Reply to post: Given that the data could only have been obtained

Given that the data could only have been obtained

by intentionally looking at every deleted image then it is clear that geek squad were acting not for their customer's benefit but inorder to claim the FBI bribe. Having done data recovery in the past then there tends to be a lot of deleted images on any machine that is using the internet and it takes quite a time to find anything unless you know the filename or date. Typically I would just image the drive and let the customer extract what they wanted rather than waste time peering at random images but then again I was not being paid to find evidence against the owner.

It would have been better if the FBI had made certain that their target was indeed a paedo before revealing to the world that they have this legal loophole availible to catch pervs. The case as presented here seems somewhat weak to waste this whole legal backdoor operation upon. Further it is more than possible that the defense will just say geek squad put it there themselves so they could claim their FBI bribe. It is clear that geek squad is unscupulous and their agents willing to spend more time searching for evidence against their customer than actually fixing the fault they were paid to find, if I was a judge I would be very sceptical

If you are using low level disk tools then it is minor to spoof meta data such as time stamp etc, they would need seperate internet records or similar to show that the defendant got this file on his computer by acts that are themselves illegal and prove that it was the defendant at the wheel at that time.

Given that no mention is made of this style of supporting evidence then I would say they have wasted any bounties they have already paid and would be better to cut geek squad loose.

That the FBI was using government funds in what can only be seen as an obvious attempt to promote the creation of fake evidence is somewhat worrying, perhaps they should drop the "I" in their acronym.