Slashdot Mirror
McOwen Case Settled
ewilts writes: "Back in July, you ran a story about David McOwen, a computer adminstrator at DeKalb Technical College in Georgia, who was being charged for installing SETI software on school computers. This case has now been settled. See also the EFF press release
on McOwen's web site." Update: 01/18 16:11 GMT by M : It was software from distributed.net, not SETI.
Although he got off relatively light, the precident set here is that sysadmins can no longer choose to install software at will. As a sysadmin for a large media congolmerate, I find it more and more difficult to simply administer my systems because all the suits want to know every move I make three weeks in advance. This decision simply adds an element of criminality to an already bad situation.
This story has been convered in a recent Slashback article: here.
Distributed.net
:)
He ran the dnetc.exe client on a ton of school PC's in Georgia.
The funny thing, is that it took several "security experts" a lot of work to figure out what dnetc.exe actually was
Actually, he was running RC5. The problem the school had with this is that with RC5, there is a change (albeit a very limited one) that you could win money. He had not stated that he would give the money to the school...
p c&s=50009562&f=122097561&m=1110950822 p c&s=50009562&f=122097561&m=7450963242&r=5150986242 #5150986242 = 39&threadid=518510&start=1 = 39&threadid=518184
This was widely discussed among many of the more well known distributed computing teams. Check it out.
Read about it here:
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=t
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=t
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid
Glen
Track your fuel economy
Now, of course, he gets off light from the government.. but jeeze, think of the internet traffic charges he's gonna rake up from being slashdotted. YOU MEAN HEARTLESS PEOPLE! Have you no decency? Give the man a break.
A lot of people seem to be under the impression that the client he was running was SETI@home and was therefore innoculous.
Well, he was running some distrubuted.net-type decryption client where he would have WON MONEY had he been the one to find a key.
Not so humanitarian and innoculous now, is it?
Years in prison and a $400,000 fine are extremely way beyond reason, but I can see how this was a crime as he stole company resources for personal gain.
The $2100 fine does seem reasonable as I think he would have won $2000.
Wow! I'm sitting on a friggin' gold mine. Who in their right mind would ever pay upwards of $35 for ONE MINUTE of time on a PC?? You can buy a good system that's paid for itself in just one hour of time!! Lets see, going by the usual inflated legal dollers, this 1.5Ghz P4 I've been burning in for the last two weeks has just wasted $713,000. boggle.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Perhaps it's a precedent for telling sys admins to stick to their jobs and keep the best interests of their employers in mind when installing software. This isn't about "sys admins choosing" it's about the appropriate use of someone else's property.
When I discovered that a developer had installed SETI on my co's production ecommerce servers ("but I nice'd it!") I had the loser fired -- after disabling the software. Am I against SETI? No (nor am I "for" it; I don't care). But the purpose of our servers, bandwidth, etc., is not racking up points in the SETI project.
Now, we have other servers that are intended for fun and exploration. But our production servers?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
<Cut to courtroom somewhere in the USA>
Defendant: "...and then I installed the application on all the computers."
Prosecutor: "You did this, fully aware that it was vulnerable and subject to attacks, which may paralyze the company email system, compromise data, or worse?"
Defendant: "Yes."
Gallery: *GASP*
Prosecutor: "And what was this application?"
Defendant: "MS Outlook."
The prosecutor, appearing struck, glances at a shadowy figure in the gallery who bears some resemblance to John Ashcroft in a trenchcoat and fedora, the figure quickly draws a finger across his throat and the prosecutor recomposes himself.
Prosecutor: "Your honor, the prosecution humbly requests all charges be dropped and that the defendant be released!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So this means that before i install anything, good or bad, that i must *explain* each and *every* piece of code, and clear it with the people that entrust me with their network and am paid to be the expert on, and responsible for its upkeeep? What if i install VNC, antivirual update, research software for a better network, prety much anything they decide they dont like that day.. i goto jail? Seems to me our ablity to even do our jobs has just been limited drastically. Sure, wholesale personal use is wrong, but the way it sounds now im libel if managemnts mind changes tomrrow on anything.....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Production systems are controlled environments - last thing you need is some unaudited, unexpected and unauthorised changes messing them up.
...or opening up a security hole.
Every piece of software installed present a potential threat. Did it come from a reliable source? Does it have security flaws? Obviously, there has a be a reasonable balance between maintaining security and giving users the flexibility they need to do their jobs. I get very irritated when a company won't let me install software I need -- or just want! -- on my desktop at work.
This balance tips increasingly in favor of security as if installation is (1) on a server, (2) on a production server, (3) on a lot of machines. Maintaining that balance is a sysadmin's job. And this guy was definitely not doing his job.
All that said, aren't criminal charges just a little out of line? He should just have been professionally reprimanded, or maybe fired. But a lawsuit?