Montana City Requires Workers' Internet Accounts

justinlindh writes "Bozeman, Montana is now requiring all applicants for city jobs to furnish Internet account information for 'background checking.' A portion of the application reads, "Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.' The article goes on to mention, 'There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords.'"

WTF

[Jaysyn]

They are seriously asking for people's passwords? If this some kinda of social engineering test where if you actually put them down you fail?

Invest in lead

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all I have to say.

My Klingon Keyboard

[iron-kurton]

I just told them that even if I wrote down passwords, they are all written in Klingon and are only usable on Klingon keyboards, so they would be of no use to them. I was hired on the spot.

Sorry, we are going to have to let you go.

[Tilzs]

It has come to our attention that you lied or omitted information on your employment application. We have found out that you neglected to mention that you registered at creative.com 8 years ago to download some drivers and 3 years ago at dvorak.org/blog when you posted "get of my lawn".

At least they are polite

[Danathar]

They DID say "Please"...

also...

[bcrowell]

Further instructions on the form:

16d. Please analyze your own handwriting for us, and supply a full report on whether the results show that you may be predisposed to workplace violence.

16e. Please build your own polygraph machine, administer the test to yourself, and let us know whether it turns up any proclivity for white collar crime.

Re:Passwords?

[Morlark]

Ah, but it's perfectly safe. When you write your password out on the application form it comes out as ******!

Re:Unpopular

[Red Flayer]

That's as big a landslide as it gets, folks.

Well, technically, no. It could be 99% [1].

I mean, I get your point, but on a site filled with pedants, most of them highly attuned to mathematics, perhaps that wasn't the best choice of words.

[1] 99% is as big a landslide as it gets. 100% would mean the land was falling, not sliding. Assuming that the percentage in a landslide victory correlates to the slope of the surface the land is sliding along.

Oh crap... I've opened the door for the pedants to tar and feather me as well, haven't I?

*exchanges tinfoil suit for flame-retardant suit*

Re:Unpopular

[alexlm]

How are there even 2% that don't consider it an invasion of privacy?

Slashdot Account

[Sponge Bath]

User: Anonymous Coward
Password:FAH-Q

Re:Give away your password...

[NovaHorizon]

I have trouble envisioning a piece of paper large enough for all of my login accounts, let alone 3 lines. And I hope they understand when I just give 5 passwords at the top and tell them to keep trying for each site cause I don't remember which password goes with which account :|

Re:Give away your password...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be kind of funny to automatically generate a few hundred thousand legitimate user accounts and passwords to various websites automatically, and print thsese off onto a few hundred sheets of paper and hand them in.

Re:Broad brush strokes

[Beezlebub33]

Almost makes me want to apply so I can down my alt.com and bmezine.com usernames and passwords. If nothing else, it will be enlightening for city employees who get to review it. :-)

And then I'd be rich when they refuse my application because of it and I sue their asses off.

Re:Um, No

[cashman73]

Anonymous Coward might still have a shot, since s/he does not have a username or password to disclose,... ;-)

Re:Unpopular

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in: 2% of online users twitch when they click.

Re:What else?

[iamhigh]

Maybe my bank access info?

Keys to my house?

Maybe a beaver shot of my wife?

No. No. Yes, please.

Re:WTF

[e9th]

The ad is actually for positions in their sister city, Bozeman, Nigeria.

Re:Passwords?

[spydabyte]

Obligatory bash quote: http://www.bash.org/?244321 [bash.org]

Re:Worst Policy EVAR!!! EVER EVEN!!!!

[TheGratefulNet]

You'll get a total of two types, liars who give you nothing or fakes, or idiots you actually give you this info.

hang on. I now see the logic in this.

this is for GOVERNMENT work. I think you just described the ideal government civil-service worker!

maybe there's more thought to this than it appears.

Re:Unpopular

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, per the density the real numbers, there is no "biggest" landslide, values, since, if $x<1$, $(x+1)/2$ will still be less than unity, but also be larger than $x$. To quote a wise man (I assume; if not please allow me to buy you a drink to make it up to you),

I mean, I get your point, but on a site filled with pedants, most of them highly attuned to mathematics, perhaps that wasn't the best choice of words.

Re:What else?

[swb]

You might want to check my bank balance and a pic of my wife before you make that decision.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Or:

1. Head to Bozeman
2. Social engineer city employees (I hear they're all "easy")
3. Own the network
4. Profit!!!

Re:Slashdot Account

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah fucking god damnit! You bastard, gave away my account information!

Re:WTF

[oldspewey]

I don't even know how to put my objections into words - I don't know where to start!

Start on Slashdot ... that's what the rest of us do.

Re:wait, Bozeman Montana...

[Kuukai]

Clearly the Ferengi secretly beat them.

Re:What else?

[Quiet_Desperation]

That would be really tough, especially getting the beaver to hold the camera and take a picture of your wife.

Re:Unpopular

[Red Flayer]

D'oh.

Apparently, the third rule is that vikings don't have to close html tags.

Re:My Klingon Keyboard

[mcgrew]

HR manager: "I'm trying to find this 'Klingonia' on the map, is that enywhere near Yugoslavia?"

Re:WTF

[1800maxim]

The vast majority of us also end on slashdot, you incensitive clod!

Re:City jobs are a bad thing?

[c6gunner]

When the choice is, 'work for me (or someone else rich like me) or starve,' then that is coercion

Very true. Isn't it great, therefore, that we have so many other choices?

In an anarcho-capitalist system, non-owners are at the mercy of resource owners.

It depends on the availability of resources, of course. However, in any capitalist market "non-owners" have the opportunity to acquire resources, thereby creating new choices. The only ones who seem to have a problem with that are those who are unable or unwilling to be productive.

Re:WTF

[suso]

Hey, that's the combination to my luggage!

Re:Unpopular

[geminidomino]

You care about significant digits? I thought you were a Viking!

Re:Um, No

[idontgno]

OTOH, once City of Bozeman's HR department looks at Mr. Coward's posting history here (GNAA trolls, tubgirl and goatse, etc.), they won't be able to refuse to hire him fast enough.

Re:Unpopular

[geminidomino]

Senator Ensign being among them, in spirit if not in fact.

Here's hoping his first name is "Redshirt"

Re:Slashdot Account

[Anonymous Coward]

In retrospect, I guess I shouldn't have put it on that application form.

Re:no freaking way

[JoeMerchant]

This is completely without merit and rather insane. I would walkout right then and there. As long as I show up and perform my duties as required my employer has right or even need to look into my personal life.

You're in the biggest city in nowhere Montana and you're applying for a civil service job, odds are that the Denny's just hired up last week and the only other job available right now is scooping Buffalo pies on some ranch outside of town. Winter's coming... what have you got to hide, anyway, son?

Re:Passwords?

[Anonymous Coward]

Montana is great... but the transplanted Californians are f***ing it up. I'd bet money this winner of an idea didn't come from a Montana native.

No, this came from the invasion of West Coast morons. The folks that stop fire departments from being built because they aren't "green" enough. The folks that try to pass subdivision-style regulations on sheds and lawns... in areas that are ranches, and have been for over 100 years!

So all you Left Coast people take note: don't bring California with you when you move to Montana.

Re:Unpopular

[Red Flayer]

Of course Vikings care about significant digits. Typically it requires four digits on each hand to grip a two-handed battle axe effectively. So I can lose one digit from each hand, no worries, as long as it wasn't a thumb -- I'll still be drinking mead from a skraeling's skull.

But if I lose any more than that...

See, significant digits fully explained by a Viking. What is it with you people, thinking Vikings don't have or need an understanding of the finer principles of mathematics as relating to raping and pillaging?

Priceless typo "Green Card"="Greed Card"

[alextheseal]

Priceless typo on their page "Employment Process Policy" http://www.bozeman.net/bozeman/humanResource/processPolicy.aspx [bozeman.net], "Alien Registration Receipt Card (Greed Card)"

Re:City jobs are a bad thing?

[spun]

Who is forcing you to join anything? If you don't like our system, no one is stopping you from leaving. You may complain that there is no place you can go, but this is untrue. Take Somalia, for instance, no big bad government there! It is a libertarian utopia in action.

Perhaps you think you deserve a better choice than any the world-wide free market in governance offers? Then create one.

The problem I see with operating socialist collectives in a free market system is that of free riders. Those hierarchical corporations reap the benefits of the socialist programs without contributing to them. Having no poor, desperate humans around is a positive externality that the free market is incapable of compensating the providers for.

Re:Broad brush strokes

[Lord Ender]

Just tell them about your account on goatse.cx and other similar sites. Oh, and you MUST include a RickRoll in your site list.

Re:WTF

[Lavene]

no problem, my password is hunter2

(I know I know... redundant... but still absurdly funny)

Re:WTF

[MaskedSlacker]

I'm insensitive not incensitive, you insensitive clod!

Re:As offensive as this is...

[Omestes]

Its best not to try to engage the lunatic fringe here, you are never going to change their minds.

Looking at your UID, you probably already know this.

Slashdot, for some stupid reason, has become the home of entrenched libertarian idealists, who think that their ideology is self-evident, and beyond dispute. They, in other words, have perfect faith in it. They also are somewhat blind to history (how well did that Industrial Revolution work for you?), because their ideology trumps reality. I personally think pure, near sociopathic, greed is what drives them, and the whole "freemarket cures all ills, always" crap, and their social Darwinism mumbojumbo is nothing but an ad-hoc rationalization for their own short comings.

Add to this the internal attribution error situation where all poor people are lazy, and all could be filthy rich if "they put their minds to it", whereas if they ever went poor, you know they'd blame socialists, all those ghetto welfare mothers, and big government. But their faith in their shallow, disconnected, ideology blinds them to this.

They really are like your typical middle class America, they all think their rich because they can have a 52" TV, oblivious to the fact that their in the bottom 50% of wealth still, and are still one one or two paychecks from the street.

Sorry for the comment, I really respect your posts, and if /. was feeling like ever giving me mod points again, I would have modded them up.

Re:Past experience - healthcare records

[Xtifr]

Do you really, I mean really care about whether they had your slashdot password?

Depends on your UID [erdener.org]. Mine, since it's in the very low four digit range, is probably worth some decent change, though I doubt if it really counts as a get rich quick scheme [humorix.org]. Still, I can think of a whole lot of passwords that I'd be less protective of than my slashdot one.

Would I be protective of your slashdot password? No.

(No, not even if I were you.) :)

Re:City jobs are a bad thing?

[Xtifr]

What? How dare you undermine my devout, fanatical, unthinking believe in the absolute superiority of the free market (which I define as any market so unregulated as to allow massive corruption, monopoly abuse, and the utter destruction of anything that could properly be called a "free market") with something as vacuous as facts?! The Libertarian Inquisition will see you burned at the stake, blasphemer!

Re:Unpopular

[Red Flayer]

Technically, wouldn't you be drinking wine from a skraeling's skull since the skraelings were found in Vinland?

I'm a Viking. I have a longship, and skraeling slaves to man the oars. Conceivably, I went to Vinland, raped and pillaged and whatnot among the skraelings, then returned to Vikingland to quaff mead from skraeling skulls collected in Vinland.

And it's still my universe, so I'll call it Vikingland if I so choose.

Besides which, rule four is that the alcoholic beverage of choice is mead, independent of location.

To sum up:

Rule 1: I get to be a viking.
Rule 2: Everyone else gets to be a skraeling.
Rule 3: Vikings don't have to close HTML tags.
Rule 4: Mead is the alcoholic beverage of choice regardless of location
And now, for rule 5: Any theoretical objections to the logic of the rules, or the ways things work in my universe, are hereby declared anathema. Any skraeling who voices those objections will have his eyeballs plucked and mounted on that little pointy bit on the top of my battle axe, then he will be tossed in the air where I, and my household slaves, will fight to catch him upon our spears. Winner gets the privilege of raping and pillaging the corpse.

Montana city hacked

[Anonymous Coward]

Having employed people with a disposition to hand out logins and passwords, a visitor requested the login and password from the employees and now has full control of the City computers.

When contacted to comment, the mayor provided his login and password and suggested we read 'c:\comment.doc'.

Re:WTF

[kylben]

Legal issues are very black and white, very binary. If the criterion is "all", and "all" is invalidated - even by one exception - then the whole proposition is out. "Any" by itself leaves "all" as optional. "All that apply" is what "any and all" means in legalese, except that "that apply" is not left to your own interpretation, but instead means something like "all that are not barred by superseding legal restrictions or obligations". They could use that phrase, but using "any and all", which phrases it as a positive obligation, instead shifts the burden on you to prove that something is barred, instead of them to prove that something isn't. All of this hyper-parsed language is, of course, just a substitute for honest communication. It is, in fact, intended to avoid communication and understanding, while at the same time locking in the consequences as tightly as possible.

BTW, IANAL, and I am making this all up as I go along. I bet its pretty close to correct. Of course, any and all of it could be flat out wrong.

Re:City jobs are a bad thing?

[SL Baur]

The Libertarian Inquisition will see you ...

Nobody expects the Libertarian Inquisition. Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to Ayn Rand, and nice autographed pictures of Dr. Ron Paul.

Re:WTF

[L4t3r4lu5]

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thecheckout/2007/02/looking_for_a_job_phishers_are.html

Working at the Washington Post Yoda is!