Adult Website Use At Work Leads To Hacker Conviction 361
safesorry notes that several sources are talking about a recent tale of woe about Richard Wolf, a lonely guy looking for love in all the wrong places. Wolf used his work computer to visit the Adult Friend Finder website and upload personal nudes to prospective "friends." Now he's been convicted under a "hacker" law targeted at employees who steal data or access information they shouldn't. "Richard Wolf acknowledged that his behavior was inappropriate when he used his work computer to upload nude photos of himself to an adult web site and view other photos on porn sites, but he didn't think he should be convicted of hacking for doing so."
It's a typo (Score:5, Funny)
Should be a 'W' not an 'H'
Re:It's a typo (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It's a typo (Score:4, Funny)
Clearly, I need to learn more bash....
unzip; strip; touch; finger; ifup; mount; fsck; more; yes; umount; sleep
Re:It's a typo (Score:4, Insightful)
Man, I'm glad that we have Anonymous Coward to explain these letter substitutions for us. The funny thing is that in the two ACs here were probably the same guy.
What the fuck? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is ridiculous.
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. Abusing laws to prosecute people under ridiculous circumstances only serves to undermine those laws and weaken their effectiveness in dealing with the real crimes those laws were enacted to prevent.
Whatever happened to those two girls charged with distribution of child porn for taking pictures of themselves and sending them to their boyfriends? This reminds me of that.
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't live in a world where news organizations do follow-up.
There's the sound bite. The 2 minute outrage. Then everyone forgets about it.
Delivering the news is only profitable while the news is still new. Follow-up is just too boring to be profitable apparently.
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Interesting)
Delivering the news is only profitable while the news is still new. Follow-up is just too boring to be profitable apparently.
Then I hereby declare the formation of the 'Olds', which will only do pieces following up on old 'News'.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Funny)
There'd be an entire domain available for Slashdot dupes to be kept in? That would be awesome! Then CmdrTaco wouldn't need to host them on the main site!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Then I hereby declare the formation of the 'Olds', which will only do pieces following up on old 'News'.
Hate to tell ya, but Slashdot has been around for a while now.
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bah (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet some people are sending hate mail to a person whose picture was linked to the attacker by a newspaper and othe rpeople with similar names are receiving threaths. HELLO! The guy is DEATH! The moment your hate target answers the phone, and he answers, shouldn't that be a major clue that you got the wrong guy?
No matter what you do, even if you forced newspapers to follow-up or print the complete truth for once, you could never eradicate the idiots.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The guy is DEATH! The moment your hate target answers the phone, and he answers, shouldn't that be a major clue that you got the wrong guy?
Or even dead
Anyway I have reliabe information that he is alive and well and currently playing poker with Princess Di and Elvis in a small town somewhere just East of Norwich in England.
Re:Bah (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What the fuck? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your post is off-topic. The story is a followup. You might want to RTFA next time.
This is on appeal. Not much more followup you can do than that.
News with less crap (Score:3, Informative)
Sheesh, where do you get your news - no sports!?
Try the Economist magazine: no sports section, no horoscope, no celebrity gossip columns, no tips on cooking or motorbike maintenance. It's almost like reading just the news and informed comment on the news.
Re:What the fuck? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Informative)
Whatever happened to those two girls charged with distribution of child porn for taking pictures of themselves and sending them to their boyfriends? This reminds me of that.
Nothing, yet.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124026115528336397.html [wsj.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In a stunning case of "The guy must be the bad influence" the girl who took the pics was given probation and ordered to write a paper, her friend who sent the pics was not charged, and the guy who RECEIVED the pics was put under house arrest.
All minors, and yes... you read that right.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090511/NEWS0107/305110014/Mason+teens+sentenced+for++sexting+ [cincinnati.com] Here is the link.
(Sorry for the lack
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't think of the word for this, but in the Middle Ages, pretty much any offense past blowing a nose in public was death, and the forms of death got worse and worse. The problem this created was the fact that because something small had such a heavy penalty, might as well be put to death for murder, so this resulted in people feeling they had nothing to lose by going to extremes.
That is a lesson that countries have seem to have forgotten with all these anti-hacker and anti-terrorism laws.
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Interesting)
Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb
Persecution, not prosecution (Score:5, Insightful)
The case began when Larry Wise, the Superintendent of the Shelby City Wastewater Treatment Plant, where Wolf was employed, was deleting old files from a work computer and found a nude photograph of Wolf.
and
Initially he was suspended while police investigated the case, but was promoted after he returned to work. He lost his job, however, when he was convicted of the charges.
The important question would be why his employer even phoned the police in the first place. This is one of those bizarre situations where it is obvious that the person was persecuted for a lifestyle choice and not for what he did or didn't do at work. As stated in the article, he would not have been prosecuted if he would have looked at horticultural Web sites [and uploaded pictures of flowers].
Re:Persecution, not prosecution (Score:4, Insightful)
As stated in the article, he would not have been prosecuted if he would have looked at horticultural Web sites [and uploaded pictures of flowers].
Mod parent up! The hacking charge isn't the important thing here, this is! The law is being used in an an unbalanced fashion to persecute someone not because of the crime he committed, but because he doesn't conform to the social norms of the leaders of his community. This is disturbingly close to burning people at the stake because they don't share your beliefs, and should not be tolerated.
This man's life is going to be in chaos for years dealing with the results of this. The question to ask is, is that a fair punishment for someone who uploaded flower pictures from work?
Re:Persecution, not prosecution (Score:4, Insightful)
1) He had legit access to the network. (as an Employee at the time)
2) He went to a website that probably ends up on everyone's spam ads. (God damn I'm thankful for Adblock Plus)
3) He stupidly posted a naked picture of himself. (Epically dumb move to do from the office)
Sorry but no hacking here, just a good load of stupidity. Quite possibly against company internet access policy and what not likely resulting in him being fired from his job but under no circumstance should the guy have been thrown in jail.
Re:Persecution, not prosecution (Score:5, Funny)
As stated in the article, he would not have been prosecuted if he would have looked at horticultural Web sites [and uploaded pictures of flowers].
Unless he worked for Monsanto.
Re:Persecution, not prosecution (Score:5, Insightful)
The statements you make (many of which are completely bogus and worthy of a Troll Moderation) do not necessitate the involvement of law enforcement (in this particular situation).
You have to know why the photograph was on your system. You have to know how it was being used.
I question the whole rationality of your statement (without trying to sound like a Troll, but just merely using Logic). I will elaborate; you do not have to know why a naked picture of an employee is on a companies computer system. Of course it is an oddity, and probably something that should be taken up my management and not by law enforcement. Nude photographs of adults are not illegal (or even of minors, necessarily, but that would be a tangent). Nude photographs of oneself are not even immoral (you need to trust me here and have some faith. Presumption of innocence isn't just a legal matter).
You can't take the man's word as gospel.
Of course not. Most people lie, but I always give people the benefit of the doubt unless or until I observe evidence to the contrary. It would be fair to presume that this supervisor is not a legal expert and probably only made the worst assumptions. I doubt if this supervisor would have realized that merely going to a Web site (and interacting with the people on it) that was not directly related to company business was illegal; hence the abusive nature of the supervisors behavior. Considering that (from what I've read from the article at least) nothing illegal could possibly be presumed (without going out of the way to consult a an aggressive lawyer with courtroom ambitions), nothing of a criminal nature should or logically could have been presumed. This is (at least) an over-reaction, and in a Democratic society shouldn't have even been given consideration by the courts (the abuse of the law here apparently trumps my assertions however).
You need answers and you need them now.
No offense, but that's a Bullshit statement. I need answers now all the time when I deal with the incompetency, immorality, and illegality of all the companies and bosses I have ever worked for. Of course I'm on the ass-end of the Totem-pole and the pecking order so my righteousness and logic will always get me fired and without job references. Your statement is unfounded.
The mayor won't be pleased when a secretary files a ten million dollar lawsuit for sexual harassment.
This is definitely a red-herring Troll. I will "risk" being down-modded by stating this. So be it. There is no evidence of sexual harassment here. There is however, implications of a fishing expedition on behalf of Management.
He will be even more unhappy when your man is arrested by the feds for soliciting minors on online
Another Troll. I will go out of the way and state that you should be down-modded because you are going out of your way to suggest unsubstantiated illicit behavior. The person who up-modded you should be punished through meta-moderation.
and he'll be really - royally - pissed off if comes out later that you tucked the photograph away and did nothing.
Another Troll. Use some logic. You are advocating fishing expeditions and witch hunts. You are an Asshole. I say this not out of spite, but merely as an observation. I will let the Moderators judge me.
Re:Persecution, not prosecution (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in non-freak country he'd probably be pulled aside an quietly disciplined for "misuse of company reesources" at most. Even in sue-happy sexually repressed US I figured it would be nothing more than a firable offense. Going from "found a nude picture" to "maybe soliciting minors online" isn't just jumping at conclusions, it's taking the Grand Canyon leap. So if I'm looking up baseball bats online, you'd better make sure I'm not planning to beat the ex-gf to death with it? Because like, that's so like the usual way the use a bat mmkey? The whole post and moderation makes me glad I don't live in the US, though of course I got other annoyances...
Stupid Law (Score:5, Interesting)
This is ten steps worse than I thought from the summary, though. The court decided that any use the company decided was felony 'hacking', at the companies discretion through the application of its internal policy, without requiring the company to actually install blocks against the usage!
Let's let businesses come up with new felonies on the fly! Woo!
Re:Stupid Law (Score:5, Informative)
FTFA: David Carto, the attorney who handled Wolf's appeal, told Threat Level that Wolf was prosecuted because authorities disapproved of the material he viewed online.
"The reason he was prosecuted was clearly because of the content of what he was looking at," he said. "If somebody else had been on an internet site studying horticulture, I don't think he would have been prosecuted. It was not obscene. It was just something that was not approved of by certain elements of the city government and by the court in which he was tried. The prosecutor and the judge both treated this basically as a sex offense."
So I read this that the judge and prosecution couldn't find an adequate sex offense charge, apart from consulting a dominatrix which is a misdemeanor, so they hit him with the best they could which happened to be the poorly worded anti-hacking law.
consulting a dominatrix is a misdemeanor? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a joke right? How the hell can the government make that a crime?
May be silly, but its his choice.
If Lawyers and Judges don't like it its criminal. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lawyers (that includes Judges) can do anything they want to you and get away with it. They have erected a multitude of laws and offenses. You are going to be guilty of at least one even if they have to stretch it like they have here. One more reason the break their Guild.
Re: (Score:2)
It's only a misdemeanor when money changes hands. Solicitation of prostitution is a misdemeanor no matter how kinky the sex.
As for why solicitation of prostitution is a misdemeanor.. dude, it's the USA.. they're puritans.
Re:consulting a dominatrix is a misdemeanor? (Score:5, Informative)
dominatrix != prostitute as usually there is no actual sex involved, hence prostitution laws do not apply.
Re: (Score:2)
Hehe.. clearly you have never consulted a dominatrix.
:)
Re:consulting a dominatrix is a misdemeanor? (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly you don't understand the difference between a professional dominatrix and a prostitute who simply dresses up and gives a light spanking.
Re:consulting a dominatrix is a misdemeanor? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually my wife and I are lifestylers. A bullwhip is just one of the many toys in our collection.
Re:Stupid Law (Score:5, Funny)
"If somebody else had been on an internet site studying horticulture, I don't think he would have been prosecuted.
He was studying whore-to-culture... isn't that close enough?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"unauthorized access to a computer, a felony; theft of services in office (essentially for depriving the city of his paid services while he conducted the unauthorized activities on a city computer on city time), which is also a felony;"
So basically he got 15 months for goofing off at work. Think I know quite a few city officials that should be serving life sentences.
Oh but that's not the best part:
"On the misdemeanor solicitation charge, he was sentenced to 60 days"
He only got 2 mo
Re:Stupid Law (Score:4, Interesting)
So he spent less than 1 hour of a 8 hour day surfing porn (5 work days in a week x 4.34 weeks in a month [google.com] x 5 months = 108.5). That's not hard to do....
Here's the WTF part:
"He said his client was a good worker and had even been promoted after his supervisors found the pictures. Initially he was suspended while police investigated the case, but was promoted after he returned to work. He lost his job, however, when he was convicted of the charges."
sounds like a huge fishing expedition, who'd he piss off in gov't? Was the mayor's daughter the dominatrix?
Re:Stupid Law (Score:5, Insightful)
Extrapolate that policy to it's finality. A company can decide at any time to change their policy and any use they don't agree with, pornographic or not, becomes a felony.
Watch out /.ers, it's a felony to browese at work now.
Re:Stupid Law (Score:4, Interesting)
Scenario: You want to fire an employee, and you really hate him to boot. Solution! Find a website he visits, change the policy, and send out a long rambling copy of the full policy that no one reads anyway, wait a month, get him jailed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you're terminated "for cause", no unemployment. Don't matter if your misdeeds are felonious on just not compliant with the employee handbook.
Incidentally, there have been many accusations that employers deliberately accuse employees of small infractions that would normally be no big deal, just so they can RIF them more cheaply.
Re:Stupid Law (Score:4, Insightful)
Quoted from the appellate court's opinion [wired.com]:
Upon review, we find that the crux of the state's "unauthorized use" case was based on the proposition that Appellant was acting outside the scope of his authorization to use the computer by engaging in criminal conduct, i.e. soliciting prostitution.
This wasn't so much about this guy sending naked pictures of himself as it was about him using his work computer to set up a rendez-vous with a dominatrix. The court determined that this was pretty obviously outside the boundaries of what you might reasonably expect to be able to do with your work computer.
/. at work. Then we'll have an interesting case. :)
That said, it's troubling that a misdemeanor (solicitation) can get double-whammied into a felony because it's done on company time, and that that's apparently at the company's discretion. And the potential for abuse is there. It doesn't look like the guy advanced constitutional vagueness arguments (probably because this isn't a great case for that). Eventually someone will be fired for surfing
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Stupid Law (Score:5, Informative)
The idea that if someone does something you don't like, they have to be punished, even if you can't find a law that exactly names the thing you didn't like as a crime, is moronic.
I'll take that a step further: It's evil. Using the law as a bludgeon and a personal retribution device instead of as a scalpel to rid society of true cancers is simply evil.
Stupid Law; Yes, but also a stupid lawyer (Score:3, Insightful)
I couldn't tell from the article whether the guy represented himself, just said, "Yes, I did it," or had a total boob for a lawyer in trial court. The bottom line is that the facts regarding lack of an acceptable use policy should have been presented at trial. Regardless of what he did, if the city hadn't established a policy that personal use of a city computer was forbidden and other people had gotten away with similar actions (e.g., uploading pictures to say FaceBook), his actions were not illegal or i
Quick, don't read this! (Score:2)
If you do--at least if you're at work--you're committing a felony!
Oops, too late.
Just fire him (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What company caused all this to come about? I'm sure that having this company made public as one that "might inadvertently result in your becoming a convicted felon meaning that you lose the right to vote and bear arms" might be useful information to people who might otherwise seek employment there.
(And that has always been a sticking point for me... does the second amendment include an exception for convicted felons? How can any imposed restriction on a convicted felon's right to bear arms be constitutio
Re:Just fire him (Score:4, Informative)
No company. He was working for the state, the "Shelby City Wastewater Treatment Plant".
Re:Just fire him (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Just fire him (Score:5, Funny)
And thus, it is our responsibility, as the voters who elected the folks who set that policy. Well, assuming we live in the same state.
I work for a state government, too. The voters evidently don't want us spanking it on their dime. Wasting time on Slashdot is fine, it seems, because the filters let me come here, but sausage polishing (or fingering the sushi, I guess...) is a no no.
If you want to spank it on the taxpayer's dime, do it in a bathroom stall like the rest of us.
Re:Just fire him (Score:4, Funny)
"If you want to spank it on the taxpayer's dime, do it in a bathroom stall like the rest of us."
Senator Larry Craig, 2007
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think losing your job would be punishment enough in this case.
Absolutely. What he did would not have been illegal from home. You can stand in front of a mirror and make your junk move in circles all day long. Do it on your front porch and you get busted for public indecency.
If he's surfing porn from his cube, he can be fired. If he's sexually assaults a coworker, that's worth firing and prosecuting.
It's like drinking. Drinking at home is legal. Getting so hammered I black out and lose days is legal so long as I do it on my own time. Showing up to work hung-over can ge
Re:Just fire him (Score:5, Insightful)
Bah. Those sites are banned because:
1) it clearly isn't work related.
2) everyone is afraid of sexual harassment laws.
and, let's not forget:
3) people will accept just about any conditions of employment.
Cause we're all slaves.
Most of us are criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
Every geek worth his geek-badge has bypassed the company web-filter. According to this law, that's hacking. That whole "theft of services from office" part was overturned but only because they couldn't show his work had actually suffered from his actions.. whereas if all you do at work is post on Slashdot and your work suffers, you could be charged with a crime.
So yeah, basically, if you have an employer who is a big enough dick, most of us are criminals.
Re: (Score:2)
Every geek worth his geek-badge has bypassed the company web-filter.
I've never been filtered, and given a choice I would go work somewhere else. Any human worth their salt wouldn't put up with being treated like a dipshit.
Re: (Score:2)
Umm.. corporates justify filtering by saying "if we don't do this we could be sued". They justify *everything* like that. And yeah, maybe you can stay working in little shops where they just don't give a shit.
Re: (Score:2)
And yeah, maybe you can stay working in little shops where they just don't give a shit.
Right, because Tivoli and Cisco are so fucking tiny that they just didn't give a shit, that must be it.
In stead of excuses, make plans to move on to work for an employer who respects you.
WTF? (Score:3, Informative)
I agree with the guy that the was inappropriate behaviour, but get accused of hacking? Clearly the jury has no clue of technology and that the defense failed to make a credible point. I am just trying to imagine the prosecution's argument:
"Sir, it is our belief that uploading an image from a computer he had access necessitated that he hack into a computer (that he had suitable access to), and upload to a password protected system (which he has legitimate access to), is a dangerous offense and could possibly result in the collapse of the economy"*.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No.. you just didn't RTFA. The jury was presented with the law and most likely told what all juries are told "don't think for yourself, just blindly apply the law as written". The law specifically says that if you're using a computer for activity that you haven't been authorized to use it for then you're committing a felony. The thing that really should get him off is that they never published an acceptable use policy.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember- jury nullification is a right our founding fathers supported.
The appropriate answer to questions about jury nullification belief is "No" (because they really shouldn't be asking you that question in the first place and answering "Yes" would remove your right of nullifcation.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
FTA... (Score:5, Informative)
"They had crafted one but they hadn't published it," he said. "So there was in effect no policy and no protections on the computer -- no password protection or filtering of any kind -- so basically anybody could access anything on the internet through the city's computer."
And the statue he was convicted under:
"No person, in any manner and by any means, including, but not limited to, computer hacking, shall knowingly gain access to, attempt to gain access to, or cause access to be gained to any computer, . . . without the consent of, or beyond the scope of the express or implied consent of, the owner of the computer, . . . or other person authorized to give consent."
Righto.
Re: (Score:2)
He added that the city had never actually disseminated a policy regarding internet usage...
And the statue he was convicted under:
"No person...without the consent of, or beyond the scope of the express or implied consent of, the owner of the computer..."
There are only two conclusions that can be drawn from this:
or
Re: (Score:2)
Who's network do you use?
You might want to invest in a 3G plan.. and a tinfoil hat.
wow! just wow! (Score:2, Troll)
You'd be surprised. (Score:2)
I hear lots and lots of anecdotal stories about people using their work PCs to surf porn. I know somebody who lost his job because of it. Then you hear of cases where an employee -- and I mean big-level management, now, not just some schmuck -- turns a laptop in to IT because "it has viruses" and the IT staffers find that the hard drive is completely full of porn. Of course the exec protests: it must have been his kids getting into his computer. But sure enough, firewall logs show that it was probably all h
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Where I work, they'll just copy the porn for themselves and then wipe the drive.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's because the wife and kids are at home. Mr Bigshot likely isn't the big-shot at home.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
when working for other people you dont go surfing porn, what if other people happen to see it and are offended? even children of other employees, true enough he should not be convicted of hacking but he should be fired! there are some things you just dont do at work and surfing pr0n is one of them, besides some of those adult websites are malicious and will try to tempt people in to installing malicious things such as malware, trojans and viruses, and chances
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's slightly dumb, but it's only as spectacularly dumb as you suggest if you honestly think he could've reasonably expected to be charged with a crime like this as a result. I think it's obvious that no reasonable person would expect that, and most people aren't aware of such laws either. It's only easy for you to see that because of the context you're reading it in, where you happen to know the harshness of the consequences.
What this law says is that if your company has a policy somewhere in its fine prin
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So did he hack or not? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The article never discusses whether he took actions to circumvent existing filtering or firewalls. If he did, they yes he is guilty of the crime.
"So there was in effect no policy and no protections on the computer -- no password protection or filtering of any kind -- so basically anybody could access anything on the internet through the city's computer." From TFA.
Re: (Score:2)
To an extent, perhaps, but the jury seems to have been provided not with evidence of firewall bypassing but rather with material the jury was likely to find offensive.
So, personally, although I have little sympathy for the guy, I believe the jury was emotionally manipulated to provide a guaranteed answer (a jury version of the leading question) rather than being provided with the facts of the case and the laws by which those facts should be examined.
The techniques you hear of in legal cases are not much dif
Re: (Score:2)
I fully agree with Rasch. (Score:5, Insightful)
WHENEVER your Congresscritters -- or eve City Council -- want to pass a law that is too broadly worded, oppose it. I did once, and was told "It will never be enforced that way." My reply was, "If it is not intended to be enforced that way, why was it written that way?"
When you give the government power to do something, eventually it will... even if that was not your intent. So make sure the intent is clear, and just do not give them powers that you do not intend them to use.
Personal Photocopying (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't any different, and i don't see any jail time associated with that sort of act.
Confused from the start (Score:4, Funny)
I am still stuck at step one...
They found a nude picture of an employee on a work computer and...call the cops?
The cops and DA must be awfully friendly with the treatment plant bosses, i can't imagine calling that in from work here and getting any kind of coherent response from the cops. Especially as they didn't care about the employee that stole nearly $10,000 in merchandise because they couldn't 'prove' it. (apparently any one is likely to have a stack of adult diapers, foam bed pads, 20,000 latex gloves, etc in their garage just like their employer...)
is it just me (Score:5, Funny)
or is work the last place I want to have a boner
"can you stand and give your presentation"
ummm... no.....
How to deal with this type of accusation (Score:2)
I was caught hacking at my desk (Score:4, Funny)
Coworkers thought I was coughing up a lung. Damn cold.
It was just a spell check problem (Score:2)
They meant to charge him with "whacking".
Uploading naked pictures, sounds familiar (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked at a company of about 40 men and 2 women. One of the women was the owner's wife, the other was the receptionist.
The receptionist was a "geek girl" and hung out on some overclocker forums, and so did a bunch of the guys. This girl decides it would be fun to post naked pictures of herself on this forum. The guys totally fell for the bait and started inviting guys who were not on this forum to come over to their computer and have a look. This went on for a few days and eventually my supervisor happened to get invited to take a peek.
No-one really considered that my supervisor was a part owner in the company. I mean, they knew, but they never really thought that he would be more interested in protecting his stake in the company than being "one of the boys". He was shocked that these idiots were passing around naked pictures of a fellow employee (they weren't but hey, close enough) so he went straight to the boss. The forum was blocked.
Everyone who had looked at the pictures was suspended for a week without pay. One of them complained about this, saying that they didn't put the pictures on the site, that this girl did, and why wasn't she being suspended? He was told to drop it, wouldn't, so he was fired.
Later, they had a quiet word with the girl and recommended she not come back after xmas.. and she agreed.
Thankfully the courts were not involved.
Sexual harassment laws make hostile workplaces.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? A girl puts naked pictures of herself on the internet. She has no problem with her co-workers looking at them. Said co-workers only show the pictures to people who are similarly minded. The fear of litigation causes the girl to lose her job and the co-workers get reprimanded, one of them gets fired too. How can you not come to the conclusion that the law did more harm than good?
Here is another such tale... (Score:2, Interesting)
n SC we are very liberal and accepting of diversity. Our local county administrator used his work computer for some naughty activities and was issued a "verbal warning".
The councilman who outed him by putting spyware on his system is in deep doo-doo.
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009905050317 [greenvilleonline.com]
Your Porn Actor name is... (Score:2)
Steel Data!
This is a bogus law (Score:2)
and poorly worded. You can be charged as a hacker just by surfing the wrong web site.
I remember when my managers couldn't tell the difference between MSN and MSDN, and they even paid for a subscription to MSDN for us developers to use. I went on MSDN looking up for bug fixes, service packs, and anything else to help with my development and debugging duties. I was told that my use of the Internet was against usage policies (it wasn't it was work related and computer development related materials from Microso
"Authorization" (Score:5, Insightful)
DMCA uses the same trick. Circumvention (a thing you're never allowed to do) is defined as bypassing blah blah blah "without authorization."
Which sort of almost makes sense, except that the body that makes this law, isn't the party that grants/denies authorization, nor sets up a regulatory agency to do so. It's a third party, a private party. Who decides if you may or may not bypass a technological measure that limits access? Who decides when you can upload a nude picture of yourself? Not the government, not the people's elected representatives; they haven't prohibited or allowed either activity. Someone else decides.
BTW, the decision of granting/denying authorization need not ever even be communicated. It's bad enough that reading the legislation and case law won't tell you whether an act is illegal; the party who decides whether it's illegal or not, need not even tell you. In this particular case (uploading nudie pics to a hookup site), it seems .. well .. obvious that the user wasn't authorized to use the computer for that (though I guess sometimes "obvious" is in the eye of the beholder), but the end of TFA talks about how the policy was drafted but not distributed -- yet it was still enough for a conviction.
You might think that the safe thing to do, is always assume you don't have authorization to do something, unless you know that you do. Surely that makes sense, right? Nope. Look at any of your DVDs. Does a single one of them say you're allowed to bypass the protection? Every DVD player, even the DVDCCA-licensed ones, bypasses the protection. What you don't know, is whether that's circumvention or not -- whether your act of bypassing the protection was authorized or not. Millions of people have played DVDs. These things are for sale in mainstream brick'n'mortar stores. And if push comes to shove, no one who has ever used one, can prove they didn't break the law. All the copyright holder has to say, is "That wasn't authorized" and the case is open and shut.
Back to computer abuse acts: are you authorized to load example.com's page on someone else's computer? You probably don't know, and common sense might not help you.
When will you find out? When you ask what crime you've just been charged with. By then, it's too late. They came after this guy for uploading nudie pics. Piss them off, and they can get you for loading example.com's web page.
Congress has effectively ceded political power (!!) by letting these third parties, not Congress themselves and not the courts, decide whether a criminal act has occurred.
And we call this "law." Wow.
wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, reading this stuff just really pisses me off.
It's just like that Lori Drew case, This case seems to be yet another attempt at turning corporate policies into defacto laws - it's an element of encroaching corporatism (aka fascism); except I don't think this guy is a real piece of shit; where Lori Drew certainly seems to be, but I still think she never should have been charged - certainly violating a website's TOS is NOT a crime.
I think people need to really fight against these cases and precedents because the selective abuse of vaguely written overly broad laws like this for political purposes is starting to get out of control ...And there is a small part of me that thinks somebody needs to show the "Shelby Ohio Wastewaste Treatment Plant" what hacking really is; so that they fucking KNOW they've been hacked and will never make the mistake of confusing someone doing what a fairly large percentage of employees do all over the world with HACKING again......
Devil in the Details (Score:3, Insightful)
Of which there are none.
Odds are his employer blocks those kind of sites.
Yes simply visiting them would be inappropriate, but not hacking.
However, if you were unable to visit them due to your network security infrastructure, and to do so circumvented your network security then yes, that is hacking.
Likely it was something simple like setting up a proxy at home, and doing it that way. Who knows perhaps he using something a bit more exotic. In this way he would compromise the security of his employers shared network for his own personal use.
There are a lot of websites that get blocked like facebook (thank god not slashdot!), and I have thought about doing this myself. Then again I am not stupid enough to actually do it. I will re-evaluate my decision when and if they decide to block slashdot (which won't happen anyway, as likely the network IT folks like access as well).
Anyway the guy is an idiot to be looking at this sort of thing at work...
this should go up the appeals ladder (Score:4, Insightful)
The trial court's decision was upheld by the OH intermediate court of appeals. This case screams for an appeal up to the OH Supreme Court. The statute as applied here seems to fit right into the void-for-vagueness doctrine, which the US Supreme Court described as follows:
"Vague laws offend several important values. First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warnings. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory applications." Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108 -09 (1972), quoted in Village of Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, 455 U.S. 489, 498 (1982).
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/15.html#f8 [findlaw.com]
Re:NEWS: Public employee fired for not working! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Richland County, Case No. 08 CA 16 12
{48} In Appellant's first assignment