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Randal Schwartz's Charges Expunged

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the about-time dept.

After 13 years, Randal Schwartz has had his conviction expunged. In effect, legally it never happened. If you haven't heard about this one before, my take is that as a contractor at Intel, Randal did some over-zealous white-hat cracking free-of-charge; this embarrassed some people in management (he pointed out that their passwords were terrible) and management then chose to embarrass themselves further by having him convicted of a felony under an 'anti-hacking' law. More info can be had from the Friends of Randal Schwartz.

8 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Expungement is the sealing of a criminal record by viking80 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Expungement is the sealing of a criminal record so it is not publicly available. The consequence might be that you can deny you have a criminal record, but it is quite different from a pardon, which is forgiveness of a crime and the penalty associated with it.

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  2. Re:Ditto; FBI can still see it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    There was a PDF file linked on the http://www.lightlink.com/spacenka/fors/Friends of Randal Schwartz site states:

    IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the clerk of the Court shall forward a certified copy of this Order to all law enforcement agencies mentioned in the Court's file, including the following:
    A. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, and
    B. The Oregon State Police, and
    C. The Oregon State Corrections Division, and
    D. The Arresting Agency, Portland Police Bureau. So the FBI can't use it against him. The PDF file is a copy of the expungement order from the court.
  3. Re:If you're going to blow the whistle by Matt+Perry · · Score: 4, Informative

    I didn't realise this was blowing the whistle; I thought it was part of any good IT department employees job. That is to ensure all passwords, more so management passwords, are as secure as possible.
    He wasn't an employee of Intel. He was a contractor hired to do a specific job which wasn't checking for password security.
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  4. Re:Whither $68k? by merlyn · · Score: 4, Informative

    First, the amount in dispute was less than $5K. Second, the lower court just reaffirmed what they said before. In other words, no net change. So yes, I still paid roughly $68K in restitution, at the end of the day.

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  5. Re:How's that for revisionist history? by merlyn · · Score: 5, Informative
    "His position at Intel was not involved in security, intrusion detection, or other areas that might actually call for "white hat hacking" as part of the job function.".

    Wrong, I was a systems and network administrator. According to job description, that's part of the job.

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  6. Re:Congratulations by merlyn · · Score: 5, Informative
    "He installed backdoors at 3 companies"

    Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence, your honor!

    Sustained.

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  7. Re:Legally Never Happened by merlyn · · Score: 4, Informative

    I never lost my right to vote. Only four states do that, not Oregon.

    I can probably still get out of jury duty, since I now have a bias about criminal convictions. {grin}

    I can't possess firearms yet. I have to apply to the BATF separately. I plan on doing that, but it's not yet in progress.

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  8. Re:How's that for revisionist history? by merlyn · · Score: 4, Informative

    The password was "pre$ident". Yes, president, with the s changed to a dollar sign. Which "crack" found.

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