Bomb making material, they cannot mention porn, because it wasn't in the warrant, therefore he would have a case if they tried to charge him on homemade goods. Now the bomb stuff good, he should be charged, but he is obviously trying to get around that. Chances are it wasn't any illegal stuff for it would have been mentioned so lets stay off that topic. This is about bombs and there is no point in fighting that no matter what IE deletes or not. Just an attempt to get away from the true charges.

  3.3.2007 23:17 #10

• Melo1977

  he's not in jail because he owned no bombs, just the parts to make bombs, which is not illegal.

  4.3.2007 02:47 #11

• wasprider

  Microsoft should be sued for lying about their software. He should seek more than 200 thousand. There should be more lawsuits like this. Also they didn't have a warrant to search for porn. THe constitution clearly says you have to be specific what you are searching for. It was a fishing expedition and the pigs should be fired. He has bomb making material, who cares. The government has nukes. We have a right to bear arms in this country. The arms are to fight the government when it becomes to bad. So yes people may need bombs someday. Would you want the jews arrested for posessing bomb making materials in nazi germany. Get your heads out of the governments propaganda against arms.
  
  The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

  4.3.2007 03:56 #12

• dara01

  Im a spammer and banned :)

  4.3.2007 06:25 #13

• DVDBack23

  dara01, goodbye :)

  4.3.2007 09:46 #14

• bobiroc

  Originally posted by wasprider:Microsoft should be sued for lying about their software. He should seek more than 200 thousand. There should be more lawsuits like this. Also they didn't have a warrant to search for porn. THe constitution clearly says you have to be specific what you are searching for. It was a fishing expedition and the pigs should be fired. He has bomb making material, who cares. The government has nukes. We have a right to bear arms in this country. The arms are to fight the government when it becomes to bad. So yes people may need bombs someday. Would you want the jews arrested for posessing bomb making materials in nazi germany. Get your heads out of the governments propaganda against arms.
  
  The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.If what the FBI is doing is right or wrong is a different story, but I can find nothing about Microsoft (or any computer vendor) Claiming that by setting your history to be cleared every 5 days will PERMANENTLY clear it from your hard drive. Actually any moderate computer user knows that when you delete something from your hard drive the data is still technically there until it is over written with something else. That holds true even if you format the drive. You have to write zeroes to every sector of the drive for it to be completely wiped. That being said there are utilities that can and will do that for you within windows.
  
  And Wasprider I think you need to re-evaluate your comments. Please provide more insight where Microsoft had "lied" about its products. Also when the government put the Right to bear Arms in the constitution it had nothing to do with bombs and other weapons of mass destruction.

  6.3.2007 10:43 #15

• Steve83

  Quote:Also when the government put the Right to bear Arms in the constitution it had nothing to do with bombs and other weapons of mass destruction.Right. So it doesn't prohibit us from having bombs or WMD because it DOES say: any right not specifically reserved to the feds is reserved by the states & the citizens.
  
  But the INTENT of that amendment was, as stated, for US citizens to kill the US government. Period. Not for sport hunting; not for personal protection; not for target practice; not even for national defense. It refers to the Declaration of Independence, and that's why it's so important. That's also why the government hates it, and is infringing it to the point of nonexistence, which is illegal.

  8.3.2007 16:39 #16

• scorpNZ

  Quote:Originally posted by wasprider:Microsoft should be sued for lying about their software. He should seek more than 200 thousand. There should be more lawsuits like this. Also they didn't have a warrant to search for porn. THe constitution clearly says you have to be specific what you are searching for. It was a fishing expedition and the pigs should be fired. He has bomb making material, who cares. The government has nukes. We have a right to bear arms in this country. The arms are to fight the government when it becomes to bad. So yes people may need bombs someday. Would you want the jews arrested for posessing bomb making materials in nazi germany. Get your heads out of the governments propaganda against arms.
  
  The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.If what the FBI is doing is right or wrong is a different story, but I can find nothing about Microsoft (or any computer vendor) Claiming that by setting your history to be cleared every 5 days will PERMANENTLY clear it from your hard drive. Actually any moderate computer user knows that when you delete something from your hard drive the data is still technically there until it is over written with something else. That holds true even if you format the drive. You have to write zeroes to every sector of the drive for it to be completely wiped. That being said there are utilities that can and will do that for you within windows. I've yet to see an article that says overwriting will permanently delete anything off your hdd and that includes doco's,as the platters are magentic so when one overwrites any data there is still a memory effect left over which is how forensics gets your surf history from day 1 as it's all in layers which is why they say destroy the hdd

  8.3.2007 21:00 #17

• wetsparks

  This has got to be the funniest article that has been posted on Afterdawn. Its between this and the one about the hookers union getting mad at the people who made Grand Theft Auto. Good find staff members.

  8.3.2007 22:20 #18

• Shishire

  Originally posted by ahrel:And MS won't lose this. it delete's the cache just like any other file on any many file systems. If you want to zero out the data you need to do a deeper / longer deletion or have it ovewritten. I'm sure the FBI used a recovery method, they just came across the porn, while looking for incriminating bomb evidence.Actually, they probably found it while looking through IE's secondary and trimary cache. IE has several cache areas, only one of which is deleted when you tell IE to delete it. In fact, you can only access the other areas if you know exactly where they are, because of Microsoft's +s protection. All in all, this is a good account of why everyone should use Firefox or Opera or something if you need to use Windows... Otherwise, use Linux.

  9.3.2007 08:47 #19

• paulthman

  If you believe all what some say when selling thier product, then I have a bridge to sell you. Of course IE and Windows etc will not keep secure you data from prying authorities, since Microsoft most likely builds software to break your codes of security. There are books and books of software for sale as well as actually free that will secure your software content. As far as this one person, he is a pimp for destruction and needed to be brought down hard. So if you side with that person, you to are a pimp for destruction. As far as Microsoft hiding your contents, it's B.S. if you think they do that. Nothing on your computer is safe, face it, your put in writing, someone is going to be able to read it. They live to break your code. Have a nice day.

  9.3.2007 15:13 #20