Slashdot Mirror
Do You Write Backdoors?
quaxzarron asks: "I had a recent experience where one of our group of programmers wrote backdoors on some web applications we were developing, so that he could gain access to the main hosting server when the application went live. This got me thinking about how we are dependent on the integrity of the coders for the integrity of our applications. Yet in this case a more than casual glance would allow us to identify potentially malicious code. How does this work when the clients are companies who can't perform such checks - either because they don't know how, or because the code is too large or too complex? How often do companies developing code officially sanction backdoors...even if means calling them 'security features'? How often has the Slashdot crowd put a backdoor in the code they were developing either officially or otherwise? How sustainable is the 'trust' between the developer and the client?"
How did that affect your ability to exercise your stock options? The options should have been mentioned in your employment contract as part of your salary.
The employment contract, and the stock options themselves, are legally enforceable contracts. If they didn't let you excercise the options because you were laid off, it could be because you agreed to that possibility in the employment contract or in the contract of the stock option itself.
If that wasn't in the contract, then you should be able to go after them to exercise your stock options.
His situation mirrors one I was in a few years back with Worldcom. In my case, I was in a "long term" permanent position, with stock options being given to me every year, which each matured (became available to exercise) in 3 years and were valid for another 7 years. Given that stocks hsitory at the time, and the likelyhood that I would still be there after 10 years, it seemed like a really good deal.
Right about when I reach the 3 year mark and my first set of options became available was right about when the stock peaked for good, though I didn't know it at the time. By the 4 year mark, the stock was pretty obviously on a downward trend, but the management line was "you guys are valuable coders, you're here for the long term, the options will recover before their 10 years are up".
Sure enoughm, at around 4.5 years into the job, the options had reached zero value, and our whole building, irrespective of job function or worth to the company, was summarily laid off.
Thanks, Corporate America, I owe you one.
11*43+456^2
Sub7 for life!!! i will pwn you all -mobman
I think there's an Ayn Rand novel with exactly this event as a plot device.
It's not strictly comparable, though. A software application can be destroyed with no loss of materials or labor, and restored in a matter of minutes. A building can't.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
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