[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Re: Convicted of felonies while doing my job as sys admin (you should be worried)
Oops, I just was in misc.legal.computing and found this. Now, it's hard
to say where the truth lies in all this, but perhaps Randal isn't being
prosecuted so unjustly:
Fri, 04 Aug 1995 13:10:33 misc.legal.computing Thread 86 of 98
Lines ? Re: Randal Schwartz versus the State of OregoNo responses
jason@slc.com D. Jason Penney at GemStone Systems, Inc., Beaverton OR, USA
Since this trial was on my home turf (I too live in Cedar Hills, Washington
County, Oregon) and Randal is a former business associate, I feel qualified to
respond to this. The local newspaper covered the facts of the trial
reasonably well.
When I heard that Randal had run a password cracking program on his client's
machine against his client's passwd file, my first response was, "Oh, _I've_
done that. What's the big deal?" That is, this practice is a reasonably
routine security check. Even though I think Randal is an irritating little
egotist, I felt that perhaps he was being prosecuted wrongly.
A few days later, it came out that a) he had continued to run the cracker
after he had been explicitly instructed to desist, and b) he had intentionally
created security breaches in the client's Internet firewall so that he could
enter the system from outside. This from a consultant who was supposed to
provide security services for the client.
At this point I began to appreciate the magnitude of Randal's stupidity. He
irritated his client (just as he has me and most anyone I've met who's known
him). _Then_, when he was decidedly out of the client's good graces, he
disregards his client's requests _and_ compromises their Internet security.
Perhaps the Oregon law needs help, but I don't think this case fell into any
sort of grey area.
--
Nancy Milligan Milligan Consulting Services
npm@netcom.com System Administration, Perl/C/shell programming
619/260-1442 Internet Connectivity, Firewalls, Usenet, WWW
San Diego, CA http://nmcs.clever.net
References: