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Blow the Whistle, Lose Your Job?
ccnull writes "You're a systems admin. On a routine PC repair, you discover a trove of child porn on an employee's PC. You call the cops. The employee pleads guilty and goes to jail. Then what do you do? You get fired. InformationWeek has an interesting expose on whistleblowers who lost their jobs, they say, because they publicly embarassed the company. The company has another version of the story. No matter what the reality is, at the center of this is a good question: If you discover illegal goodies on a machine, what should you do about it?"
Alter the evidence to look like the porn was found on your boss's computer
you are a whistle tester.
four-oh-four
But child porn... I'd tell for sure. Fire me if you will...
We've always been at war with Eurasia.
When you're at work you're acting as an agent of your employer. You should always go through your proper chain of command until the situation is resolved. The last step in the chain being law enforcement.
... I simply report them anonymously.
That way, the perpetrator gets punished, I am left out of the deliberations, and everyone's happy.
Just email the URL or IP address to the proper authorities (your boss, the police, etc.) from one of your anonymous email accounts and you're all set (use a proxy too).
I know I would be very displeased if I found one of our system administrators playing "computer god" with our proprietary information. If he can't be trusted to keep the privacy of a coworker, then who's to say that he can keep the privacy of the company's trade secrets? He would be outta here in no time.
--sdem
An officer of a company is a representative of that company. While people are personally accountable for their actions on a criminal level, their actions are nonetheless that of the company, as well.
Remember, a "company" doesn't exist. It's just an idea held by a group of people. Think of these people as your friends, because even if you don't like them, they are. They help provide for your welfare.
Would you report your best friend's smoking weed? Would you report your father for voeyerism?
Report this matter to your boss, and document (in writing) that you did so. Having effectively wiped your hands of the matter, enjoy your job.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
For each child in a single picture, how many more are hurt by it propagating along the internet and encouraging more abuse?
I think that there should be a law to protect whistleblowers, and perhaps some form of federal insurance that the can draw from in the event that they are retaliated against.
Whistleblowing, wether it is calling the cops on pedophiles in the workplace, or terrorists in your apartment building, is a critical tool of law enforcement. Sadly, too many privacy nuts would rather shelter pedos for the sake of being able to post anonymous crap on message boards...
I'm not quite sure about this one. The story submitter says that these people were fired because they gave the company a bad light, but this wouldn't even be about the company, since they were being outsourced. It was a computer of a professor at New York Law School, not a computer of someone at Collegis.
[insert witty comment here]
The pervert doesn't know you'll both get fired for reporting it.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
According to the employer's response, that's exactlty what happened in this case.
What happened after that, and why, is less clear.The problem with the other option - covering it up - could be that some children would continue to be abused.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Personally, if I found something as severe as child porn I'd definitly report him to the police. If I lose my job then I sue.
There should be a law againist punishing whisle blowers.
Bugs are just features that have been fixed.
It wasn't until AUGUST that these two employees actually went and talked to anyone directly:
In any case, and complain if you like, but this is much more serious than having, say, some MP3s or something (which very arguably could be legal), since those aren't originating from the abuse of someone who will most likely become scarred for life.
[insert witty comment here]
Advise him to erase it, or at least encrypt it and transfer it to his home computer.
So, are you unaware that his downloading said porn in the first place is financially and morally supporting the sites he got it from, whom in turn finance people who sexually molest their children?
Or are you simply condoning child abuse?
I've already noted several posts here that say words to the effect of "report it to the boss" and "its not your problem to call the law".
Unfortunately, that is not always such a simple decision.
In some states, and I'm sure many more will follow, it is the law that, should you find evidence of child abuse or child porn, YOU are guilty of a crime if YOU do not report it immediately to authorities.
You may be an agent of the company, but you are also subject to the laws of the state you are working in.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
If you're heading out into the cube farm to fix an end user's desktop, you ought to ignore everything that's not part of the problem.
Now, if the hard drive was literally full, and the reason is that there's gigabytes of kiddie porn and no room for a temp file, then you'd be justified mentioning something. I'd probably say something like "You should delete the Candyman directory, it's taking up too much room. Is it okay if I go ahead and delete that for you?"
Unless your organization has an acceptable use policy for the computers, and unless the employees are aware that personal files on their computers are going to be audited/double-clicked on by bored techies, and unless your job description specifically states that you are to monitor for unacceptable use, then you have no business snooping around. In my experience, 1/3 of the people never install stuff without approval, 1/3 of them install RealPlayer even if you tell them not to, and the other 1/3 install RealPlayer and everything else they can click on without even realizing it because they are clueless but thankfully the tech support guys are there to clean up the mess afterwards.
Look, employees have to sit in front of these screens eight hours a day. Is it really anyone's business WHAT or HOW they decide to use their computers, so long as they are getting the job done?
And what next, after you tell on the guy with kiddie porn? Bob has too many MP3s, Larry didn't wash his hands after using the bathroom, and Alice took an extra ten minutes on her lunch break. Nobody wants to work with a person like that. Just do your job, ignore the kiddie porn, and get on with your life. I would hate to be the director of IT, and have some techie ruin my week by coming up to me and telling me that some employee has kiddie porn on his computer. This was not a problem until some n00b techie started looking at stuff he shouldn't have and had to go blabbing his big mouth about it.
Firing might seem harsh, but if someone with access to all the data in the company can't exhibit some discretion, I think it's justifiable.
Of course, kiddie porn is sooo highly illegal in this country (rules of entrapment don't apply, etc.) that the firee probably can make a strong case that the only reason he was fired is because he alerted manegement to an endemic problem within the organization. That wouldn't get him his job back, but it would be a nice payback to get the U.S. Marshalls in their seizing hard drives and restoring from tape to look for any other kiddie porn on the company LAN.
A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.
Or maybe it's not that funny.
I work government network security for a living. Part of the ethics instilled in us (along with federal regulations governing the position) is the broad understanding that we are here to protect the security of the network. We are not the porn police or any other type of legal official.
We are legally bound NOT TO report anything even if discovered on a routine call, not our job. We are not legally authorized to invade your privacy. That is why they have policy with warrants. It is also a position I stand behind and advidly enforce on my more moral or do gooder juniors. Your users should trust you to do your job and FIX the computer / issue, not narc them out. Your job is NOT to enforce your morality or ideas of what the law is upon them.
If you want to be a narc join a legal body and put your computer skills to use helping them. If just want to narc on your coworker because they don't fit in your ideas of morality, I have no sympathy for you or anybody like you. Losing your job should be the least of your worries, you should be hung from a tree.
Everybody breaks the law including you. Do you really want to live in a society where the guy behind you on the freeway calls the police on you for doing 57 in a 55.
Mind your own business and do you job unless your job is to bust folk.
De Oppresso Liber
The Boss will either just fire the employee or call the cops herself. Regardless, you should call the cops too, especially in the case of child porn which is quite serious.
Ideally you should alert the boss first to prepare for the embarassment and have the spokesman prepare statements before the employee is carried away. Tell her, I intend to notify the cops, she wont be able to stop you then. If she tries to stop you, and you tell the cops, and get fired, youd have a lot against the boss too.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I used to work on repairing printing machinery and one place I went to was publishing a child porn mag called 'Young and Free'. The machinery was repaired without comment and as I drove away I phoned the police on the cellphone.
Each of the guys working there got a prison sentence, and I hope they had a tough time.
Peter Jones
Ex AGFA engineer
I believe the SC Legislature recently passed a law that requires an IT person to turn in another who may have Child Pornography on their computer. Not doing so would be illegal. For the company to fire the person afterwards would then open the company up to litigation. Basically, I'm between a rock and a rock! Time for a Career Change??
The truth is usually just an excuse for lack of imagination.
What should you do about it? What until the owner shows up for it, then beat the shit out of him.
"Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
Some people have this attitude towards porn, but usually, it's because they haven't seen the right kind yet.
Just wait until you get married and you're down to one night every week. You'll go hunt down some dvds you and the wife can 'enjoy together'. Believe it or not, the right kind of porn makes women very excited.
Are we becoming good little nazis who spy on each other and use punishment and revenge as the first resort?
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
OK, change the situation. Say you're in the office, and an unstable co-worker who happens to be in favor with the next level of management takes exception to some action of yours and proceeds to beat the living shit out of you with a baseball bat.
Do you "Work within the system" and let management discipline him, or call the cops and have his ass thrown in jail?
If you say "call the cops" How is it different if you're not the victim?
If you don't, when did you lose your self-preservation instinct, and did it hurt?
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
I completely understand what you are saying about the "proper channels".
I worked at particularly large American semiconductor manufacturer for many years.
They have their own fire response team.
If there's a fire on the site, screw the city fire department -- you're supposed to call security.
The company says that the city fire department is unfamiliar with the chemicals and equipment that they're liable to encounter. On the other hand, they have been chastised by the city police department and fire department on more than one occassion because they unnecessarily risked human safety by trying to handle their problems themselves, allowing them to spiraled out of control.
In the end, the company was frequently unable to handle these situations.
Now, here is why I'm very, very skeptical of your suggestion...
Corporations are legal entities in the eyes of the law, sure, but they have no morals. They didn't "grow up"... they are chartered by suits, snapping into life in one afternoon. Unlike real people, their first and only priority in life is financial.
I don't know you. Our parents didn't know each other. I grew up and live in Texas and I have no idea where you live. Still, I'll bet that you and I would probably agree on the "right thing to do" in 99% of the moral delimmas that we encounter, even though everything in the equation is subjective.
That's amazing to me, but it's a testiment to how societies function to keep order.
And how about corporations? Who "raised" them and what are their motives?
The real purpose of a company's "proper channels" is to mitigate their legal liabilities, that's all.
Go find a corporate lawyer and ask. They'll set you straight on this.
An employee discovering illegal porn on a computer or illegal anything is in a tough position: report it to you employer and the problem will magically go away or report it to the proper authorities and get fired because you violated some legal agreement you signed with them (under duress) the year before.
Employees caught in this situation are not fools; they're just unfortunate bastards.
--Richard
In this case, the chain of command is trumped by the law. The police is the first line in the chain of command because a crime was commited. Any idiot who is advocating the chain of command in this case is advocating a coverup. Alot of time, corporations use the chain of command as a technique to cover the asses of the people higher up. If an employee sees a crime or fraud, call the cops or FBI. If more people did that in Enron and Worldcom, it would have saved alot of people their pension money. The chain of command is not law. The law enacted by legislature and congress is the law and is supreme to any coverup mechanisms that corporations are advocating.
If the company policy is that PCs are not for personal use and may not contain illegally-copied materials, I'm gonna tell them to clean up their act. If I find it a second time, you're goddam sure as hell I'm going to report it. Same with giant MP3 collections, P2P clients...none of it is appropriate in a work environment. You remind them they're violating policy, and if they keep it up, you let the appropriate folks know the facts. Seriously, what planet are you on?
I see this all the time with users- they think that because they USE the PC, it is THEIR PC, and they have the right to do whatever the hell they want to with it...
Please help metamoderate.
The idea of going to the boss first is a good idea. This is the same thing with any other event that may require the involvement of law enforcement (not including emergency services). You do this, get in touch with HR, PR, etc. so that when you go to law enforcement, the company has a coordinated response. This limits the damage to the company when the story gets out.
Creating a record of your interactions is helpful because if they fire you depending on the state, you may be able to sue, or at least complain to HR regarding your treatment. Being able to document your interactions is helpful.
Next you give your company the opertunity to go to law enforcement. Ask your boss how long he or she needs for this process. Again document, etc. and them if necessary (and only after good-faith avenues are exhausted) do you go to law enforcement. I would give warning to the management at this point that if they do not deal with the legal implications, that all your interactions on the matter will be handed over to law enfocement too for your protection (so they don't accuse you as an accomplice).
At this point they have trouble firing until after the police are involved, but if they push back too far, then that might become part of the investigation.
My own opinion is that you should look out for the interest of the company as well as trying to see that justice is done. Of course if they refuse to take up the oppertunity, then you probably don't want to work for them. And when your story appears in the news, maybe they will think twice next time....
Act in good faith and the rest will work out...
Then again, there are illegal things (like mp3's) and illegal things (like child porn) and they are not created equal.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I'm going to hold in my opinions about using net filtering software at all, and just say this. How the heck do you know he didn't ssh into his home computer and download it from there? Or go to an ftp site? Or download the thing using any method that doesn't use a browser, thus bypassing the net filter?
Not to mention the guy getting caught was a professor...I'm willing to bet he had admin rights to his computer, and could disable all sorts of net filtering software
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
So lets see, you find a coworker murdered in a storage closet. You go inform your manager at Waste Management, Inc. He pounces for the phone, and tells you to proceed to your next task, which happens to be on another floor. Oddly enough, the police didn't come by to question you about the body. You still let the company deal with it???
I find it incredible that anyone could think that its an employee's duty to withhold information on felony activity occuring at a workplace. Or perhaps you think one needs to be sympathetic to a company's concerns while child molestation is being committed? Its people like you that let clowns from Enron swindle investors.
And yes, its obviously the employee's duty to inform their manager first. Which is what they did. How likely is it that two employees previously with good work records BOTH lose their jobs because they simultaneously are performing substandard work?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
The next day, Perry gave the PC to Gross to back up, fearing it might crash and lose valuable data.
In the process, according to the suit, Gross opened a folder titled "my music," within which was another folder, named "nime," then another, "nime2." It was here, Gross said in an interview, that he encountered the illicit content. "I didn't have to click on any files when I went into the folder," says Gross. "There were thumbnail images, so I was pretty much instantly exposed to that."
If Gross hadn't opened those folders, he wouldn't have come across the offensive images in the first place. But Perry and Gross say it wasn't unusual for them to check the content of folders when troubleshooting; a large file, for example, can be an indication that a virus is at work.
I don't buy this. Are they claiming that standard procedure for these folks, when looking for a virus, is not to boot with a known-good disk and run an up-to-date virus scanner, but rather to go through folders looking for large files which might "be an indication that a virus is at work"? If so, that's pretty crappy. Well, I have this huge file called PAGEFILE.SYS on my C:\ drive, I guess I have a virus (it's Windows' swap file, for those who use other OSes), right? Sigh.
I also don't buy the "they were looking in the folder for files to backup" argument, either. That's not the way you do it. You use Windows backup, or a 3rd party utility, or a disk-imaging program (like Ghost for windows or DiskCopy for Mac) or you drag everything to a server for later restoration, or you use an external firewire/USB drive. You don't poke around for files and copy them one by one. Apart from being horribly inefficient, that would also kill the client's directory structure. For example, within my documents folders, I have subfolders for different classes, and for things like correspondance, and receipts, and the like. If some tech support company had to back up my stuff, and had copied the files one by one, instead of copying the entire tree, I'd be real pissed off.
So I don't think that they quite came across the porn in the line of duty. I think they were looking around without any good reason. (Not that this makes child porn any less wrong, but it does cloud the issue of discovery and reporting)
There is, of course, the other issue, which is that by default, newer versions of Windows use thumbnail view, which is unfortunate. If the prof had been using regular list view, and the techs had double-clicked the files, they wouldn't stand a chance of defending themselves. This raises the issue of just what exactly is "invading someone's privacy"? Even filenames can say a lot about someone. For example, if you see someone's desktop, and they have a bunch of files named "naked_teens_1.jpg" through "naked_teens_50.jpg", what are you going to think about them? What if the files were named "12_year_old_naked.jpg"? Does that change things? Suppose you wrote an editorial to your newspaper about how much you though Al Qaeda sucked. You named this file "al_qaeda_letter.txt". You take your PC in for service, and some tech sees it, and decides to report you to the FBI. (Not too far-fetched in this day and age). Are filenames public or private information? Sure, you can't prevent people from seeing filenames, but do they have the right to act upon them? (This applies to other issues, like when the RIAA found files with the name "usher" and "mp3" and assumed they were songs when they actually were some prof's lectures.)
I work in tech support, and I find myself in lots of situations when I have access to users PCs. The general guideline where I work is to see as little as possible. For example, If I'm working on a PC, I try to stay at the root level as much as possible. When we need to backup a PC, we drag the entire directory tree to a USB drive (if its PC) or a FireWire drive (if it's a Mac), or a server if nei
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
If a tech guy, justified or not, should discover that sort of sh%t, he should alert management, and give them a chance to handle the case and do damage control as they see fit..
If managenment doesn't feel it needs to do anything, or the action doesn't match your moral standards, you don't wanna work there anyway - so go ahead and blow the whistle - anonymously or not.
Working for M$ is selling your soul?! No, working for an employer that doesn't report child porn in order to protect marketing interests is selling your soul!
So now you can lose you're job for reporting people with child pornography, but get a freaking medal for reporting people with mp3's of the work of musicians that get caught with child pornography?
From a point of view of avoiding personal hassle to oneself, it might be best to pretend one has seen nothing, in situations where that is plausible.
I really don't see how it is possible for an employee to get out of the situation of being sacked for one reason, if the company says the reason is another -- since the employee cannot prove why they are really being sacked.
I reported rampant software piracy to our CEO and board member and got fired within hours. This happened in January. Now I sense that I'm blacklisted.
You work for the company. You should at least consider the company's interests. Having the cops investigate could expose the company to considerable costs if the cops have to shut down the network or look around for other illegal files, which they may well have cause to, since all they (and you) really know is illegal material is stored on a company computer - which for all you know was put there by some disgruntled employee or admin at the office.
The right thing to do is report it to your manager. Presumably they will bring it to the attention of the authorities, and if they don't, well THEN you consider going to the cops yourself.
Why is whistleblowing so sanctified when it's on the part of the little guy ? Would we automatically want companies notifying the cops if a drug test showed we had (say) coke in our system ? Should we expect our neighbours to call the RIAA if they have evidence that you're sharing files illegally ?
Why shouldn't a computer support person have similar protection under the law, especially in this day and age, where so much of the porn is in digital form?
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
The posession of child pornography is a felony. This isn't about some guy doing something against company policy.... whether the company thinks it's OK or not is irrelevant.... it's NOT ok.
And technically, if you have knowledge of a felony and don't report it, YOU have committed a crime, as well.
Secondly, if you are sitting in front of my computer, yes, it's my business what you do with it. You can make arguments about the quality of a work environment, sure... but ultimately, NO, you DONT have a right to do whatever you want with a computer that is not yours.
Furthermore, as someone in charge of the company's computing resource, you absolutely DO have the right to snoop around, especially when company policy dictates that computers are not for personal use and all data on all computers belong to the company.
As for people installing things you tell them not to... tighten up your controls and *prevent* them from installing it.
While I would agree that the person was in the right calling the cops, but it opens up a can of worms as far as trust between IT professionals and companies that they contract to.
People generaly want to protect their privacy, even in cases where a person who did what I'd consider to be the honest, moral, and legal thing, businesses don't tend to hire people who phone the cops on clients, right or wrong. Business if full of shady dealings, even how profit margin businesses like resturants and their dealings with local health inspectors.
This is sad but true.
What comes to mind, typical non-discolsure agreements prohibit you from discussing what you see in the workplace. Sadly, violating that even in this case tends to get you fired.
Personaly I feel there should indeed be a law protecting wistle blowers, but until then, do it ANONYMOUSLY.... like in this case, burn the CD of the offending material, and send to the FBI, or better yet, setup a simple script to e-mail the images on a time delay.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
The problem with the other option - covering it up - could be that some children would continue to be abused.
How does having JPEGs on a computer equate to child abuse? I'm sure many of us have seen the pictures of the death camps with corpses stacked like cordwood, but that doesn't mean we go out and exterminate Jews. A couple of decades ago, there was a problem with so-called "snuff flicks" which showed the actual torture and murder of people (usually young women). I can't imagine anything worse than that, but people weren't put in jail for viewing those tapes.
This is like the laws against drug use. They really don't do anything except give warm fuzzies to the people who stand up and beat their breasts to show their concern. I don't use or advocate drug use or viewing child porn, but I don't want my tax dollars wasted on the pursuit and incarceration of perpetrators of victimless crimes.
If you discover illegal goodies on a machine, what should you do about it?
The policy at my employer is for us to tell our boss who then tells the VP HR.
In every case I know of the employee was fired and in one case where child porn was found the employee was arrested on the spot.
The right call at most companies is to punt the situation to HR and let them deal with it.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Just out of curiosity, how many children do you think were protected from abuse by imprisoning the professor?
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
They reported it to their supervisor. Then the company has the ability to handle it how they like.
I don't see why anyone should get in trouble for reporting an illegal activity going on at work to their supervisor. I could understand if the employees directly went to the police or media and not giving the company the ability to handle it.
Maybe I've had the experience of working at better companies. A coworker and I had the wonderful experience of walking into work late one night and all the lights were off and one of the employees was sitting at a computer... well you get the idea. I reported it to my boss and the employee was fired the next day. Their were logs that verified what was going on. Some things just aren't appropriate at work.
As a system administrator, I always make sure that their is a message drawn up by the legal department that we may discover things in the normal duties of our job. I have never poked around people's stuff. But I have had to go into people's home directories to fix things for them (my general policy is I don't touch your home directory unless you ask me to). However, I do go through system logs occasionally. If something turns up in system logs that shouldn't be there, I will report it to my boss.
One company I worked for had a policy that we were to ignore any porn found. That was fine with me, it's their decision. This was done after management decided to crack down on it, and it was found that the largest downloaders of porn were some of the vice presidents. After those results, the policy was quickly put in place.
This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
JUST DELETE IT, no notice, no complaints, no information. I've been a systems admin for 10 years in one form or another and I've NEVER had backlash from deleting inappropriate content, but then I've never reported anyone either...
Let the user complain someone removed their MP3's or pr0n. Just let them compain...*signed* BoFH
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
this isn't just pr0n, but child porn. big difference. let's say you found emails, etc., that the guy was running a drug ring, selling crank to kids down at the local school yard. or that he was funneling money to al qaida or something. where do yo draw the line. maybe i'm biased. i have two children and i teach seventh grade (12-13 yr olds). child porn is a pernicious offense and offenders should be pubished. you think he jsut say, gee thanks, i won't do that any more. look at the research on child molestors. they are habitual. they cannot be "cured". actually true of most sex offenders. but towards children especially.
i'm not talking about some 17 year old tittie, or some 18 year old drerssed in a school uni. hell, if i'd found the stuff on his computer, i'd probably just take the guy out back and beat him fucking senseless.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I wouldn't put this to the "nazi" test. First off, it is our duty as humans to keep predators away from those that cannot defend themselves. In this case, kids. I can't say whether looking at child pornography causes one to molest, but common sense would say it wouldn't deter it.
I agree the guy needs help. But, if you think the shrink can make it all better (all the time), then you need a little more reality. For child pornography or murder, the coppers were the right path.
I am sure the court will give him a fair shake and you can rest easier knowing this. Look at old Pete... who knows if his story was real. And, if this turns out like you want, perhaps the professor could move to your neighborhood and babysit your kids (when you do have kids). Any problems? Call a shrink, they work magic.
I save proof of the offending material, along with the IPs from which it was obtained, etc., such that I could prove it in court. At that point, I go to the CEO and demand weekly "protection" payments to commence immediately in the amount of US$2,000.00 (what a good deal), adjusted semi-annually for inflation and/or any arbitrary amount selected by me, whichever is greater.
KIDDING ASIDE I would actually handle this situation legally and ethically: Save the proof I talked about a moment ago for my own protection, but not to bring down the company. Then, I go to the most in-charge people in the company and talk to them about the problem. Let them call the police, fire the guy, or do whatever they think is right. I save proof of these meetings (like, audio tape of talking to the big shots about it). If they fire me for bringing up the subject with them, or try to silence the issue without busting the asshole who is doing it, I then deem the company unethical and call the police, the media, and every customer this company has and tell everyone about it, getting the company busted big time for not only having tons of child porn on their boxes but also for trying to shut me up and discredit me. It'll be on O'Reilly faster than shit going through a tin horn.
Oh yeah... And either way, I'd get the biggest, baddest gangsters in town to kick the ass of whoever is looking at that material. It's immoral and unethical because it wastes bandwidth that should be used for transferring FreeBSD ISOs around instead. Want porn? Buy a magazine, asshole.
the article says: "For two hours, Perry tried to fix it, uninstalling and reinstalling antivirus software, but the system continued to malfunction. The next day, Perry gave the PC to Gross to back up, fearing it might crash and lose valuable data."
Any technician that "fix things" repeatedly installing and uninstalling the same software doesn't deserve the job... but that's my opinion...
We can't really judge the competence of the IT guys from how the news article describes their actions. Even if this is InfoWeek, you still can't assume that the reporter is technically competent enough to accurately sum up the actions described to him by the people he interviewed in this case. Reporters misquote and describe poorly all the time (I've been quoted in a newspaper 3 or 4 times and I think once were my words accurately transcribed).
And to report the problem to police is wrong, there is an hierarchy in the company, if they thought that the company wasn't acting accordingly to the case, the should anonymously fill a complain with authorities...
I keep seeing people saying "These people should have gone through the proper channels." This argument doesn't fly on two counts:
1) They did in fact go to their supervisor first. Their supervisor took it up the chain and police action resulted. Once police action resulted, it became a criminal matter and anyone with actual knowledge of the crime is perfectly entitled to take what they know to the police.
2) There are two hierarchies at work here, not just one, and they operate in parallel, not serially. One is your office's corporate hierarchy, which deals with matters relating to the operation of the business. The other is the legal hierarchy, which deals with matters relating to the legality of various actions. In this case, both came into play -- but the corporate hierarchy can't trump the legal one, or preempt it.
If you want another reason why it's not only justified but required to go to the law or otherwise make sure law enforcement is informed of a felony in progress in the workplace: Your office policies are a matter of contract law between you and your employer, and contracts are not allowed to force one party to commit a crime, or become an accessory to a crime. So if a crime is being committed in the workplace, you are required to report it to the legal authorities (or see that it's reported) if you know about it, and you may be required to report it to your boss.
None of the above should be taken as saying the company wasn't in the right in firing them, but the workers are justified and required to go to the law with what they knew, even if they knew it as a result of violating corporate policy (in which case the company is justified in firing them for said violations). The company doesn't get veto rights of any kind over the reporting of a crime in the workplace.
To make an analogy, if you broke into an employee's office to play a prank, and found a rape in progress, would you call the cops, or would you call your boss (assuming your boss isn't the rapist)? At that point it ceases to matter why you were there, for purposes of who to report the crime to, but it may matter in that you might lose your job over it (which is, really, as it should be).
-- Old Man Kensey
Ok, fair enough. If the kids in the kiddie porn were his own kids, or there was some other evidence that he had taken the pictures himself (they were taken in his house, for instance), then I would agree that one should get the police involved immediately. But if he just downloaded some stuff off the net, I think the correct response is just tell him to delete it from the office computer and do his jerking off at home!
Really, do we have to make a federal case out of everything?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
How the hell do you know that this guy didn't run, say, Freenet? There are ways. How do you know he didn't use a CGIproxy over HTTPS? There are plenty available. Really, installing web filtering software is like seeing a bunch of barrels of apples, noticing that there is one rotten apple, tossing out the whole barrel, then declaring that you've gotten rid of all the rotten apples.
Contraband MP3s/movies are one thing - child pornography is something completely different.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
I read both articles. The whiny tone of Collegis' response cannot be missed. They acknowledge that they refused to talk about the case, then attack the newspaper for running the story without trying to tell both sides of it? Ridiculous. If the media worked this way, anytime some sleezebag wanted to keep a story out of the news, all they have to do is refuse to talk?
I think the correct response is just tell him to delete it from the office computer and do his jerking off at home!
Except then he continues to be a consumer of child pornography, thus he continues to pay for it, and someone else (an even bigger sicko) continues to get paid to exploit children in disgusting ways.
my pet machine
In this case, kids. I can't say whether looking at child pornography causes one to molest, but common sense would say it wouldn't deter it.
To what extent is being put in to the position of being photographed in sexually explicit positions not molestation? The point is that some child is abused in this process and that downloading *and storing* this material is contributing to this abuse. If someone can *make money* by *sexually abusing childen* then that person needs to be put in prison for a long long time, IMO. If someone contributes to that trade, then that person needs some sort of criminal punishment, though maybe not to the same degree.
Now, whether digital representations should fall into the same category is a whole different question, and I have a different answer because I am afraid of how that could be a slippery slope with regard to censorship.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
They didn't keep her on because she did something vaguely assoicated with the right thing.. They kept her on because firing her would make it harder to keep the mess covered up. She did not have a very encouraging estimate of the half-life of your average whistle-blower.
The US Government has (or, at least, had) very elaborate procedures in place to protect whistle-blowers from retalation. I don't know if those are still in place, but that's really the only way that an employee can be sure that blowing the whistle won't result in a blown job.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Really it depends on what kind of child porn we are talking about. Belive it or not there is more than one kind:
Type A) A lewd picture of an 8 year old usually engaged in some sexual activity or pose. This is the kind that 99.9% of us can agree is bad/wrong/whatever.
Type B) Two 16 or 17 year olds boffing eachother in some European country where said boffing and the publication thereof is legal.... All until it's on your harddrive in America, where pictures of nude minors is a crime. I, personally, don't have a problem with this kind of 'child porn.'
Type C) Virtual child porn, either by hentai or entirely digitally created images. I'll leave you to your own decisions on if this is bad or wrong.
So, which form of child porn do you have a problem with? Some of the above, all of the above?
--Demonspawn
society has decided that somone under 16 can't consent therefore they can't "have no objection".
Adult : "Can I tattoo your face?"
Child : "Sure, go right ahead"
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
My favorite part of the article:
But as criminally disturbing and emotional as this issue may be, the pending litigation has nothing to do with the professor. Employment of the technicians ended due to issues completely unrelated to this isolated incident, which will become clear as the case progresses through the legal system. Claims made by the plaintiffs cannot be taken at face value and should not be trumpeted as fact via media when they are based solely on unsubstantiated allegations.
Translation: Yeah, we fired them for that, but we didn't think they'd sue us. We'll just say we have evidence that will appear in court. We'll pull a tardy report from a few months ago, bam, permission to fire them. Never mind that the guy they told on was a golf buddy of mine and asked me to get rid of them as revenge.
Do corps do this kind of thing? You'd better believe it. I used to work for a utility as the network admin. They would come to me and ask for me to find "evidence" for them to fire someone. Usually all that took was a weblog or a copy of an email of them doing something against company policy. I hated doing it, but it would have been my job if I said no. The reason they tell you you are fired is never the real reason.
I am a network admin. when I find porno on someone's machine what I do about really depends on whether you are a dick or not.
As far as child porn goes I can see how the company would fire the admin who called the cops. The company is just pissed the admin didn't go through them first... so he was maken an example of.
The company's article says that there are other things going on, which they can't talk about because there's a lawsuit pending. If that's not true, and they're really doing it because they're embarassed about it being reported to the police, then they should presumably have also fired the supervisor who reported it. Sounds like there are multiple sets of ugliness and stupidity going on here...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If you've stumbled across evidence of substantial and systematic bilking, theft, fraud, etc. in a corporate database on an utterly massive scale... remember, fish rots from the head down. Going up your chain of command is what you have to do, but do expect severe and immediate retaliation.
Just them knowing that you know what they've been up to, by your routine data QA, is enough to cause sudden complaints about your "behaviour." Remember, it takes two to tango, but only one to squirm . Their complaints are evidence that they're starting to squirm. You need a plan now.
When the going gets tough, the tough take notes . Keep copies of things. You you are going to need a well-planned and pre-established "exit strategy", because you will be punished for doing the right thing.
While "Retaliation for Opposition to An Unlawful Practice" is illegal, it will take you 3-5 years to prosecute your retaliation case, while also giving testimony in the civil and criminal cases the FBI or Serious Fraud Office is going to be bringing against them. You are going to need one heck of a safety net.
So your order of business is:
- Detect Evidence
- Discuss with Spouse, Family, Religious Leaders
- Document Evidence
- Find out whose the best lawyer in the
State, if not the Land for handling your case
- Copy Evidence,place under lock and key
- Find another job, sell excess assets, cash in annuities
- Report Evidence up Chain of Command
- Enjoy Watching them Squirm!
- Resign at the worst possible time for them
- Provide Your Evidence to The Authorities
- Going to the Press is a last resort
You have to discuss this with your spouse and grown children as soon as you even have suspicions, so that you can plan your exit strategy together. They have to understand that you all might be a lot happier in the Peace Corps or setting up wireless networks in Africa, or living on a high-school teachers' salary or grad student stipend. If you belong to a church, mosque or synagogue, discuss it with your pastor, priest, imam, rabbi-- because, God help you, you will need serious moral support when the poo hits the ventillation system.When you must report criminal wrongdoing expect to get canned--for "other reasons" of course. You will be surprised at how lame a case they'll be willing to make for those "other reasons." So will the judge.
Child pornography is criminal wrongdoing. Bilking legitimate shareholders of millions of dollars a month is criminal wrongdoing. A utility defrauding half a nation to the point that its factories are closing, its schools are cold and dark, and its hospitals have to turn away sick children is criminal wrongdoing.
>set fire to a pallet of cardboard boxes behind a Wal-Mart. Guess who got grilled the hardest?
The pallet of cardboard boxes?
> viewing the material just encourages it.
In what way does some anonymous pervert in New York downloading images that someone probably posted months or years previous from someplace hundreds or thousands of miles away constitute encouraging anything? Be serious for a second and think rationally about how these images are produced and get disseminated.
As a writer I've researched the matter, and the fact is that 99% or more of what most people would consider "child pornography" to be (hardcore sexual images of pre-adolescent or early adolescent minors) comes from two sources. Once-legal magazines and videos that were published in the 1970's before any child pornography laws existed, and which were later scanned or captured to digital format, are one source. Child molesters who film their abuse and pass it on to "friends" online are the other.
Now, with regard to the former, no one possessing such images can truly be said to have been encouraging anything--the abuse occurred 20 or 30 years previously, when the abusing was just as illegal as it is today yet the filming and distribution were not explicitly illegal yet. It is *exactly* the same situation as viewing concentration-camp footage--no one doing so is encouraging or discouraging anything. It's simply a heinous relic of the past. No one makes money off it anymore--it's no longer a commercial industry and hasn't been for 20 years and more.
Regarding the latter, yes, if you are one of the "friends" to whom the child molestor sent his imagery, then you can truly be said to be encouraging the abuse. However, most people who view child pornography view it as distant links in a tenuous chain, after it has been e-mailed between countless people and posted to websites and posted on USENET hundreds or thousands of times. This becomes a very gray area both ethically and morally, even though the law makes no distinction. Posting the material, passing it on along the tenuous chain, could reasonably be argued to be a subtle form of encouragement of what is depicted. That's an argument that makes some sense, though is still ambiguous. However, what if the college professor in this case merely downloaded the images for his own private viewing and never passed them on to anyone, never posted them anywhere, never became another link in the chain because the images stopped at his hard drive and weren't further disseminated by him?
Well, then the idea that he encouraged anything at all through his possession, but not dissemination, of the imagery, becomes far from convincing. In fact, I'd say the argument fails entirely--facelessly copying a digital file off a public forum like the Net isn't unethical *or* immoral on its face. Yet, it is still illegal, although one can clearly say it *might* be unjustly so.
There is no commercial industry in such material being "fed" by the consumer. That's a common misconception. The child molestor does what he does for the sex and power, and shares the material with people he deems as like-minded. Those people can be thought of as supporting him and the abuse, but somewhere along the line the imagery leaves the purview of him and his "friends" and just floats through the electronic ether for strangers to find.
However, what most people would consider child pornography is not the same as what is actually considered child pornography in the U.S. It's a much broader category, which includes nude images as well as hardcore videos of 16 and 17 year olds which were produced legally in parts of Europe until recently. In places where the age of consent was 16 and child pornography laws stated that child pornography constituted imagery of people below that age, adult material featuring 16 and 17 year olds was once as common and legal as adult material featuring 18 and 19 year olds is in the U.S.--and yet U.S. law makes no disctinction between this material and something produced by a child molestor raping a young girl or boy. One has to seriously question the rationale there, since
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
I'm a regular Slashdot poster, but what I'm going to say is extremely personal, hence the anonymous post. This is a short rant about the nature of child abuse. It may be graphic, so read on at your discretion.
My father physically and sexually abused me, and took movies of me as well; this happened 30 years ago, but for all I know they may be floating around the net right now. My mother suspected the abuse, but did nothing to prevent it and only stepped in to stop it when he threatened to kill me. I don't have a relationship with either of my parents now.
I know and can admit that I'm a very screwed up person. I have seen psychiatrists and therapists throughout my life to deal with the very real emotional scars left by this abuse (and all replies stating something to the effect of "get over it" or "stop being so self-involved" will be summarily ignored). I have attempted suicide once. I have met many people who similarly suffered due to child abuse. My best friend is an abuse survivor, who thus far has received no therapy for her trauma.
Unlike most of the other screwed-up people out there, I am taking the personal responsibility to try to solve my problems. I don't have a problem with saying that it is my parents' fault for the state I'm in, but that it is *my* responsibility to get out of that state. Personal responsibility is not in vogue right now, but I hope that changes.
Here are some thoughts about abuse, pornography, and trauma.
1. Viewing sexually explicit images of children indicates a treatable disorder or sickness. Sending someone to prison for possession of child pornography is only slightly more helpful than killing that same person. Samuels (from the article) will go to prison, where he will most likely find no resources to help him with his problem, to help him understand himself why he found those images exciting, and how that kind of thinking is damaging to himself and others. He will leave prison only older but no wiser, and just as likely to desire sexual images of children again. But, probably, a great deal more careful about it.
2. For nearly all child sex offenders, the issue is totally about control. Not sex, but control. It is about the control of a defenseless individual, and the offender gets sexually excited primarily due to the control, perhaps secondarily due to the child (or not at all). This offender is not that different from someone who beats, controls, or otherwise abuses a spouse for sex (but the trauma is naturally much worse on the child than a spouse).
3. The laws in the US dealing with child abuse are abominable and out-dated. I'll stop right there with my opinion, and you can check out "Just Before Dawn" by Jan Hindman. It systematically and scientifically investigates the nature of abuse and does away with many of the myths surrounding causes of abuse, types of abuse, and resultant trauma, and points out the problems and gaping holes in our legal system and victim support system that do little to help the victim, the child.
4. I like porn, probably like many of you. While I am beginning to form what most of you would call "normal" relationships, I have relationships also with several strippers and hookers. I know something about sex workers that many of you don't, or at least aren't thinking about while you're getting off: the overwhelming majority of all porn stars, hookers, and strippers were molested as children. There was a study done several years back (sorry I don't have a reference for it) that reported that out of a few hundred porn stars surveyed, 98% of them reported being sexually abused as a child. I haven't known hundreds, but all the hookers and strippers I have really talked with have told me of their child abuse, most little or no prodding.
It's funny when you hear Greg Giraldo on "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" make a joke about how American society is obsessed with pushing the limits, "how we want to set a land speed record in a car, see how many hot dogs you can eat in
So, if our P2P file sharing networks get shut down, kiddie pr0n won't be leached for free as much, kiddie pr0n syndicates will get more money, they will abuse more children, and the RIAA will be directly responsible for all of the young girls and boys lives ruined through that industry.
And to think.... most of us thought Microsoft got dirty money for selling information in sleazy ways.
P.s. this post was not a joke.... well blaming the RIAA for child pr0n was, but the rest was serious.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
I worked at an electronics store and a customer returned a computer for a refund, I checked it out after it was returned and they had templates in there to generate fake proof of insurance certificates for cars. I notified the store loss prevention. They agreed that the person was using the computer for illegal purposes but decided not to contact the police for fear that the customer would sue them for "invasion of privacy". What a bunch of crap. Then a year or so later, I was working on a computer that belonged to a state supreme court judge and it had some pornograpy on it including under-aged porn. We decided not to do anything about it because we figured he might be using it for a court case. My general rule on working on people's home computers is that they all have porn. Just do a search for *.jpg and sort by size. I've never been disappointed when searching.
Wait for that person to leave there desk and leave a nice, polite, unsigned note saying:
"I know that you have child porn on your computer. You cannot hide it. If I ever EVER find it again YOU SICK FUCK, your ass will be in jail and Bubba will use you as his child porn bitch."
Something tells me that would go a long way in solving the problem... At work at least.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
...And, in fact, we have a new case about once a week, once every 2 if it's slow.
Here's what we do:
We find $STUDENT to have images,movies,mp3s whatever on the server (P-90 running Novell 4, 9 GB HD- ancient as heck, but, being SCSI, works okay)
We then:
Lock their account (once or twice, we just gave 'read-only' permission- those were funny, we'd get a call saying '$STUDENT' can't save to their folder-says something about permissions? then we explain that $STUDENT did something they shouldn't have, and have been locked out. have them go see asst. principle for more info)
go talk to principle/assitant principle about it
for the 'Net, we have a Proxy server running. 'nuff said. logs it for IP and MAC addresses. we get calls from district office (where they have the time to sit and watch traffic go by) and walk in behind the kids some times. tap them on the shoulder, and drag them upstairs.
we do scan for large files (on our network, that means 500k or more, as each student *should* (should because Mac files don't show up as correct file size on Novell, long story) only have about 5-10 MB of stuff. we don't delete, we just lock down and report. we don't do anything until building administration decides what to do about student.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Yep, Dallas, Texas.
Article is here.
The same goes for pictures "morphed" into something bad, but in a different way. This is not a sign of the morality police, but a way of preventing any kind of brain-food for perverts to get their fix. It's entirely questionable as to if this actually helps at all (some will have their addiction starve off and die, others will go looking harder) but it does have a logical purpose other than enforcing morality.
That's plain bullshit. Child porn laws were passed to prevent the sexual exploitation of children. 'Morphing', as you call it, creates fictitious porn in which no children were harmed in any way whatsoever.
Personally, I don't understand the mind that finds such things titillating. But I can clearly reason that fictitious porn harms no child, and therefore has no business being prosecuted under child porn laws - since no children were involved in the making of it.
So you might find it sick and twisted and perverted. That's nice, but no justification for a law when no harm is done. Fact is, I find religion sick, twisted and perverted in *any* form, but I don't go around demanding that laws be passed to prosecute the practitioners. So long as the religious perverts don't go about harming anyone, they can indulge in whatever sordid activities that they want, no matter how disturbing I find personally find them.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
So if we remove the 'fake stuff' the only thing left they can do is go for 'the real thing'. That's how I feel. I don't get what the allure to naked children is either, but child rape and molestation has been around a lot longer than child porn, and I think that in societies where there aren't laws that prevent the sharing and posession of such pictures there is a lot less exploitation of children.
I feel the same way about illegal substances. Nobody would get shot over drugs if you could go get them at the liquor store. The prohibition forces the culture to become make-or-break violent.
Also, you fail to address that at least some of the child porn out there is completely consentual and non-coerced. I remember when I was nine a female friend and I took 'child porn' polaroids of each other because it was fun and not-allowed. Is that sick or immoral? I don't think so, just a little weird.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails