GREENVILLE, S.C.—Shoppers at a South Carolina Best Buy were treated... er, horrified when 55-inch televisions in the store started playing what one woman described as "extremely, extremely pornographic" images. It took a few minutes before a manager was able to turn the televisions off, but by then, according to the local CBS affiliate, "several horrified families had seen it."
The store said someone had used their wi-fi without authorization to upload the images to the televisions. The news station contacted Best Buy corporate, which issued the following statement:
"Two individuals accessed our store's wireless signal to broadcast inappropriate content on a smart television display. In both cases, we worked immediately to disable the inappropriate content. We greatly apologize for this unfortunate incident and we are working to ensure that it does not happen again."
One woman quoted in the article was so upset she filed a complaint with the police "for dissemination of pornographic material." The police, who have not yet assigned an investigator to the case (but will), told CBS they need to see the images to know if any state or local laws were violated. Young children were also reportedly in the vicinity and saw the material.
The woman who filed the complaint tried to explain the experience. "I think even the word 'pornographic' doesn't cover it," Gloria Berg told 7 On Your Side. "I have never watched pornography, so I don't know what else you can see there, but to me, I really felt extremely violated."
One question that remains unanswered is why the store's wireless network was apparently so easy to access. If it was not password protected, there will probably be hell to pay. If it was password protected, there will probably be another sort of hell to pay.
