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Perl's Chip Salzenberg Sued, Home Raided
Chip continues: "The key evidence in the search warrant was so ridiculous as to be surreal: CVS logs indicating that I downloaded more than I uploaded, and that I sometimes accessed the company network from home. Apparently, for company management, the police, and a judge, working at home through a gateway the company set up for that very purpose, and refraining from editing every source file for every code change, is a sign of nefarious behavior.
My behavior in accessing the company network was entirely within my job description and in no way involved misappropriation of anything. For the more than two years that I worked at HMS, I used ssh and CVS to access company files with my laptop both from work and home, with management knowledge and approval.
What would lead management to such a sudden action? Days beforehand, I had made an internal report of unethical and apparently illegal behavior by the company: Use of open proxies for web harvesting to avoid blockage by web site operators. HMS apparently decided that working with me to address their use of open proxies was not an option.
Health Market Science is a large corporation with, compared to me, effectively infinite resources. My legal bills have topped $40K already over just two months. If HMS succeeds in tarring me with their false accusations, what's to stop your employer or client from doing the same to you, should your relationship sour?
Friends have set up GeeksUnite.net, an informational web site and Legal Defense Fund. The site includes the search warrant, my letter about open proxy abuse, and court documents.
Please contribute to my Defense Fund to fight this attack on the normal and legal work practices of millions of tech workers. Every little bit counts! If every person who visits the site contributes only ten dollars, that will make a huge difference. Only through community effort can we protect ourselves."
The person in charge of maintaining the Perl code used to have (still has?) a stuffed pumpkin they used to pass around. Project manager is a good parallel.
Gosh, I could google it faster than slashdot will let me finish a post: http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/P/pumpking.html
Here is where these slease balls brag about their customers. Contact them:o mers.html
http://www.healthmarketscience.com/customers/cust
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
It might be a violation of the terms of service with their ISP, but I'm not sure it's illegal... In any case, if what he was doing turns out to be illegal then it really doesn't matter if he has the goods on the company or not.
Depends on which "what he was doing" you mean: if what the company is accusing him of doing were true, whistleblower laws would not protect him. But the charges they are leveling reek of retaliatory accusations with no substance. He is protected from that.
If the actions he took at the company's behest (ie, developing software to work around ISP blocks of their spyders) is illegal, whistleblower laws do protect him, provided he reports the illegal actions to the proper authorities when he becomes aware of their illegality.
None of the views expressed in the website constitute the views of the Armstrong & Carosella PC law firm, or any
principals or employees, or agents or experts who have been retained in any capacity in connection with the case.
Information on this site is for educational purposes. Case Caption: Health Market Science, Inc. v Charles H. Salzenberg, Jr..
Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Case Number: 05-11918
Donate today, to the
Chip Salzenberg Defense Fund. Over $40k in legal defense fees incurred since April 23, 2005.
Protect yourself from the same thing happening to you. Learn from this site, mirror it. Please donate. We thank you for your help.
OMITTED from the Company's Pleadings,
UN-INVESTIGATED by the Detective,
it caused IMMEDIATE ACTION by the CEO,
READ the LETTER that started it all!
Why care?
We didn't ask for this fight but we do hope that the telecommuting community learns from it. As a well known contributor to OpenSource and perl for many years, Chip continued his efforts to protect the spirit of opensource and the internet by attempting to inform his employer...sadly it brought on serious consequences in the form of an ugly legal battle with results that can affect all employees and consultants who hook up to an employer's network. We urgently need your help. The Chip Salzenberg Defense Fund is an escrow account sponsored by the law firm of Armstrong and Carosella to help pay the mounting legal defense fees for Chip Salzenberg and his family. The funds will only be used for legal costs to defend Charles Salzenberg and his family against Health Market Science, Inc. Donations are NOT tax deductible. Thank you in advance. We would love to hear from you.
Donate by email
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You'll be able to pay by credit/debit card or using your Paypal account. Send email to: gifts@geeksunite.net.
Donate by Mail
If you would prefer to mail your donation, please send it to the following address:
Chip Salzenberg Defense Fund Escrow
Care of: Armstrong & Carosella
882 S. Matlack Street
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Make Checks payable to Chip Salzenberg Defense Fund Escrow" (NOT tax deductible).
If you have questions or need additional information about making a gift to the Chip Salzenberg Defense Fund,
please call 925-457-6634 or email gifts@geeksunite.net.
June 21, 2005 Intervener's Too Late? - DA Gives Away Computers Early. Company Already Imaging.
June 20, 2005 Emergency Stays Filed by All Parties - In an Attempt to Keep Property from falling into the Wrong Hands
June 17, 2005 Judge Awards Personal Property to Company - Admits to NOT Reading Salzenberg's Opposition.
June 16, 2005 Company Runs Interference - Files Motion to Intercept Released Computers Contrary to the May 2, Order and the "Return of Property" laws.
June 6, 2005 DA Drops Criminal Investigation - Annouces Return of the Seized Property to Salzenberg.
May 2, 2005 Company Agrees Not to Enforce Exparte Orders - Property to be Returned to Salzenberg unless another motion is filed.
April 26, 2005 Company files Exparte - Receives orders to intercept equipment from police to start imaging.
April 25, 2005 Salzenberg receives back dated letter from company "accepting his resignation"
April 21, 2005 Salenberg's Property Seized within hours of police report made by CEO.
April 20, 2005 Salzenberg and CEO exchange emails and faxes in an attempt to negotiate a face to face conversation. CEO finally gives the OK to Salzenberg bringing an attorney with him.
April 19, 2005 Salzenberg sends compliance letter to CEO. Salzenberg also sends follow up message to COO that he has "not resigned". CEO immediately locks Salzenberg out of company email and network.
April 18, 2005 Another employee leaves company after voicing compliance issues.
remember when it was {of|for|by} the people?
Charles H. Salzenberg, Jr.
P O Box 537
Southeastern, PA 19399
Health Market Science
2700 Horizon Dr. Ste 200
King of Prussia, PA 19406
Attn: Mark Brosso, Matt Reichert, Rich Ferris, Rob DiMarco, Dorothy O'Hara
Re: Legality and Morality of Harvesting Operations
It has recently come to my attention that that HMS is continuing the illegal and immoral web harvesting operation that I brought to Rich Ferris's attention over a month ago, in a conversation including Tim McCune. HMS's continued harvesting operations are a threat to me legally, morally, and professionally.
That HMS systematically collects data from web sites without the express permission of their owners is well known (inside HMS). Some web site operators are not pleased when (if) they figure out that their sites are being harvested. They sometimes respond by blocking the network addresses of the harvesting machines. This was a common problem in harvesting when I hired on to HMS in December of 2002. At that time, the accepted strategy for getting around such blocks was to obtain multiple web hosting accounts to act as proxies for HMS's harvesting systems. I did not then realize that knowingly bypassing blocks placed by web server operators was illegal. (As a result of other research, detailed below, I now know that has been illegal all along.)
As bad as HMS's past harvesting practice was, current practice is worse ... much worse.
HMS has taken a page from the spammer playbook and is, deliberately and under
management direction, hijacking thousands of vulnerable machines all over the
Internet, using them and their network bandwidth without the knowledge or
permission of their owners as unwitting accomplices in HMS's data harvesting
operation.
I have confirmed these facts in conversations with several people with first-hand knowledge, including Tim McCune and John Marquart. I asked Tim McCune about HMS's proxy hijacking in the presence of Rich Ferris, a vice president of HMS and a company founder. In that conversation, Tim McCune confirmed to Rich Ferris and me that proxy hijacking was standard practice. Shocked, I informed Tim and Rich that proxy hijacking is very illegal and immoral. They were unmoved. I also have witnesses for other conversations.
I have also confirmed that the Harvester source code - which I, as a Senior Programmer, am authorized to access - includes Java code which collects lists of such vulnerable computers, called "open proxies," from web sites that maintain lists of them. I have also found the Java code which uses such proxies, without the permission of their owners, to connect to the sites that HMS harvests. The offending source code was written by Rob DiMarco, Tim McCune, and Jason Franklin.
This deplorable activity by HMS has serious legal, moral, and professional implications.
First, the legal.
I am not a lawyer, but I can read the plain English of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, and it is clear to me that hijacking the computers of random people is a crime in Pennsylvania. Under PSC 3933, every instance - every single instance - of hijacking an open proxy is a misdemeanor of the first degree.
HMS is committing these misdemeanors by the tens of thousands, under explicit management direction, and in accord with corporate strategy. One petty theft may draw little attention; but tens of thousands of petty thefts, all made by one company, at explicit management direction, and in accord with company strategy, might well lead to unpleasant legal consequences. Even a small fine is painful when multiplied by a hundred thousand.
HMS thus makes itself an attractive target for prosecution by a state's attorney who wants to show himself tough on corporate crime. HMS could be a stand-in for the spammers who commit the same crimes.
HMS's legal exposure is not limited to Pennsylvania. A number of the sites that HMS harvests are run by governments of other states who would be
Ok, the Pennsylvania Common Pleas Court is partially online, and the docket sheets are available with a little digging. Too bad the full text isn't available.
5 -11918. Looks like a motion for a temporary restraining order and for expedited discovery and preservation of documents was filed on April 26, and was granted ex parte (without the defendant being able to argue) by Judge Joseph J. Smyth. The latest emergency motions appear to be filed to reinstate this order, presumably as a result of the computers being released after the criminal matters were dismissed. I am very curious to know what's going on with the intervenors - Radian Guaranty and Lisa Perdichizzi. It's Perdichizzi who filed a motion for sanctions against the Plaintiffs on June 22, and there's nothing on the docket sheets since then.
CRIMINAL MATTER: Docket Number: CP-46-MD-0002495-2005. Filed 4/27/2005. CASE STATUS: CLOSED. Last event was a hearing on the return of property, on 6/10/2005 before Judge William J. Furber, Jr.
CIVL MATTER: Docet Number: 05-11918 (Judge Hodgson). A deep link to the docket sheet is http://12.40.122.125/FCP2.WEB8/0/P12DIS?CASE-NO=0
It's all part of a wider corruption. Large corrupters spend huge amounts to get lazy judges elected, and work for the defeat of judges who do a good job.
Part of the way corruption of the courts is accomplished by not giving the courts enough money to operate. A 2003-06-24 op-ed article by Charles Williamson, then president of the Oregon State Bar, in The Oregonian, the Northwest's largest newspaper, said, "The crippling loss of nearly one-third of their staff have left our courts unable to hear criminal cases such as car theft, shoplifting, prostitution, fraud and identity theft."
The corruption of the patent office is part of the same thing. Large corrupt corporations want stupid patents because they can scare others away from coming close to their technology. They don't care if they lose a few court cases. Taking something to court is so expensive that they win just because of the threat.
The book Other People's Money discusses corporate corruption. It's excellent.
35 Books and 3 movies say the Bush administration is the most corrupt the U.S. has ever had: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
Many Americans don't want to know that their government has become corrupt, so you can expect hostile comments if you try to talk about corruption.