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Re: Schwartz conviction

Andrew Burke (aburke@qiclab.scn.rain.com) wrote:
: According to the Oregonian, Randal Schwartz was convicted of
: three counts of computer crime

[SNIP]

: Apparently, Intel got tired of ... him ... being an arrogant jerk.

This probably one factor.  If you're going to make an example of
someone, make one of someone you don't like!

: Do people really think Randal deserves this conviction? 

If the accounts I read in the paper are accurate, yes.

: Does this put the fear of god in other consultants? Any Intel
: consultants dare offer their opinions? 

Although not an Intel consultant, I believe that what Mr. Schwartz
was doing (even if you take for granted that his version of "I was
doing for the company's good") went far beyond any reasonable in-
terpretation of what Intel actually hired him for.  Not telling
them in advance and using computers that he was not supposed to have
access to to run crack is something that even the dumbest consultant
would probably NOT do.  I don't think others need to have "the fear
of God".  They just need to do their jobs and not be STUPID.

: Anybody else think the NSA/CIA/Spooks United _potentially_ could
: have had influence in this case, since Randal was clearly a rogue
: seeing exactly what could be done with Crack?

I doubt they'd be interested in this piss-ant stuff.

: Or at least that
: Intel has to show they are in firm control of the users of their
: supercomputers, and what better way than to hold a public lynching
: of a jerk consultant? (Why didn't Intel just fire him?? Surely there
: were others in Intel running Crack just to see what's possible)

This is a large portion of the case.  Intel obviously wanted to make
an example of someone.  So did the Washington County DA.  Randal (of
course) is responsible for his own actions of being "a jerk consultant".

: How does this affect our community? Will people think twice about
: working for Intel, or do people recognize this as a very unique
: situation?

People probably already think twice about working for Intel :-).  As far
as breaking into Intel's computers, I doubt that that's something few
people of "our community" really consider doing (unless you're part of
a different community :-).  This IS a unique situation.  Mr. Schwartz
should not have been doing what he was doing.  Period.  End of sentence.
He broke the law.  Now he's being punished.  Tough.

Bottom line, unless Intel was really putting the screws on the DA's
office, he probably had a chance to plea bargain it down from a felony
to a misdemeanor.  Probably would have gotten off with a light fine and
some community service.  From all accounts I've heard of Mr. Schwartz,
even if such a deal was offered, he was probably arrogant enough to turn
it down.  Given the newspaper stories on how tough it is to prosecute
computer crime, his lawyer may have given him bad advice.  Whatever the
reason the felony charge was persued, the DA was right in prosecuting
the case to the fullest extent of the law.  Considering that the
possible penalty was 300K$ and three years in jail, I think Randal got
off pretty easy.

Bottom line - Mr. Schwartz does not seem to me to be a very good poster
child for the "Persecuted Hackers Association of America".
___________________________________________________________________________
Frank A. Adrian           ancar technology            Object Analysis,
franka@europa.com         PO Box 1624                   Design,
                          Portland, OR 97207              Implementation,
                          Voice: (503) 281-0724             and Training...
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