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Crime Games

Programmer Arrested For Logic Bombing 'Whac-A-Mole' 218

McGruber writes "WFTV.com has the curious story of programmer Marvin Wimberly, who was arrested for having installed a logic bomb on Whac-A-Mole arcade games made by Bob's Space Racers in Holly Hill, Florida."
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Programmer Arrested For Logic Bombing 'Whac-A-Mole'

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  • by azalin ( 67640 ) on Saturday February 26, 2011 @04:30AM (#35322198)

    Sounds like normal run of the mill american capitalism. Except I would call it a "Service Bomb".

    I would recommend calling it "Forced Service Intervals" and get a pay raise in addition. Laser Printers anybody?

  • by Dahamma ( 304068 ) on Saturday February 26, 2011 @04:49AM (#35322252)

    Eh, "whac-a-mole" and "code reviews" are probably stretching the realm of probability. I'm pretty sure the "programming staff" required to implement "mole pops up, detect if whacked" could be done by a single programmer in this mostly mechanical-game-oriented company, making useful code reviews a bit tough. Sounds like it really was a mom-and-pop company, and they just put way too much trust in a real douche bag of an employee...

  • by localman ( 111171 ) on Saturday February 26, 2011 @06:58AM (#35322628) Homepage

    15 years prison time? In comparison to other crimes that's pretty insane. This guy is a bigger danger to society than the numerous fraudsters that pushed the financial crisis? Bah.

  • by Hartree ( 191324 ) on Saturday February 26, 2011 @11:38AM (#35323680)

    The key is "up to" 15 years. Unless it has a mandatory minimum sentence, the judge has a lot of leeway in what is handed down. A lot of other crimes have pretty broad sentencing guidelines as well.

    In this case, Whac-A-Mole isn't that big of a deal. If an arcade game fails, it's rare someone gets hurt. He'll get off lightly.

    If he'd done this with something more mission critical (and it somehow made it past QC) that might warrant more.

    Imagine if he'd put a logic bomb in a system controlling a radiation therapy machine for cancer. Even if it hadn't hurt anyone, the potential for harm would be much greater, and the judge would take that into account in setting the sentence.

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