CA Court Favors Employees in Trade Secret Decision
Posted by
michael
on from the sanity-prevails dept.
legal_tinker writes "At grep.law, Tait Graves writes: 'In a majority of states, you can be enjoined from starting a new job because of what you know, even if you have done nothing wrong.' A California court just rejected that idea in California."
That's not going to happen soon with the FBI!
by
G0SP0DAR
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I remember a comical article from/. a while back about the FBI not wanting to hire geeks because so many geeks aren't physically fit. However, that was not the focus of the actual linked story. That basically said that the FBI wants hackers, but their ethical screening keeps them from hiring people who think like hackers. That only eliminates 100% of the candidates! If you know how to gain unauthorized access to a secure network, the FBI wants you, but they won't be able to hire you!
--
Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes.
Re:That's not going to happen soon with the FBI!
by
Zeinfeld
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
That basically said that the FBI wants hackers, but their ethical screening keeps them from hiring people who think like hackers. That only eliminates 100% of the candidates! If you know how to gain unauthorized access to a secure network, the FBI wants you, but they won't be able to hire you!
That is rubbish. Most criminal hackers don't have the skills you would want for a white hat team. Hackers don't pitch their skills against security exerts, they take advantage of the incompetent.
You have to be much smarter than a hacker to catch a hacker. The few people with that level of skill can earn three times as much in industry.
The media promotes this hackers as uber-geeks myth because a) it sells papers and b) they are often socially engineered by the hackers. I watched a TLC program on Mitnick last night, never once did the reporter ask if Mitnick might be socally engineering him with a carefully chosen set of lies to make Mitnick sound like a victim rather than a crook.
--
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Re:People Laid off from my company
by
topham
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Which is exactly why I believe it should be ILLEGAL to place a clause in an employee contract which is expected to be unenforcable.
It would quickly eliminate the crap from the employee agreements.
USA arrogance.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Much of the world would like America's prosperity and much of the world envies it. Well, these are the sorts of things you have to do if you want that prosperity.
Crap. We don't want to be like America at all. That's very typical of the kind of Septic arrogance we could do without. We don't envy American (Govt) war mongering, engineering of governments (Who trained Osama and installed the dictatorship in Iraq in the first place?). We have better economic growth than the USA. We are better at steel manufacture and lamb production than you are. We have better social policy - we look after our poor people better. We have fewer homeless people, slums. We have accessible healthcare for all, not just the rich. We have a nicer climate overall. We have more glorious beaches with fewer people. We rarely have to queue for anything for more than five minutes. Our hospitals are not full of gunshot wounded.
All we want is a fair go. You get to club us with a big stick if we put a trade tariff on, and you tariff our stuff right out of your market. And should we complain about your trade tariffs and win in the World Trade Organisation, you just tell us to get stuffed. And stuff all we can do about it. You regularily steal our markets overseas with your government subsidies. You trash the world environment and you won't let anyone else attempt to clean up (Kyoto).
We don't envy you. We want you to grow up, and look after what you have and leave the rest of us alone. And while you're at it, you might get your UN dues paid.
You don't have to grind everyone else into the ground to get ahead. Non Disclosure Non Compete Crap. Patents Office should be paid for quality not quantity. Copyright and Patents do not get people fairly compensated for what they do. Just ask Janis Ian. Just ask a chinese Nike factory worker. If you don't look after the poor people, they must rob you to survive. And that applies to countries too.
Disclaimer. I do have friends in the USA who are just as horrified by the pervasive ignorance of their compatriots as I am.
I post anon because I don't like being attacked by the idiots in the majority.
Re:USA arrogance.
by
Guppy06
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
"We don't envy American (Govt) war mongering, engineering of governments"
What, you're more proud of European government engineering? Proud of the examples certain EU members have mde of various African and SE Asian countries?
"We have better economic growth than the USA."
First off, after the past year I doubt it. Secondly, just because you're growing faster doesn't mean you've caught up yet.
"We have better social policy - we look after our poor people better. We have fewer homeless people, slums. We have accessible healthcare for all, not just the rich. We have a nicer climate overall."
These have beeen brought up so often that I'm actually getting curious whether or not anybody really has any data on this to back these up.
"We have more glorious beaches with fewer people."
Only if you assume all beaches in the US are on the Florida penninsula, southern California, or Oahu.
"We rarely have to queue for anything for more than five minutes."
And by that I assume you're suggesting that we do?
"Our hospitals are not full of gunshot wounded."
Oh really?
"You get to club us with a big stick if we put a trade tariff on,"
Unless it's GM food, huh? Or just about any produce, for that matter? Bananas ring any bells?
"You trash the world environment and you won't let anyone else attempt to clean up (Kyoto)."
About the only way we're preventing Kyoto from being implemented (which we aren't... or "weren't") is by not signing on. IMO, trying to claim that that is our way of actively trying to prevent outher countries from implementing Kyoto themselves is really stretching it.
"And while you're at it, you might get your UN dues paid."
We might, as soon as UN diplomats start paying off their NYC parking/traffic tickets.
"Disclaimer. I do have friends in the USA who are just as horrified by the pervasive ignorance of their compatriots as I am."
I dislike blind patriotism myself, but I fail to see how your post makes you any better than those you claim to dispise. You don't like how pro-American jingoists make overly-broad, baseless and unprovable statements, but you think that your anti-American jingoism is somehow better? "Proving" that the US is the Great Satan requires just as much proof as "proving" the US is utopian. And either way, silly little catch phrases bleated out by political activist sheep just won't cut it.
"I post anon because I don't like being attacked by the idiots in the majority."
You think you're in the minority here? Obviously you're new to Slashdot. I'm surprised there isn't a "+1 Anti-American" mod option yet.
Re:People Laid off from my company
by
schon
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The problem is that the person voluntarily gives up the future use of that knowledge to advance professionally now.
Sorry, but nobody should have to sign away their life just to 'advance professionally'.
And voluntary? Yeah, just like the kids that work in asian sweatshops. They do it cause they love it, right?
If they don't agree to the companies terms, they don't get the knowledge in the first place.
Umm, how exactly is this 'voluntary'?
Sounds a little like "I'll give you this nice, shiny doughnut if you sell me your soul."
Again, the logic can be (and probably is) used by people who run sweatshops.
If a company wants to keep it's employees, it should treat them like people, not inventory.
Much of the world would like America's prosperity and much of the world envies it.
True enough, but I doubt that you could count any developed nations as part of that.
Well, these are the sorts of things you have to
do if you want that prosperity.
Ahem, bullshit.
In case you hadn't noticed, the US isn't really #1 at anything besides tooting their own horns. With the arguable exception of movie production (which is fraught with it's own evils) I'm hard pressed to think of anything that you're better at than the rest of the world.
And in case you hadn't heard, there are much better (as decided by the UN) places to live and work - primarily because of people with your mindset.
allowing people to make agreements between themselves is an expression of freedom
Yes, but who, exactly keeps watch to ensure that one party isn't being taken advantage of. Someone has to watch out that a megacorp with an army of lawyers doesn't take advantage of it's workers.
Or do you believe that all labour laws should be abolished, and we should return to the 'good old days' of child factory workers, and indentured servitude? Because that's exactly where your argument takes you.
Re:People Laid off from my company
by
Stephen+VanDahm
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"Much of the world would like America's prosperity and much of the world envies it. Well, these are the sorts of things you have to do if you want that prosperity."
Saying that in order to be as prosperous as the US, you have to do everything the American way is like saying that since Grandpa Earl smoked a pack a day and lived to be 100, the secret to long life is to chain smoke. Perhaps NDAs and aggressive IP laws contributed to our prosperity, but perhaps if we didn't have those things, we'd be even more prosperous. Things are too complicated to easily determine what has and hasn't contributed to our success.
I think that there's something essentially un-American about aggressive IP laws. I understand the need to foster creativity, but no one owes anyone else a living. If I rip off your copyrighted work, then you have the right to track me down and prosecute me. But laws like the DMCA restrict consumer choice and consumer freedom based on something that they might do in the future -- this really is an attack on our freedom. Corporations and individuals ought to have IP rights, but the responsibility of looking after those rights belongs to the patent/copyright holder, not to Congress, and not to the regular law-abiding citizen. I don't download MP3's and DIVX movies, and I shouldn't have to be penalized for someone else's problem. If they can't or don't want to track down individual violations, then they should change their business model. No one put guns to the heads of Hollywood execs and told them to make movies.
Steve
Re:People Laid off from my company
by
Doomdark
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Much of the world would like America's prosperity and much of the world envies it. Well, these are the sorts of things you have to do if you want that prosperity.
Yes, yes, no. These are not required, necessary or beneficial. The real american values that have helped prosperity are good work ethics, faith in everyone having a chance to succeed, and (relative) lack of people envying each other's wealth.
Your value of "let the [big] company coerce its employees to sign whoopass legal contracts because it has the power to do so" does not appear on list of favourable conditions for nations' prosperity.
As to "... allowing people to make agreements between themselves..." would be fine, if and only if:
Parties involved have equal rights and responsibilities. This doesn't seem to be the case in company vs. employees.
Neither of parties would be able to coerce the other party to legally binding one-side contracts. You can claim that "you don't have to work that company", but the reality is that there's virtual oligopoly of "make 'em donate their kidney" - minded employer that use draconian employment contracts.
And as much as many people hate the idea, governments / parliaments are about only external parties that could help balance this imbalance of power. Courts can help in some way by interpreting the laws, but they don't write the laws.
--
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
For those whining "it's only in california"...
by
janda
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
INAL.
Yes, this decision was made in california, and therfore, no it is not automatically binding on the other states, however...
Anybody, anywhere, can now include this judgement as part of their evidence regarding their non-competition lawsuit.
Regardless of how small, all victories help us information workers.
-- Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
Re: Rubbish? Not necessarily....
by
King_TJ
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
IMHO, what *is* rubbish is the elite, "better than thou" attitude of the majority of self-proclaimed "white hat" hackers out there.
I'm not directly employed in "computer security", nor do I really want to be - but I know enough about it to comment on it.
First of all, there's a percentage of these "white hat hackers" that are identical to the "black hats", except they never got caught. They're really no more ethical or trustworthy than any other hacker - but they were smart enough to go where the money was, before they got in legal trouble.
There are also quite a few "white hats" in the industry that know much more about "working the media" to build their desired image than they do about actual hacking and hacking prevention.
I don't deny that the press loves to talk up the "high profile" black-hat hackers as more of a threat than they really are. Perhaps it's par for the course though - as the "white hats" seem to do the same thing for their security businesses and consultancies.
Also IMHO, any company with a well-trained I.T. staff should be able to do a reasonable job of securing their systems without spending money on some "security specialist". Most people in this job role have lots of expensive certifications (Cisco CCIE, etc.) - but when you look at the bottom line, they're just being paid to be the "fall guy" if something gets hacked.
In corporate America, your biggest security issues are co-workers sharing passwords, writing them down so they can remember them, using weak passwords that are easily guessable, never changing passwords (or when forced, rotating between the same 2 or 3 passwords every time), and disgruntled workers taking advantage of the security clearances you gave them so they could do their job to begin with.
The overpaid "security specialist" can sit there all day long and play with firewall configs and new encryption keys for VPN authentication, but 99% of the time, the problems are much more basic.
Trade secret my ass.
by
Performer+Guy
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Some trade secret. You realize that this guy is a lock salesman. The big trade secret is his ability to persuade Home Depot et.al. to give his company shelve space in preference to competitors. Reading the decision his ex-Boss sounds like a nightmare. The competition are trying to hire him because of his ovious talent but even his old company say his ex-boss Robert Steinman made disparraging comments about him (this is their Dilbertian attempt to argue the employee was taking revenge). The same bozo threatened to end the guy's career in an exit interview.
The icing on the cake here, the really unbelievable thing here is that one company is a subsidiary of the other from the decision "Sladge is a subsidiary of Ingersoll-Rand", unless this is a typo and "Sladge" should read "Kwikset".
Either I've found an error in the court decision or the world is going insane.
Best move of the whole trial? On disclosure the defendant hands over a bag full of destroyed disks and shredded papers etc.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember a comical article from /. a while back about the FBI not wanting to hire geeks because so many geeks aren't physically fit. However, that was not the focus of the actual linked story. That basically said that the FBI wants hackers, but their ethical screening keeps them from hiring people who think like hackers. That only eliminates 100% of the candidates! If you know how to gain unauthorized access to a secure network, the FBI wants you, but they won't be able to hire you!
Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes.
Which is exactly why I believe it should be ILLEGAL to place a clause in an employee contract which is expected to be unenforcable.
It would quickly eliminate the crap from the employee agreements.
Much of the world would like America's prosperity and much of the world envies it. Well, these are the sorts of things you have to do if you want that prosperity.
Crap. We don't want to be like America at all. That's very typical of the kind of Septic arrogance we could do without. We don't envy American (Govt) war mongering, engineering of governments (Who trained Osama and installed the dictatorship in Iraq in the first place?). We have better economic growth than the USA. We are better at steel manufacture and lamb production than you are. We have better social policy - we look after our poor people better. We have fewer homeless people, slums. We have accessible healthcare for all, not just the rich. We have a nicer climate overall. We have more glorious beaches with fewer people. We rarely have to queue for anything for more than five minutes. Our hospitals are not full of gunshot wounded.
All we want is a fair go. You get to club us with a big stick if we put a trade tariff on, and you tariff our stuff right out of your market. And should we complain about your trade tariffs and win in the World Trade Organisation, you just tell us to get stuffed. And stuff all we can do about it. You regularily steal our markets overseas with your government subsidies. You trash the world environment and you won't let anyone else attempt to clean up (Kyoto).
We don't envy you. We want you to grow up, and look after what you have and leave the rest of us alone. And while you're at it, you might get your UN dues paid.
You don't have to grind everyone else into the ground to get ahead. Non Disclosure Non Compete Crap. Patents Office should be paid for quality not quantity. Copyright and Patents do not get people fairly compensated for what they do. Just ask Janis Ian. Just ask a chinese Nike factory worker. If you don't look after the poor people, they must rob you to survive. And that applies to countries too.
Disclaimer. I do have friends in the USA who are just as horrified by the pervasive ignorance of their compatriots as I am.
I post anon because I don't like being attacked by the idiots in the majority.
The problem is that the person voluntarily gives up the future use of that knowledge to advance professionally now.
Sorry, but nobody should have to sign away their life just to 'advance professionally'.
And voluntary? Yeah, just like the kids that work in asian sweatshops. They do it cause they love it, right?
If they don't agree to the companies terms, they don't get the knowledge in the first place.
Umm, how exactly is this 'voluntary'?
Sounds a little like "I'll give you this nice, shiny doughnut if you sell me your soul."
Again, the logic can be (and probably is) used by people who run sweatshops.
If a company wants to keep it's employees, it should treat them like people, not inventory.
Much of the world would like America's prosperity and much of the world envies it.
True enough, but I doubt that you could count any developed nations as part of that.
Well, these are the sorts of things you have to
do if you want that prosperity.
Ahem, bullshit.
In case you hadn't noticed, the US isn't really #1 at anything besides tooting their own horns. With the arguable exception of movie production (which is fraught with it's own evils) I'm hard pressed to think of anything that you're better at than the rest of the world.
And in case you hadn't heard, there are much better (as decided by the UN) places to live and work - primarily because of people with your mindset.
allowing people to make agreements between themselves is an expression of freedom
Yes, but who, exactly keeps watch to ensure that one party isn't being taken advantage of. Someone has to watch out that a megacorp with an army of lawyers doesn't take advantage of it's workers.
Or do you believe that all labour laws should be abolished, and we should return to the 'good old days' of child factory workers, and indentured servitude? Because that's exactly where your argument takes you.
"Much of the world would like America's prosperity and much of the world envies it. Well, these are the sorts of things you have to do if you want that prosperity."
Saying that in order to be as prosperous as the US, you have to do everything the American way is like saying that since Grandpa Earl smoked a pack a day and lived to be 100, the secret to long life is to chain smoke. Perhaps NDAs and aggressive IP laws contributed to our prosperity, but perhaps if we didn't have those things, we'd be even more prosperous. Things are too complicated to easily determine what has and hasn't contributed to our success.
I think that there's something essentially un-American about aggressive IP laws. I understand the need to foster creativity, but no one owes anyone else a living. If I rip off your copyrighted work, then you have the right to track me down and prosecute me. But laws like the DMCA restrict consumer choice and consumer freedom based on something that they might do in the future -- this really is an attack on our freedom. Corporations and individuals ought to have IP rights, but the responsibility of looking after those rights belongs to the patent/copyright holder, not to Congress, and not to the regular law-abiding citizen. I don't download MP3's and DIVX movies, and I shouldn't have to be penalized for someone else's problem. If they can't or don't want to track down individual violations, then they should change their business model. No one put guns to the heads of Hollywood execs and told them to make movies.
Steve
Yes, yes, no. These are not required, necessary or beneficial. The real american values that have helped prosperity are good work ethics, faith in everyone having a chance to succeed, and (relative) lack of people envying each other's wealth.
Your value of "let the [big] company coerce its employees to sign whoopass legal contracts because it has the power to do so" does not appear on list of favourable conditions for nations' prosperity.
As to "... allowing people to make agreements between themselves..." would be fine, if and only if:
Parties involved have equal rights and responsibilities. This doesn't seem to be the case in company vs. employees.
Neither of parties would be able to coerce the other party to legally binding one-side contracts. You can claim that "you don't have to work that company", but the reality is that there's virtual oligopoly of "make 'em donate their kidney" - minded employer that use draconian employment contracts.
And as much as many people hate the idea, governments / parliaments are about only external parties that could help balance this imbalance of power. Courts can help in some way by interpreting the laws, but they don't write the laws.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
INAL.
Yes, this decision was made in california, and therfore, no it is not automatically binding on the other states, however...
Anybody, anywhere, can now include this judgement as part of their evidence regarding their non-competition lawsuit.
Regardless of how small, all victories help us information workers.
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
IMHO, what *is* rubbish is the elite, "better than thou" attitude of the majority of self-proclaimed "white hat" hackers out there.
I'm not directly employed in "computer security", nor do I really want to be - but I know enough about it to comment on it.
First of all, there's a percentage of these "white hat hackers" that are identical to the "black hats", except they never got caught. They're really no more ethical or trustworthy than any other hacker - but they were smart enough to go where the money was, before they got in legal trouble.
There are also quite a few "white hats" in the industry that know much more about "working the media" to build their desired image than they do about actual hacking and hacking prevention.
I don't deny that the press loves to talk up the "high profile" black-hat hackers as more of a threat than they really are. Perhaps it's par for the course though - as the "white hats" seem to do the same thing for their security businesses and consultancies.
Also IMHO, any company with a well-trained I.T. staff should be able to do a reasonable job of securing their systems without spending money on some "security specialist". Most people in this job role have lots of expensive certifications (Cisco CCIE, etc.) - but when you look at the bottom line, they're just being paid to be the "fall guy" if something gets hacked.
In corporate America, your biggest security issues are co-workers sharing passwords, writing them down so they can remember them, using weak passwords that are easily guessable, never changing passwords (or when forced, rotating between the same 2 or 3 passwords every time), and disgruntled workers taking advantage of the security clearances you gave them so they could do their job to begin with.
The overpaid "security specialist" can sit there all day long and play with firewall configs and new encryption keys for VPN authentication, but 99% of the time, the problems are much more basic.
Some trade secret. You realize that this guy is a lock salesman. The big trade secret is his ability to persuade Home Depot et.al. to give his company shelve space in preference to competitors. Reading the decision his ex-Boss sounds like a nightmare. The competition are trying to hire him because of his ovious talent but even his old company say his ex-boss Robert Steinman made disparraging comments about him (this is their Dilbertian attempt to argue the employee was taking revenge). The same bozo threatened to end the guy's career in an exit interview.
The icing on the cake here, the really unbelievable thing here is that one company is a subsidiary of the other from the decision "Sladge is a subsidiary of Ingersoll-Rand", unless this is a typo and "Sladge" should read "Kwikset".
Either I've found an error in the court decision or the world is going insane.
Best move of the whole trial? On disclosure the defendant hands over a bag full of destroyed disks and shredded papers etc.