Compensation for my computer?

[Kit-Ginevra]

Last year,some charming specimen of humanity hacked into my computer.
They downloaded some sort of virus which remotely filled my computer with child porn pics and then used a cam to take pictures of them and demanded payment in order not to take them to the police.

He got reported to the police and in July was sentenced to spend 5 1/2 years as a guest of Her Majesty.The computer had been seized as evidence-now the case is concluded,it should be returned.However,the police may not be able as they cannot guarantee it will not be clean(part of this virus seems to be that each time you shut it down and restart it,it generated more images).

It doesn't seem right that I should end up out the cost of a computer when I haven't done anything wrong.Is it possible to sue the offender for the cost of its replacement? I had mentioned to the prosecution team about compensation,but it seems this was not brought up at the trial or considered as part of the sentencing.

Any advice gladly accepted :P

[csquared]

Local laws vary, but you should have grounds. You should look into small claims court. Problem is, even if you win, you may have problems collecting.

Ask if you can have the computer back, less the hard drive.

[Chromatix]

Indeed, the hard drive will be where the virus (and the nasty pics) are; if that is removed and destroyed (or, better, kept in the evidence archive), the rest of the machine will be safe and useful.

It also seems likely that you'd find it easier to collect on the relatively small cost of replacing the hard drive, compared to the entire machine. This assumes you win compensation in the first place.

[Kagato]

Depending on how big the existing HDD is, I agree with either letting them yank the HDD, or doing it yourself if it is a small drive - you can get a decent 1 terabyte or bigger drive for as low as USD$50 plus shipping from Newegg.

[Chromatix]

Another possible option is to have the hard drive professionally erased, if the police no longer need it for evidence purposes. This would minimise costs.

Indeed, the cheapest way of doing so is to boot the machine from a Linux CD and run "badblocks -w /dev/sda" at the root prompt. This will overwrite the drive several times, leaving it filled entirely with zeroes - it will then need formatting and OS installation, just like a new drive would. Even high-end professional data recovery experts can't retrieve the previous data from a drive so treated.

[Kit-Ginevra]

Just an update-police will now be returning computer minus hard drive.Yay-it's almost a year.I miss it(even though it has ghastly Windows 8 on)...I shall now ponder getting the offender to pay for the cost of a new hard drive and how to go about that.

[EricKei]

Well, at least having Win8 means you are entitled to a free copy of Win10, at least until next June or so...Once you've got all of the updates on it, the system should offer to upgrade you for free within a few days.

And, yes, consider seeing if it's worth it to send him a bill for the cost of the drive/see if it can be forced without incurring legal fees. Maybe ask the detective in charge of your case for info regarding with whom you should speak.