Do I have this right: Tony sends Pepper to his office to download the contents of his computer. Stain (?) has taken over the office in Tony’s absence and has a bunch of cartoonishly incriminating evidence on the computer. So…he’s been using Tony’s computer, and didn’t even change the password, with all this stuff on it?
Didn’t SHIELD give her the thumb drive she was using? I always assumed it also had bleeding-edge hacking and decryption software installed on it. Just plug it in, it releases a virus that breaks though the computer’s defenses and downloads the files you needs.
Until Tony’s capture, he would’ve been on Stane’s side. Also Tony was supposed to die. I think that’s enough for Stane to be less cautious. He also was trying to win Tony over to his side, still.
Obadiah Stane.
Tony gave her the thumb drive, and told her to plug it in (not SHIELD). However, while Stane showed up, it’s not clear that he was using it as his own office at any point, and his reaction to grabbing a nip of Tony’s booze suggests he hadn’t been in before.
It’s also nor clear if the files were on that computer or on a special, secured server at Stark Industries. However, Tony’s earlier comment to Jarvis saying that he wanted to keep his new designs off the corporate drives suggest that (a) Tony probably has very high-level access rights and (b) was just asking Pepper to use his computer at work to check for Stane’s hidden files on the server.
I always assumed it was the Stark Industries mainframe, with special, superuser access found only in Tony’s office, accessible only to Tony and Pepper and possibly Obadiah, gate kept by … I dunno, ordinary security protocols, if not by Jarvis – is Jarvis known to be strictly Tony’s home only? Seems likely, otherwise, Tony wouldn’t have had to ask Pepper to sneaker-net evidence against Obadiah.
But anyway, from Tony’s office, all of Stark Industries is available for his perusal. Like they said at every job I worked at, IT can see everyone’s traces, who went where, on the internet and when. If a porn site was the source of a virus, they called you in, and told you directly, “Arkcon, please stay off of tightyoungtwinks.com* while you’re here. This is the only warning, your supervisor will be sold next.”
I suppose, its a little weird. Tony doesn’t seem like the sort of boss who spies on his engineering team. He’s such a super genius, he shouldn’t care. He’s a billionaire playboy, where would he find the time?
*An example site only. Not an actual link. Please don’t go there, unless its your thing. Check urban dictionary for any words you don’t understand.
Why did she NOT take off the damn high heels?