Man sues Microsoft, claims IE failed to hide browsing habits from FBI

What do you do when the FBI raids your home and finds porn all over your PC? One man, who had his home computer seized by the bureau, has decided that his best course of action is to sue the companies that failed to keep that data private for him.

This week, Michael Alan Crooker filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts Supreme Court alleging that Microsoft falsely claimed that its products would keep his information secure. In 2004, Crooker had his home raided by agents based on reports that he owned bomb-making materials. Agents eventually discovered "laboratory devices, apparent IEDs, fermenting castor beans, chemicals and chemical equipment appropriate for the processing of castor beans into ricin, and what appeared to be ricin and ricin precursors in various stages of development, indicating that Crooker was successfully manufacturing ricin." Unsurprisingly, the FBI confiscated his home PC as part of the process.

While Crooker did have an encryption mechanism installed to keep his porn, ballistics recipes, and data safe, the FBI's Cryptologic and Electronic Analysis group were able to break through the Compaq DriveLock security layer with help from Hewlett-Packard. The agents found a wide array of files ranging from home sex videos to cached pornographic web pages, eventually embarrassing Crooker and leading to this lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, Crooker argues that Internet Explorer was set to delete his browsing history after five days, but the software failed to do so. "Any day beyond those parameters is supposed to be permanently deleted and is not supposed to be recoverable," he said. While Crooker's claim against Internet Explorer may be valid, the bigger problem seems to be that Circuit City assured him when he purchased the PC in 2004 that Windows XP, Internet Explorer, and a barrage of other security products would keep his information totally secure.

A lawsuit filed by Crooker against Hewlett-Packard was thrown out in May 2006 due to Crooker's inability to file the correct papers and pay a $250 filing fee. In the lawsuit against Microsoft, Crooker states that he has already reached settlement with both Circuit City and Hewlett-Packard. Crooker is seeking US$200,000 in compensatory and punitive damages from Microsoft.