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Sysadmin Steals Almost 20,000 Pieces of Computer Equipment
coondoggie writes "Now this is some serious computer theft. We're talking 19,709 pieces of stolen computer equipment from the US Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. The theft included everything from PCs and printer toner to hard drives, software and other office equipment amounting to over $120,000, according to court documents and published reports."
So my guess is a few big ticket items, and then lots and lots and LOTS of some small item.
The average cost of the items are:
$120,000/19709 = $6.08
So either the Navy is doing a *good* job of penny pinching with their part of the defense budget or that the person really like stealing stuff that are worthy of Walmart.
What does this have to do with YRO? That is, unless he stole the suff over SSH...
Seems pretty lenient considering this is a case of grand theft and potentially identity theft since there was information about contractors. It could also be construed, perhaps, as terrorism or treason considering the organization the equipment and data was stolen from.
Contrast this with penalties for copying music over the internet. Is "Enter Sandman" a more valuable national resource than naval research equipment and data in Washington?
It's a bad idea to give away excess merchandise to employees though. It can encourage people to intentionally overbuy products simply because they know it will be given to them when it doesn't sell.
A better solution is to have someone box it all up and donate it, assuming it's something worth donating.
I walked past the Apple Store in Chatswood (NSW) yesterday some time after closing time. The front of the store was all barred but I could see in easily, and there were several people inside who all looked to be Apple Store employees.
It appeared to me, on the way past, that one of them was inspecting the backpack of another. So my guess is that all employees' bags are searched before they leave the store each day, to prevent them leaving with highly desirable iPhones and iMacs and stuff.
Can't say I'd enjoy working in an environment where I get searched after every shift, but I can understand Apple's motivation to do so.
The process can probably be subverted fairly easily. If they only check bags after store close, then remove the goods at lunch time instead, maybe in a pocket. Do like some previous posters have explained as the modus operandi for workplace thieves, and "disappear" items before removing them, to see if the loss goes unnoticed. Anyway no security process is ever foolproof, if the Apple process reduces employee theft to an acceptable level, then more power to them.
The next time some physicist is accused of misplacing (or selling) secret data, just remember this. NRL isn't just some lab somewhere, it's a military lab. While I'm sure this guy didn't want to go selling secrets anywhere, taking old hard drives can lose some scientists their jobs very easily.
...to check if your boss is one of the people making use of the 'loophole' before going to report on him ;=)
He wasn't in on it. I think it was more of an issue of my boss not wanting it to come down on his head. Safer to just play dumb about the whole thing than to actually acknowledge that there's a problem.
This guy's the limit!
Hard drives are now $6.00? What did he grab? The MFM lying around? The drum over in the corner?
The average estimated value of each item was $6.09. OK, what is a hard disk worth?
I have 200G ATA hard disk, what is it worth? Seriously, what is it worth? It has two values, the "book" value which you use for accounting and things like insurance, and you have the "functional" value. The functional value is nothing, zip, nada. It was upgraded to a 500G gig. I don't need to 200G hard disk, there no point in putting it into a system as it uses more power than it is worth. I can get a "green" drive with 2 to 4 times the storage that will cost me less in a year of electricity.
For me, I'll keep it in case I need to build a test system. For a big organization, it is actually best to let it "walk away" and take the deduction for loss.
"were talking 'military spec' pencils"
I know you're joking, but I was thinking something similar. Could it be ex-military spec junk hardware?. It could just be junk hardware that's getting thrown out (over a 10 year period), but is not officially signed off as allowed to be taken home as junk. From the paper trail it would look like the junk was still owned. Plus if people leave the organisation who allowed others to take some old junk home, then it would be hard to prove it was given away as rubbish. The paperwork would say it was still owned.
Considering how they are (only) now starting to take security a lot more seriously, I'm wondering if they are making an example of this person, who's basically got a house and/or garage full of junk?. Plus a system admin working for them, would probably get access to a lot of junk old hardware. It could just be old rubbish, but to paranoid non-technical types, who are looking for demons to fear everywhere, they would see it as wrong, rather than just seeing some engineer collecting a lot of interesting looking rubbish, before it hits the rubbish bins.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
If you end up in jail you're doing it wrong.
What you do is make LOTs of 120k loans even if you know they will never be repaid.
Then you get a big bonus etc for doing so well. The bonus could be 120K?
When stuff goes bad, you say "But everyone was doing it too". And everyone else nods their head in agreement.
But if we can't find anyone willing to take them, they will be destroyed. :(
What state/country are you in?
I know a charity who might be interested to buy it and save you form the pain of destroying it.
I know of a combustion lab at a state university in NJ that wouldn't turn down a donation. Our lab advisor would rather use his money to make sure his grad students can eat rather than buy equipment that we don't absolutely need. It's actually been good for us because we've been forced to come up with creative solutions ourselves, rather than just buy equipment that would make the job easier. I'd understand if you turn down a cold-call beg for donations, but hey - it couldn't hurt to ask.