Sounds like he could have been a bit more creative in implementing this. Having something immediately traceable back to a username is no bueno.
Submitted 1 day ago by cm0002@piefed.world to technology@lemmy.zip
Comments
Alph4d0g@discuss.tchncs.de 8 hours ago
amzd@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
4 YEARS?! And gaming companies can just build a kill switch into their game and get no penalty?
Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 hours ago
Tesla build them into fucking cars.
rumba@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
What he did was brazen and stupid but 4 years sounds a bit excessive. Unless the journalist is under reporting what happened, he didn’t do any long-term damage just probably knocked them offline for a day and required somebody to come in and manually reset the drsm account in the domain controller.
But in a fit of rage and passion he built out booby traps and put his name all over everything. He wanted them to know it was him, How do you absolutely denied himself plausible deniability.
All he had to do was pretend he was inept and replace service accounts with his own login. Push 90-day password resets on the account for ‘security’. Set up a house of cards out of security certificates.
The company probably walked into that court with a technically competent team of lawyers and a bunch of expert testimony, he probably had a state defender.
x00z@lemmy.world 1 day ago
For developers in similar situations, where the corporate overlords make your life miserable; use dead man’s triggers Instead of a simple killswitch: manually start handling certificates, introduce memory leaks that you can easily clear, have excessive disk filling logs that you can daily clear, and all kinds of other stuff that is a perpetual dumpster fire that you extinguish as part of your job. Oh, and don’t forget to forget commenting and documenting. The next developer should instantly learn the pressure they have been putting on you.
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 1 day ago
Errr
That’s EXACTLY why I did that in the past. It wasn’t an accident at all. Nope. It was future proofing my job. Completely intentional.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I’d like to imagine countless instances of this that we never hear about because there just isn’t anything concrete to write a news article about
x00z@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Well the guy from the article is named David Lu and added a function with the name
IsDLEnabledinAD. That by itself deserves an article.
quick_snail@feddit.nl 21 hours ago
You’re an asshole
x00z@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
I have been burned out by project managers way too hard to have any respect for the capitalist tech world. I have 15 years of programming experience yet I’m literally looking for a job on a farm or warehouse.
mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago
yes, you’re right, we should always bend over and spread pu cheeks to appease our corporate overlords no matter the situation
morphballganon@lemmynsfw.com 19 hours ago
They’re not saying to do this at any/every job, just shitty ones with shitty people
wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Dipshit. Just do bad coding and leave timebombs that could be considered an accident.
Elechicken@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I mean, there’s a reason he got fired and it wasn’t because he’s a genius…
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Yeah, name it after the boss, not yourself!
quick_snail@feddit.nl 21 hours ago
That just makes you a bad developer. And ripe for firing.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The defendant breached his employer’s trust
The company breached employee trust when they fired a bunch of people during a “realignment”.
Four years is far too long. If he had run over the CEO in the parking lot he wouldn’t have gotten four years.
bhamlin@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s because they can quantify damages that way. Because you legally cannot put a value on the life of a “human” (still unsure if CEOs are human, but legally they still are), it’s just “murder” and not “you cost us eleventy billion dollars in downtime.” One is more negotiable in terms of damages than the other.
DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Then Ceos should be treated and charged with every crime a company commits or this is another class problem I’m going to solve.
AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world 1 day ago
company ruins life of employee: stonk
employee ruin company: immediate imprisonment
SwimmingInTheeStars@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I mean the guy was just laid off. They didn’t “ruin his life.”
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 1 day ago
He was employed for 11 years.
IDK about you, but if I get laid off, my life changes significantly by the next missed paycheck.
msage@programming.dev 15 hours ago
What’s the difference between a lay off and firing people?
roundup5381@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Have to make an example of them lest the surfs realize they have power
Krudler@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I actually cannot believe you have any upvotes for this type of comment.
If computers and networking were not involved, and we lived in the 1970s, this would be the equivalent of setting off a remote bomb in every factory across the country for your former company when you get fired.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It is in no way a bomb. If this was the 1970’s, it would be the same as changing the combination on the safe and not telling anyone the combination after being fired.
the_q@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
You live in there modern world and see how things are going and your can’t believe people support the destruction of established systems? Ok.
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 1 day ago
And how many people died or were injured? How much damage to property occurred?
Looks to me like he just wasted time and hurt revenue. That’s not any of the above.
Alaik@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I’ll agree to start imprisoning people for using their job to affect profit when CEOs start getting jailed for affecting the profit of those laid off.
Sprocketfree@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
I’m curious what this crowd thinks is an appropriate punishment here. No priors, found guilty, caused some lost revenue (which I have to admit doesn’t mean you actually lost revenue). So, should they even be sent to jail? House arrest? Or do we just want consistency in punishments?
jonesey71@lemmus.org 4 hours ago
He should get a corporate level penalty. He made X dollars while working for that company but did something wrong while making that money. He should have to pay back .001% of his profits as a fine and the illegal stuff he did should then be ignored/forgiven. That is what corporations get as a penalty when they break the law, I think it should be applied when they are the victims.
thedruid@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Good. Some one should sponsor and hire this guy.
tazeycrazy@feddit.uk 1 day ago
No one reviwing his code? Sounds like a timebomb in its self.
andyburke@fedia.io 1 day ago
This was my first thought. Just zero code review going on? Some random server only that dude knew about? tf kind of controls these people have in place?
Oh right, none of the shit the company should have had.
Instead of jail time, the government should consider giving this guy whistleblower status and investigating the corp for negligence.
Sprocketfree@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
Idk kind of standard practice to have free reign of the place in certain positions. In my entire career working for billion dollar companies it wouldn’t be hard to bury anything like this. In fact I’ve done forensics on someone that did. Very few places outside government practice zero trust. Hell I’m sure the government fails to do this all the time too.
Alaik@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Gotta stay “lean”.
Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Kinda heroic, ngl. I think the prison sentence is appropriate, but if I was let go after 11 years, I’d harbor fantasies of doing something similar. They’d stay fantasies, though.
al_Kaholic@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
Prison? For shutting down the computers? How many lives were lost because of his actions, how many were saved?
tazeycrazy@feddit.uk 13 hours ago
Lives lost is not the test of what was a crime and what was a prank. This could have done a lot of damage to everyone who worked there and any of there clients. The company could have done more but they can’t micro manage everyone nor should they.
Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I don’t know what his former company does, but it’s easy to imagine scenarios on both ends of the spectrum. From processing Bejeweled microtransaction payments to ER intake or ambulance dispatch. Doesn’t really matter in the end. Software is everywhere and we all use it. Unless the company is so bad that damaging it is a political act of defiance against evil (I’m looking at you, Nestle, Blackwater, etc), then there’s really no good argument for employees burning shit on their way out.
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Good, make sure you document that. Then be sure any such thing that accidentally happens is named after the person who most deserves to be pruned.
Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Got it. MouselemmingFromLemmyKillswitch.exe pushed to production
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
Kinda funny. 4 years seems excessive to me but what do I know.
hodgepodgin@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
this was stupid. A career ending move. no one’s gonna hire someone who wrote a logic bomb at their last job.
thedruid@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Yeah they will.
dastanktal@hexbear.net 1 day ago
This is really well executed, too bad he didn’t know enough to protect his identity.
Still, so much for that reduced cost of labor.
If more people reacted like this companies wouldn’t be so fast to lay people off
altphoto@lemmy.today 10 hours ago
Slow enshitification is easier and blameless.
lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
I imagine you must be quite skilled to be able to manage your whole-ass company (and run their systems into the ground). So it shouldn’t be a problem to get another job after being fired.
Why fuck with your own life, just because of your own ego and a drive for revenge? That guy must’ve watched too many animes.
thedruid@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Because the rich and elite are powerful because people fear them.
Show them we aren’t afraid. Thus guy will vs hired in no time
Florn@hexbear.net 1 day ago
Should have done a dead man’s switch instead
TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
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