Just Remember They're Out There

Ah, lax Internet privacy. How scary you can be sometimes.

My office break room has a little corkboard for pinning up coupons, places for rent, cars for sale, babysitters, and other miscellany for coworkers to share. While filling my mug with water I saw a business card tacked to the board for some guy's "Computer Consulting" business I hadn't heard of before.

On the card there was printed stuff like "Spy & Adware Removal," "Virus Removal," Upgrades, Repairs," and so forth—general computer-nerd stuff anyone doing A+ exam prep would know how to do. There was also "Pre-Purchase Consulting" which to me sounded suspiciously a lot like "You pay me just to tell you what computer to buy." The card had the guy's name and address, as well as telephone numbers and e-mail with a unique registered domain name, but no website. That piqued my curiosity.

My roommate's grandfather used to patronize another "computer consultation" business that habitually ripped him off pretty hardcore, taking advantage of his lack of computer savvy to overcharge him for work that really wasn't all that intensive (and they still managed to mess up his computer pretty badly). Interested as to how this guy compared, I took the business card back to my cubicle and plugged the address into Google Maps.

The business was obviously being run out of the guy's house—the address was a residential drive tucked away in a neighborhood. Thinking I would plug in the name of the business next, I clicked on "Web" to go over to the main search engine.

Google had the address's search results waiting for me, and by pure chance I noticed an interesting return a couple of rows down:

"Maryland Sex Offender Registry Search"

I had put in the guy's address, not his name, so I thought perhaps it was just an old listing that hadn't been updated. Nope. The list had been updated on March 24th of this year, and when I got to the address, there was his name.

So apparently this guy was at some point found guilty of felony sexual offense in the third degree. The list also had a three-letter code for the nature of the offense. In his case, it was CSO, or Child Sexual Offender. If I had to hazard a guess, he found it tough to find work after this charge stuck to him, so he was forced to go into business for himself, plying the only legitimate skills he had.

If the majority of computer consultants are either fleecing opportunists with the Ichthys as their logo* or guys like this, then I think I should look into entering that line of work myself, since I already have a reputational leg up on these folks.

*the aforementioned business my roommate's grandfather gave his money to