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."

Comments

Impressive... most impressive... or not...

[Xylaan]

That would be more impressive, until you realize the average value of each piece is $6.08.

So my guess is a few big ticket items, and then lots and lots and LOTS of some small item.

Your Rights Online?

[Milyardo]

What does this have to do with YRO? That is, unless he stole the suff over SSH...

Not much of a sentence

[spyrochaete]

Sentencing is set for December when Papagno could face up to two years in jail for the thefts.

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?

Re:Simple solution. Ask

[viking099]

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.

More likely ex-military spec

[MindKata]

"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.

Re:More likely ex-military spec

[tsm_sf]

the military is notorious for replacing things that don't really need replacing so they can spend their budget rather than give it back and possibly get a smaller budget next year.

That's not a phenomenon unique to the military. Any organization of a decent size will use this approach to budget management. Everyone knows how this works, everyone spends tons of cash on random crap at the end of their fiscal year (or what have you), and everyone sees this as inherently detrimental. You are (IMHO) an adult when you finally realize that everyone's a damn idiot. ((you are wise when you include yourself))

Doing it wrong then

[TheLink]

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.