The Art of Surprise (commentary on" illegally" installing software)

I have to come out on the side of Apple on this one, but this is also a big case of serious over-reaction. While I did find the idea rather interesting, as a former employee of CompUSA in my youth, I was endlessly frustrated by pranksters (prankster, artist -- that depends on who's shoes you occupy at the time).

Every single day we had someone come in and try the old "echo y|format c:", create various silly GWBASIC:

     10 PRINT "Something Really Profane"
     20 GOTO 10

or at worst, insert virus infected floppy disks (yes, that was how long ago I worked there), or otherwise make the demo machines, both Mac and PC, non-functional.

We had a guy create a DOS TSR app that made the internal speakers spit out beeps at random intervals, random lengths and random pitches, all precisely timed. We thought it had to be an employee, since someone would have otherwise noticed a customer methodically visiting each machine.

I knew it was an employee, because I was the one who did it. No member of the Secret Service came knocking on my door. Thanks to the lack of video cameras at the time, I didn't even get reprimanded (my direct boss knew I did it, but thought it was art, or at least, rather funny, and it was done on a Wednesday in the summer, so it was minimally disruptive ... it also didn't involve taking pictures of folks without their knowledge ... legal or otherwise, that just has an ick factor to it).

EDIT: Didn't like that last sentence, needed more dots.

I think "illegally installing software" is a red herring.

Rather, the issue is "Spy Camera Artist." It's possible that most of the folks photographed for his show have no idea; and might not be happy.

While photography in a public place is protected, private property photography is at the discretion of the property owner.

Apple might come to the idea that unwittingly photographed customers could sue them for invasion of privacy. Hence, they went after him.

There are plenty of other reasons and explanations as well.

It's about the audience. If you walk into a store, you take it for granted that you'll be on CCTV that the store only films in case the cops need it. You do not grant permission for any random person to use that footage for their own ends. Well this is no different from someone sneaking in an stealing the CCTV tapes. Sorry, but the store were absolutely within their rights to have him arrested.

I have no idea what Apple's justification was for going to the authorities (and I hate to defend them), but I think they have a valid case regarding the privacy of their customers.

Imagine if Apple installed the software instead of the artist. Without warning their customers before they approached the laptop, there would have been an uproar.

That said, cool idea.

Would this post have been written if McDonald had installed the software on hundreds of computers in public libraries instead? How about if the software was a keylogger?

Is the Secret Service's complaint in this case available? Otherwise: seems like a lot of speculation on something that's not yet known.