A man who was arrested for gun-related charges is reportedly suing Microsoft because he claims that the advertised Window’s security features should have prevented FBI agents from viewing sexually explicit videos of him and his girlfriend.

Crooker purchased a Compaq Presario PC loaded with Windows XP, Internet Explorer, and several security utilities in 2002 at a Circuit City in Holyoke, Mass. Crooker, in court papers, says he “felt secure in Circuit City’s claims of impenetrability and security.”

At the FBI lab, agents were able to access Crooker’s files by making a mirror image of the hard drive. Among the files, they found a video showing Crooker and his girlfriend having sex, his medical records, family photographs, and correspondence between Crooker and his attorneys. They also found Internet history files that showed Crooker’s fondness for pornographic Web sites.

Crooker says he had set Internet Explorer to delete his Internet history every five days. “Any day beyond those parameters is supposed to be permanently deleted and is not supposed to be recoverable,” Crooker says in the lawsuit. He also claims Compaq’s DriveLock security system should have prevented the FBI from accessing his hard drive.

In the court papers, Crooker says he already has reached settlements with Hewlett-Packard, which owns the Compaq brand, and Circuit City.

Oh boy where should I start? Does anyone really expect that the FBI cannot get into pretty much any encryption they want to, given time? I’m sure nothing was done without a search warrant. This suit and the previous settlements are a bit shocking.

I guess we can now expect see disclaimers on everything with encryption, saying something along the lines of, the Government can probably break it.

['Embarrassed' Gun Suspect Sues Microsoft After FBI Finds Sex Videos On His PC]

Update: Gun Suspect Suit Against Microsoft Tossed

[tags]Microsoft, FBI, encryption[/tags]