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Randal Schwartz's Charges Expunged
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.
The terrible thing about character assassination is that the event never had to happen. All you have to do is start a rumor about travel expenses and the victim is as good as blacklisted at big dumb companies where lip service is given to leadership but obedience and conformity are valued above all else.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The former CEO of aforementioned computer company actually wrote a business book with the word "paranoid" in its title. A bad match for top shelf Perl hackers, who are some of the quickest, wittiest, and down-to-earth people in our business.
Congratulations Mr. Schwartz.
and Randall still can't get a clearance without being upfront about it.
... Good on ya, Randall!
Basically it means he can tell a police officer he's never been arrested and doesn't need to disclose it on a non-clearance employment application or any "low grade" background check like rentin an apartment.
With that out of the way, Randal has helped me out on comp.lang.perl (right before it went moderated) so
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Yes, I am almost as happy as this one as with the RIAA having to pay legal fees, despite how much I laugh at the American legal system its nice to see that even there Justice can prevail
Make SELinux enforcing again!
... if you keep fighting, eventually justice can work for "the little guy."
Well, maybe, but what I always find interesting in cases like this is: How much money did it cost?
All too often, when the "little guy" wins, he's also bankrupt.
Anyone know what the bill was for all this legal action?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
> > "He installed backdoors at 3 companies"
> Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence, your honor!
Ok sorry, just Intel.
Sorry for implying you're an asshat, but that linked document made you sound like one. Guess i should read more about it from your perspective before passing judgement.
Glad your legal battle is finally over.
I'll never claim that I wasn't stupid. It's not my job to get you to like me. The point of my case is to pay attention to the mistakes I made, because a lot of people have told me that they either have or could have made similar mistakes. Maybe some of you are so perfect that you wouldn't. Good for you. But don't be so quick to judge that nobody would be that stupid then. Please.
Firing would be justified, especially after being told multiple times to stop.
But while stupid, his actions didn't warrant criminal prosection, which is the crux of most of the arguments against this case.
- Matt
I have had a felony expunged before, and in my experience, it wasn't a big deal at all. My conviction was computer-related as well, and all I had to do was wait a certain amount of time and then apply at the county court house to have it expunged. I had a hearing with just a magistrate to explain why I wanted it expunged (all I had to say was that I felt it would effect my employment opportunities), and paid something like 20.00 in court costs. That was all it took.
The network administrator is responsible for any breach of security on the network.
By your own argument he was therefore absolutely responsible for the breach of security on the network that he himself caused. And yes, it was a breach, installing a backdoor for offsight access without permission - or at the very least notification to IT - is a breach of security.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
IANAL, but I work for a defense lawyer who handles expungements.
The whole point about expungement is that the court thinks you were guilty but is letting you off anyway because you've filled certain statutory criteria.
The most usual criterion (other than turning 18) is the passage of time.
This isn't justice delayed. The delay is the whole point. The court still thinks he's guilty but is letting him off anyway.
This means he can stop fighting REGARDLESS on whether or not the justice system thinks he was guilty.