Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Fires Mac Fan For Blog Photo
christor writes "Microsoft has fired a full-time temp employee after it discovered that the employee posted in his blog a photo and story concerning Microsoft's purchase of what looks to be around 18 G5s.
Check out the blog entry, Even Microsoft wants G5s, and the one that follows it. Microsoft fired the blogger, despite an offer to take the posting down. Note that this is not a free speech issue, even though the blog was hosted on a non-company server, because Microsoft is not, yet, the government. But it does present several other interesting issues, including that of the trade-off between the bad publicity that comes from the firing and whatever bad results follow when employees feel free to post such things."
It is difficult to develop Mac applications without Mac boxes.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
I'm pretty sure that if I posted confidential information about my company, they would fire me too. All I have to say to this person is, duh.
However, there is probably more to this story than we are reading -- mainly because the site is /.-ed.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
For those who can't get to the article, he wasn't fired for posting the pic about mac's at Microsoft. As he pointed out Microsoft is widely known to have used Mac's in different operations (like their Mac software unit) for years. He was fired for a fairly innocous describing of part of the physical layout of their campus. While I'm not exactly fond of beast of Redmond, they do have some pretty valid security concerns. After all, if you made something that routinely pissed off millions of people every year you'd probably be a little paranoid about your security too.
I don't think there is that much OS discrimination within the company, with the exception that each developer needs to have a windows machine for obvious reasons. I think MS fired him because he was blatently trying to embarrass the company.
MS is making a big push towards platform independent applications via managed code. I heard from one employee that the vast majority of products will need to be re-written for the
A. He's just a temp
B. He's demonstrated a propensity to take photos of things "behind the scenes" at Microsoft and publish them on the internet.
I don't expect they cared too much about this incident, but it identifies him as someone willing to snipe at his own place of employment on the internet. Being a temp, no reason to negotiate, just fire and forget. Why bother getting promises of good behavior from him that he'll likely reneg on next week when you can push the recycle button.
Seems like a perfectly reasonable decision to me, and this guy had it coming.
Well, considering that they DO develop mac software (Office, IE), I don't think it's really a mystery why they wanted the boxes.
I agree with you completely, on a technical level.
There's probably no doubt the guy broke 'the rules' as its very, very easy to do. Almost everyone breaks one of the standard workplace 'rules' per day. Same with the law - I am a total criminal, I jaywalk multiple times a day, and I've run red lights before.
The difference is in the interpretation. Like the law, the spirit is supposed to be observed, not just the letter.
What I am saying is this: he broke the rules and he shouldn't have been fired. Yes it was a picture of a part of the MS campus, a loading dock. Yes, technically it was a security breach. Yes, it was against the rules. No, he should not have been fired. Why?
Because anyone can see he has not actually caused any damage to Microsoft. Nothing has happened. No one seriously thinks he has imperiled their development efforts, physical security, or anything else. Every one of these managers knows that the kid just screwed up, but they're going by the book and not with their brains.
If we don't cut each other some slack, and use some bloody judgment, we may as all submit to the Giant Corporate Shell Script that tells us when to take lunch, when to take a shit, when to make small talk with workers. Rules are there to be interpreted with wisdom and intelligence. That's the way I see it.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I don't think there is that much OS discrimination within the company, with the exception that each developer needs to have a windows machine for obvious reasons. I think MS fired him because he was blatently trying to embarrass the company.
This is not really the issue (or it's very unlikely that it's the case).
There are probably two factors that played a role. First, while the particular picture is not a big deal, maintaining a policy of not sending out pictures *is* a big deal. If people get in the habit of snapping pictures, sooner or later, important data will leak. Where I work, you just can't have cameras, and just can't take pictures. It's not unusual. Most companies won't just let you walk in and start taking pictures wherever you want. I've known people over the course of my life that *have* been involved in corporate espionage, and a small camera is a seriously useful tool for someone who can't afford to be standing in front of something for a couple of minutes scribbling things down on a clipboard. It's not an unreasonable policy demand at all, though I think it should probably be made more clear to temps. I applaud the guy for not flying off the handle over this.
Second of all, this information *could* be damaging. It's a pretty safe bet that Microsoft conducts competitive research (though the building name tends to make me think that this is not the case). If competitors know what Microsoft is examining, it could put them on guard as to what Microsoft is trying to use from them. Furthermore, it lets them arm the lawyers, so that the moment Microsoft steps near infringing on a patent or whatnot, they can smack them. In this particular case, there's not a lot of suspicious information, but if, say, Microsoft was picking up a handful of iPods, something that doesn't generally have a direct business application (and it seems unlikely that the guy here would stop at snapping a picture with a caption of "Even Microsoft Wants iPods"), things might be a bit worse. Even if it's not competitive research, the contents of a company's loading docks can be quite valuable information. If Boeing has crates and crates marked "titanium sheets" sitting around, you can damn well bet that other airplane-producing defense contractors will be very interested. If Sony's Aibo division has a bunch of bales of fake fur on their loading docks, competitors have a good guess as to where the product is going, and time to produce marketing campaigns and make deals appropriately.
So...I have to say that I can see how frusterating it is for the temp guy, but it's not as if Microsoft Security is firing him for liking Macs and working at Microsoft. Hell, of the people I know that have worked at Microsoft, two of them really like Linux, and one kept a Tux doll in his cubicle. MS doesn't really care about something like that -- they care about potential leaks, or precedent being set that could lead to future leaks.
May we never see th
I'll back you up on that statement. I was supporting Microsoft products (Windows 2000 Professional. Then NT Server, Services for Unix, Services for Macintosh, and Proxy 2.0.) through an outsourcer and had plenty of contact and meetings with regular employees as well as temps (a- accounts). There are several employees that are fans of other OSes. Heck, I personally had a big 20th Anniversary Macintosh poster in my cubicle. Microsoft understands diversity and embraces it in the company.
On the other hand, if you come to work taking pictures of internal affairs and publish them on the web with blatant intentions of making your employer look bad, how the fuck do you expect them to react!?!
-Lucas
Come on, the camera as security issue is bogus. What are you gonna do, stop everyone with a cell phone because you can now snap 1.2 megapixel pictures with some models and send them in real time?
Yes. It wasn't long ago that there was an article on Slashdot about how some big Japanese company with a research wing was banning the use of camera cell phones.
Even companies that allow people to carry them may have policies against use of the camera on company grounds. This is difficult to enforce, yes...but as it happened, if someone posted pictures to a weblog and an exec got ahold of them, they'd know that they were taking pictures.
No, it wasn't even a question of security, because the first question they asked him is if it (the page in question) was hosted on a Microsoft-owned server (wtf - they couldn't even do a traceroute? oops, forgot - this is Microsoft, not the most tech-savvy company out there by a long shot).
This is unreasonable on your part. Microsoft is not limited to paying for machines in the MICROSOFT.NET and MICROSOFT.COM domains. A number of companies use cohosting/colocation services. Microsoft, if working on a project, especially with outsiders, could easily be using a system not in their regular domain. Sure, it probably wasn't going to be true, but it likely provides the company with legal ammunition (there may be a policy against non-work-related personal use of Microsoft-owned systems), and they then have witnessed claims from him.
If it had been, they would have sacked him for misuse of company property. Since they couldn't they went to their fall-back position, which is that it was a breech of security to let the general public know where the building was located - never mind that the location is already public knowledge - city hall has it, the public utilities have it, the phone company has a detailed layout of the whole site, delivery companies have it, former employees have it (unless they're being mind-wiped on termination), yada yada yada. It's not a secret, so their excuse was typical microsoft bullshit.
They almost certainly aren't trying to prevent people from knowing the "location of the building". You didn't read my post -- I was arguing that they were worried about precedent-setting and possibly the contents of the loading dock itself.
As far as preventing leaks, this is a company with a history of leaking like a sieve halloween is here - we want more halloween documents, just like their products.
Ridiculous. Microsoft took reasonable precautions -- this is legally significant if a leaking employee gets isolated and a trade secret case can be made -- to keep those memos secret. They were probably not sent to outside addresses, etc. There is no way a company the size of MS can stop internal memos from leaking completely, and leaks in the past *certainly* do not mean that the company should throw up their hands and give up on plugging current leaks.
May we never see th
Let's look at this from an ethics standpoint. If the guy had posted a picture of himself dressed as Mary Poppins frolicking in his yard, then it's not an issue for his work. If he published pictures of his personally owned Windows PC blue-screening and bitched about it in his blog, that's not cause for Microsoft to take action against him, either.
It's when you cross that line between home and work that it gets ugly. The guy took digital photos of his employer's non-public building areas while there as an employee. He identified himself as a Microsoft employee, in what department he worked, and in what building. He used poor judgement and he knows it. Microsoft didn't commit some horrible atrocity against the Mac community by firing the guy. They did not quelch his free speech rights. They fired some loose cannon who was wandering around the campus taking digital photos and posting them on his own web page. The whole story is just sensationalistic: Microsoft Fires Mac Fan For Blog Photo. It had nothing to do with his being a "Mac Fan." What's next?
Come on folks.
Criminal trespass is the unlawful access by a person to anothers' property. Your example (McDonalds) is not only lame - it's not true. I can walk into a McDonalds (not that I would - I've been boycotting them since they started making pizzas) with a group of friends, order a meal, and start snapping pictures of our little party.
If they were to even try to physically confiscate the camera, I would be well within my rights to call the police and sue for assault. So, where was the trespass? Hell, I can even take pictures of what is plainly in view and they can't say anything, as long as I'm there as a customer.
They would have to have the "no cameras" ban posted prominently AS YOU ENTER THE STORE. Anything else just won't cut it in court. For example, you see the "No dogs allowed" sign (which I fortunately am allowed to ignore - lucky me, life isn't a total suck :-) AT THE DOOR, not at the back of the building.
This is the same rationale that the MPAA wanted to ban text messaging because people were texting each other during the movie to say "the hulk sux".
They're going to have to get used to the idea that, in a wired world, what goes on in public is available for public consumption and recording for posterity.
It's the same as using your phone while in WalMart to call your buddy at CostCo to find out which of the two has the better price this week. Not only not illegal, but attempting to stop you would be a federal crime, as it is interference with a lawful telecommunication.
Remember, just because most people don't know their rights doesn't mean that those rights cease to exist for everyone.
You're right--the blogger wasn't fired because of security reasons--the picture didn't reveal any secrets in their strategy. Hell, it's fairly common knowledge that BillG carted in Lisa's and Mac's from the start. MS makes a mac version of office among other products--how the hell are they supposed to do that without having access to Apple hardware?
You're DEAD WRONG on another front--you infer that the blogger was wrongfully terminated because of "Microsoft bullshit". I'm a Linux evangelist myself, but in this case I think Microsoft did the typical and understandable thing in dismissing him. After all, do you think Red Hat would be happy if an employee released a picture of himself or a co-worker happily clicking around Windows XP at work, wrote an article entitled "We like BillG's stuff" and posted it on the internet? Doesn't matter WHO the employer is, I think he would've at LEAST had some interesting words with his boss.
This guy was quite likely breaching conflict of interest policies by embarassing his employer. He posted a picture of a load of Macs coming off a truck in a loading dock and identified it as being on the Microsoft campus. Not a violation in and of itself. Then he proceeded to identify himself as an EMPLOYEE of Microsoft and the author of the picture! I'd say if he wrote a blog entry flattering to Microsoft (along the lines of "look--MS wants to be multi-platform and play nice with others"), maybe he would've kept his job.
No..he was foolish enough to write a blog entry RIDICULING HIS EMPLOYER. ANY compnay would do the same thing if ridiculed by an employee in a very public forum.
Coca-Cola would (and has) fired employees for releasing pictures of pallets of Pepsi sitting in a warehouse surrounded by Coke and making the suggestion that "Coke was trying to learn a thing or two from Pepsi" (Both Coke and Pepsi bottlers have policies regarding how competitors products are to be handled on their premesis--you could be fired for drinking a Coke product in a Pepsi lunch room, particularly if you are caught with it by media representatives or a plant tour group).
GM would not tolerate the publication of a person identified as a GM employee enjoying a cruise in his Ford Mustang--if that employee was a willing participant in the activity.
Even a local mom-and-pop pizza joint would take issue with an employee eating Domino's in view of customers-or even just talking about how he or other employees prefer the competiton.
Was termination justified? I'm not quite sure. Some form of discipline, however, is completely understandable.
So what? It's not a bank, a nuclear research facility, the changing rooms of Moulin Rouge; it's an office building.
Was he hired to take digital photos of company property? It's not his office building. It's theirs. If they don't want photos of it floating around the net, that's their call.
Think about the questions that go through the minds of the security people: Today it was the loading dock but what will it be tomorrow? The new X-Box, our development lab? Photos of company-proprietary memos? Why is the guy wandering around the campus taking pictures with a digital camera?
You also don't seem to understand how industrial espionage works. They might be just Macs to you. Someone else might have other information that they are able to put together with that in order to ascertain something that Microsoft wishes to keep secret.
And in all the places I've worked, no one has ever cared what snaps anyone took or what they did with them.
Where have you worked? JC Penney and Walmart? Most engineering firms are very guarded and don't want pictures of their facilities distributed over the Internet.
Look, you can say that they have a right to protect whatever, but the photographs have no discerning characteristics. He even took care to make sure of that. More importantly, the photo is of just macs... which we all know they get because they have a Mac unit.
So... your theories are great but ultimately not relevant. If they truly cared about future incidents they could've asked him to take the photo down, reprimanded him, and then sent email to the company asking that people don't do that.
But, instead they just fired the guy. Your theories don't mesh with the other facts.
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx