Sysadmin 'fesses up to wrecking his former employer's IT systems

Re: 10 years?

6 months at most, but that's only because that rape was in accordance with their Christian values.

If a man was the victim of the rape, I will guarantee you that the judge would be possessed by the Lord himself and smite the perpetrator in His holy name (death penalty for him and at least every family member one removed)!

Re: I thought?

Um he use some co workers account. So lets say he did not do it from his house how did he get caught ? Also if that co worker was still working there he should be fired.

Re: I thought?

The fact of the matter is, not once have I ever thought to try log back into my ex-employer's network even just out of curiosity, because quite frankly, I'm not an idiot.

I like what I do, I like the people I work with - except for management outside the ICT department, half of them are w*nkers trying to build their own little kingdoms rather than work with us to sort problems out and keep everything going smoothly - and with ICT being such a small industry in Western Australia, therefore word gets around quickly, I would rather continue working in ICT thank you very much.

Plus I don't doubt that I would not do well in prison.

So in my book, this guy's an idiot for even trying. I expect his idea of being a "Penetration Tester" will take on a whole new meaning in prison.

Re: I thought?

Indeed. I was made redundant from one job and I refused to touch any of the computers and told the guys how to lock me out. It was funny walking around various servers, firewalls etc. and telling the guy how to do it, it was like face to face phone support.

Re: I thought?

"The normal routine when getting rid of employees with admin rights was pretty much kill their access to everything once they have the news and put them on gardening leave?"

I thought it was to lock their accounts when they went into the meeting to get the news.

There shouldn't be any point where they can use their standard accounts to fuck with you.

You should also be making an offer sufficient that the various shadow IT/colleague/backup accounts they know won't be used to fuck you, and that when you call them in six months to find something critical they'll answer the phone.

Re: I thought?

Presumably #1 he saw it coming, and #2 after well over a decade there, I'm sure he learned plenty of service account passwords and colleagues' account logins, to say nothing of knowing where the unpatched vulnerabilities, weak spots, and security checks were. The greatest hacker in the world generally doesn't hold a candle to the individual that starts with familiarity and access and then gets (inadequately) locked out.

Re: I thought?

Yeah, pretty much. The only time that's not happened to me was when I handed in my own notice (due to a better job offer elsewhere). But for anyone I've worked with who's been let go, their access is immediately curtailed and they are removed from the premises. It's for their own good as much as that of the company's.

Happened to one of my managers a few years back shortly after a takeover (I was tasked with revoking his access whilst he went to the interview of no return). He took it fine afterwards and simply told me "It's a business decision, you can't take these things personally. You just have to accept them and move on".

One month later he had a much better job at another company anyway.

Re: I thought?

Unless you're dealing with a place that's never had to fire a sysadmin before.

I've had to write "exit procedures" for such situations, if only to protect myself when it was time to go - I like to make sure that, even if no-one else thinks about it, that I've been removed from EVERY system before I depart the building the final time.

I also build systems to what I call the "V'ger Rule" - if you've seen "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", you'll understand. Put simply, the "V'Ger Rule" states:

"A System must continue to operate in a correct and safe manner in the absence of its Creator".

Remove my accounts. and it carries on running as though I was never there.

Or, to put it another way:

• No blowing up any spaceships ;
• No joyriding in Carbon Units ;
• Fat, balding starship captains are to be shot on sight, especially ones that follow the "If you can't eat it, drink it, steal it, spend it or have sex with it, blow it up" mantra.

The federal government and some state governments have standard ways to determine sentencing of those convicted (or who confessed). Other state governments, in particular California, do not have uniform sentencing standards, leading to greater variability and occasional public outrage over sentences considered either too long or too short.

Paul Cassell, a former federal judge, wrote on this in the context of the Stanford case a few days ago in the Volokh Conspiracy blog. He noted that under federal law (on federal/non-state territory) Turner's conviction could have carried a life sentence, and federal sentencing guidelines are for 97 - 121 months imprisonment. He also links to a Washington Post article reporting that the average state sentence for a rape is 11 years

It may be the real lesson in this is that there is not a US system of justice, over 50 of them: 50 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, various territories, federal, and military. There may be more. States are largely sovereign and likely to show a considerable range for any offense.

Re: Wild Guess

A lot of these wild guesses are based on what is becoming the norm in IT these days.