Slashdot Mirror
Adult Website Use At Work Leads To Hacker Conviction
safesorry notes that several sources are talking about a recent tale of woe about Richard Wolf, a lonely guy looking for love in all the wrong places. Wolf used his work computer to visit the Adult Friend Finder website and upload personal nudes to prospective "friends." Now he's been convicted under a "hacker" law targeted at employees who steal data or access information they shouldn't. "Richard Wolf acknowledged that his behavior was inappropriate when he used his work computer to upload nude photos of himself to an adult web site and view other photos on porn sites, but he didn't think he should be convicted of hacking for doing so."
Should be a 'W' not an 'H'
Dual Opteron < $600
This is ridiculous.
The idea that if someone does something you don't like, they have to be punished, even if you can't find a law that exactly names the thing you didn't like as a crime, is moronic.
This is ten steps worse than I thought from the summary, though. The court decided that any use the company decided was felony 'hacking', at the companies discretion through the application of its internal policy, without requiring the company to actually install blocks against the usage!
Let's let businesses come up with new felonies on the fly! Woo!
If you do--at least if you're at work--you're committing a felony!
Oops, too late.
So, should I not expect him on Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight?
I had an old boss get shown the door for surfing that site.
He tried the I followed a link defence, the the logs showed he had been there several times.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
I think losing your job would be punishment enough in this case.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Every geek worth his geek-badge has bypassed the company web-filter. According to this law, that's hacking. That whole "theft of services from office" part was overturned but only because they couldn't show his work had actually suffered from his actions.. whereas if all you do at work is post on Slashdot and your work suffers, you could be charged with a crime.
So yeah, basically, if you have an employer who is a big enough dick, most of us are criminals.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I agree with the guy that the was inappropriate behaviour, but get accused of hacking? Clearly the jury has no clue of technology and that the defense failed to make a credible point. I am just trying to imagine the prosecution's argument:
"Sir, it is our belief that uploading an image from a computer he had access necessitated that he hack into a computer (that he had suitable access to), and upload to a password protected system (which he has legitimate access to), is a dangerous offense and could possibly result in the collapse of the economy"*.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
He added that the city had never actually disseminated a policy regarding internet usage to tell workers what was inappropriate.
"They had crafted one but they hadn't published it," he said. "So there was in effect no policy and no protections on the computer -- no password protection or filtering of any kind -- so basically anybody could access anything on the internet through the city's computer."
And the statue he was convicted under:
"No person, in any manner and by any means, including, but not limited to, computer hacking, shall knowingly gain access to, attempt to gain access to, or cause access to be gained to any computer, . . . without the consent of, or beyond the scope of the express or implied consent of, the owner of the computer, . . . or other person authorized to give consent."
Righto.
On the plus side, he certainly will find love in the end.
And by finding love, I mean being repeatedly gang-raped in prison.
He's not being charged as a hacker, but as a whacker.
This is why I will never take a government IT job.
So anyone from work looking at slashdot now can be charged with a felony.
if there ever was a definition of dumbass in the dictionary this guy is it!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
This is a joke right? How the hell can the government make that a crime?
May be silly, but its his choice.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I hear lots and lots of anecdotal stories about people using their work PCs to surf porn. I know somebody who lost his job because of it. Then you hear of cases where an employee -- and I mean big-level management, now, not just some schmuck -- turns a laptop in to IT because "it has viruses" and the IT staffers find that the hard drive is completely full of porn. Of course the exec protests: it must have been his kids getting into his computer. But sure enough, firewall logs show that it was probably all him, from the office. Whether this is because people are unwilling to pay for broadband at home, they just lack common sense, or there really is such a thing as "porn addiction," I'd venture is open to speculation.
Breakfast served all day!
The case began when Larry Wise, the Superintendent of the Shelby City Wastewater Treatment Plant, where Wolf was employed, was deleting old files from a work computer and found a nude photograph of Wolf.
and
Initially he was suspended while police investigated the case, but was promoted after he returned to work. He lost his job, however, when he was convicted of the charges.
The important question would be why his employer even phoned the police in the first place. This is one of those bizarre situations where it is obvious that the person was persecuted for a lifestyle choice and not for what he did or didn't do at work. As stated in the article, he would not have been prosecuted if he would have looked at horticultural Web sites [and uploaded pictures of flowers].
Lawyers (that includes Judges) can do anything they want to you and get away with it. They have erected a multitude of laws and offenses. You are going to be guilty of at least one even if they have to stretch it like they have here. One more reason the break their Guild.
Isn't Drew Carey from Ohio, too? Case closed!
The article never discusses whether he took actions to circumvent existing filtering or firewalls. If he did, they yes he is guilty of the crime.
This is a classic example of an overly-broadly-worded law that is now being used to prosecute people to whom the law was never intended to apply.
WHENEVER your Congresscritters -- or eve City Council -- want to pass a law that is too broadly worded, oppose it. I did once, and was told "It will never be enforced that way." My reply was, "If it is not intended to be enforced that way, why was it written that way?"
When you give the government power to do something, eventually it will... even if that was not your intent. So make sure the intent is clear, and just do not give them powers that you do not intend them to use.
Isn't any different, and i don't see any jail time associated with that sort of act.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The problem wasn't that he was fired, it was that he was charged with a hacking felony for something that wasn't related to hacking.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I am still stuck at step one...
They found a nude picture of an employee on a work computer and...call the cops?
The cops and DA must be awfully friendly with the treatment plant bosses, i can't imagine calling that in from work here and getting any kind of coherent response from the cops. Especially as they didn't care about the employee that stole nearly $10,000 in merchandise because they couldn't 'prove' it. (apparently any one is likely to have a stack of adult diapers, foam bed pads, 20,000 latex gloves, etc in their garage just like their employer...)
or is work the last place I want to have a boner
"can you stand and give your presentation"
ummm... no.....
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
More details...
TFA is light--does anyone know what city he works for, and what county/etc held up this decision? I'm not in the area right now--but I had an offer in Columbus about four years ago. Laws (or abuse of such) like that are enough for me to tell any potential employer in the entire state that I would never consent to work any job in such a region under any condition, for any amount of compensation (happy enough right now, TYVM--I'll reconsider if I experience serious fiscal distress).
Sure--the dream of an outright IT worker boycott will never happen--but let's see how well they hold up when any decent, well educated IT professional who keeps up on the news refuses to work for them for anything less than an exorbitant rate sufficient to buy insurance against getting caught reading /. on the job. Yeah...I'll go for the exorbitant rental rates in California before I ever consider a job in Ohio at this rate...
If there are no published policies, demand that hard drives from the bosses and other people in the office to show that such conduct is not unusual.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Coworkers thought I was coughing up a lung. Damn cold.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
They meant to charge him with "whacking".
I worked at a company of about 40 men and 2 women. One of the women was the owner's wife, the other was the receptionist.
The receptionist was a "geek girl" and hung out on some overclocker forums, and so did a bunch of the guys. This girl decides it would be fun to post naked pictures of herself on this forum. The guys totally fell for the bait and started inviting guys who were not on this forum to come over to their computer and have a look. This went on for a few days and eventually my supervisor happened to get invited to take a peek.
No-one really considered that my supervisor was a part owner in the company. I mean, they knew, but they never really thought that he would be more interested in protecting his stake in the company than being "one of the boys". He was shocked that these idiots were passing around naked pictures of a fellow employee (they weren't but hey, close enough) so he went straight to the boss. The forum was blocked.
Everyone who had looked at the pictures was suspended for a week without pay. One of them complained about this, saying that they didn't put the pictures on the site, that this girl did, and why wasn't she being suspended? He was told to drop it, wouldn't, so he was fired.
Later, they had a quiet word with the girl and recommended she not come back after xmas.. and she agreed.
Thankfully the courts were not involved.
Sexual harassment laws make hostile workplaces.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Anyone find it funny that the advertisement showing up on this thread is for Bluecoat products?
Post a public list of what websites each employee visits every month (after getting permission through company policy). This will reinforce the notion that company computers are not for private use and generate enough potential for shame that most employees will steer clear of things usually deemed inappropriate at work.
n SC we are very liberal and accepting of diversity. Our local county administrator used his work computer for some naughty activities and was issued a "verbal warning".
The councilman who outed him by putting spyware on his system is in deep doo-doo.
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009905050317
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Steel Data!
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
and poorly worded. You can be charged as a hacker just by surfing the wrong web site.
I remember when my managers couldn't tell the difference between MSN and MSDN, and they even paid for a subscription to MSDN for us developers to use. I went on MSDN looking up for bug fixes, service packs, and anything else to help with my development and debugging duties. I was told that my use of the Internet was against usage policies (it wasn't it was work related and computer development related materials from Microsoft that my employer was paying for) even if everything I did was work related and my manager told me to go on MSDN and research some problems we were having with Microsoft software.
In short, you could be just doing your job like I was, and still get into trouble for Internet usage. That law is meaningless when the description is so vague that almost any Internet usage management does not like can be considered "hacking" or against their Internet use policy.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Extremely bad precedent, that any use the employer doesn't approve of is considered criminal hacking. I suspect most employers don't appreciate you accessing monster.com or dice.com from work either, but I've done it many times. Now they are saying if I actually find a better job, they can have me arrested? Trust me, I've worked for people that were big enough dicks that they would do exactly that!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
DMCA uses the same trick. Circumvention (a thing you're never allowed to do) is defined as bypassing blah blah blah "without authorization."
Which sort of almost makes sense, except that the body that makes this law, isn't the party that grants/denies authorization, nor sets up a regulatory agency to do so. It's a third party, a private party. Who decides if you may or may not bypass a technological measure that limits access? Who decides when you can upload a nude picture of yourself? Not the government, not the people's elected representatives; they haven't prohibited or allowed either activity. Someone else decides.
BTW, the decision of granting/denying authorization need not ever even be communicated. It's bad enough that reading the legislation and case law won't tell you whether an act is illegal; the party who decides whether it's illegal or not, need not even tell you. In this particular case (uploading nudie pics to a hookup site), it seems .. well .. obvious that the user wasn't authorized to use the computer for that (though I guess sometimes "obvious" is in the eye of the beholder), but the end of TFA talks about how the policy was drafted but not distributed -- yet it was still enough for a conviction.
You might think that the safe thing to do, is always assume you don't have authorization to do something, unless you know that you do. Surely that makes sense, right? Nope. Look at any of your DVDs. Does a single one of them say you're allowed to bypass the protection? Every DVD player, even the DVDCCA-licensed ones, bypasses the protection. What you don't know, is whether that's circumvention or not -- whether your act of bypassing the protection was authorized or not. Millions of people have played DVDs. These things are for sale in mainstream brick'n'mortar stores. And if push comes to shove, no one who has ever used one, can prove they didn't break the law. All the copyright holder has to say, is "That wasn't authorized" and the case is open and shut.
Back to computer abuse acts: are you authorized to load example.com's page on someone else's computer? You probably don't know, and common sense might not help you.
When will you find out? When you ask what crime you've just been charged with. By then, it's too late. They came after this guy for uploading nudie pics. Piss them off, and they can get you for loading example.com's web page.
Congress has effectively ceded political power (!!) by letting these third parties, not Congress themselves and not the courts, decide whether a criminal act has occurred.
And we call this "law." Wow.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Did anyone actually read the ruling? Of course not. It's also too much to expect the person who wrote the article to properly summarize it. "{14} "i. The trial court erred by overruling defendant-appellant's motion for a directed verdict of acquittal as to the charge of unauthorized access of a computer, as there was insufficient evidence to establish the elements of a violation of ohio revised code section 2913.04(b). ""
You can end that sentance on criminally charged. That it is a felony is that much worse.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
There's always Adult Prison Soap Finder while he's locked up. If that doesn't work, then Adult Shiv Finder may come in handy
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
You're misreading it. Paragraph 14 is quoting from the appeal (see the ":" at the end of paragraph 13) and is not the judge's ruling. You have to read paragraphs 54 (appeal of hacking charge: overruled), 72 (appeal of theft charge: sustained), 81 (appeal of prejudicial evidence: overruled), 84 (overruled) and 86 (ruled moot).
soon i will use this when the users change the desktop picture - or install webshots!
Yes, that's the ticket muuaaaaaaahaha!
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
His name is Dick Wolf and he's in trouble for uploading porn at work?
You know, reading this stuff just really pisses me off.
It's just like that Lori Drew case, This case seems to be yet another attempt at turning corporate policies into defacto laws - it's an element of encroaching corporatism (aka fascism); except I don't think this guy is a real piece of shit; where Lori Drew certainly seems to be, but I still think she never should have been charged - certainly violating a website's TOS is NOT a crime.
I think people need to really fight against these cases and precedents because the selective abuse of vaguely written overly broad laws like this for political purposes is starting to get out of control ...And there is a small part of me that thinks somebody needs to show the "Shelby Ohio Wastewaste Treatment Plant" what hacking really is; so that they fucking KNOW they've been hacked and will never make the mistake of confusing someone doing what a fairly large percentage of employees do all over the world with HACKING again......
I couldn't tell from the article whether the guy represented himself, just said, "Yes, I did it," or had a total boob for a lawyer in trial court. The bottom line is that the facts regarding lack of an acceptable use policy should have been presented at trial. Regardless of what he did, if the city hadn't established a policy that personal use of a city computer was forbidden and other people had gotten away with similar actions (e.g., uploading pictures to say FaceBook), his actions were not illegal or inappropriate. It is irrelevant that he uploaded nude photos of himself since there is no AUP that defines what sorts of personal uses are OK and what actions are forbidden.
It sounds like the lawyer handling his appeal has a better grip on this but this should have been disputed at trial. He may still be able to get out of the hacking conviction with the appeal (How can computer use be inappropriate when the city hasn't established what constitutes inappropriate use?) but he should have been fighting this a long time before it ever got to the appeal.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Why was your reply modded down? Sounded reasonable and rational enough to me.
Anyway: yeah, I know what you mean. As long as you are not breaking the law, or otherwise violating the terms of your contract, why should they care what you are doing with the bandwidth you are using? It's just an excuse to soak you for more money.
While not a law, it agree that it is a good example of something very similar. If you agree to give them the power to do something, don't be surprised if they do.
Please people, "nude pictures" are literally pictures that aren't clothed or covered. Most pictures fit this description. Maybe if they're in a picture frame or album that's closed you could say they are not nude. "Pictures of him nude" are pictures of him not wearing any clothes. Basic English here, and what an adjective modifies.
Obviously he forgot the clause in his work contract that stated he was also part of the Shelby City Wastewater Treatment Plant's porn production facility, thus making photos of him nude company property!
Parent has a perfectly legitimate post, this should not be modded -1... if you don't like his post or are hypersensitive, don't moderate it.
i hope this gets over turned on the appeal, damn guy cant even expose himself using his company's computer any more....
Get away from /. right away!
It may be swine flu and your going to epidemic us all!!!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I guess this is my temper talking, but this guy should be given at least five digits and rights to kick the judge in the crotch. Hard. With boots. Metal boots. Not only is this idiotic, it makes a mockery of the justice system. Use some goddamned ****ing common sense for godssake. The man is a man, not a criminal. This makes the U.S. look as bat**** insane as Syria.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
Yes.
And apparently, changing the performance of YOUR OWN computer, such as CPU speed, application speed etc. can be considered as "Hacking".
Look up "tf2 speed hack" or "CS:S speed hack" on YouTube for details. Those are just enhancing their gaming experience by changing the shape of the data packet of THEIR OWN computer.
New Economic Perspectives
Anyone remember Slashback?
Quack, quack.
Idiots breed and take middle management positions in business as well as state and federal government. This is why we say things like never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity because really there's so much stupidity it's likely a mathematical truth.
Quack, quack.
This is disturbingly close to burning people at the stake
Really?
I really feel for this guy.
Computing for work is such a lonely profession. Yes, if I worked full time in the field, I too would visit dating sites to meet someone or perhaps even check out other adult sites. Frankly, sitting at a desk 8 hours a day is downright cruel and inhumane. I'm happy that for now I've been spared such psychotic work environments, but I feel quite sad for the millions like this man who caught in this treadmill.
And it's not like he wasn't a good worker. From TFA he was actually promoted even after his supervisors found the pictures. He was only fired after the conviction. How sad.
I guess the least I can do for him is help him pay off the fine. Start a fund or something.
"You [should] not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered."
-- Lyndon B. Johnson
This brings up the interesting issue of convicting someone of breaking the letter of the law when the spirit of the law doesn't apply to them. On the one hand, I can see justification of this in some circumstances, because sometimes someone has clearly done something wrong, and you just don't have the appropriate law on the books to punish them the way they deserve. But of course this method can be misused to punish someone disproportionately.
. . . They have erected a multitude of laws and offenses. . . .
hehe
It's not stupid. It's Advanced.
Yet some people are sending hate mail to a person whose picture was linked to the attacker by a newspaper and othe rpeople with similar names are receiving threaths. HELLO! The guy is DEATH! The moment your hate target answers the phone, and he answers, shouldn't that be a major clue that you got the wrong guy?
No matter what you do, even if you forced newspapers to follow-up or print the complete truth for once, you could never eradicate the idiots.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
By this same logic, every time the RIAA or one of their cronies scans a computer they're committing the same crime.
I stopped giving a shit about you people the instant you started taking over the entire browser tab with full screen ads. I hope you burn.
Sheesh, where do you get your news - no sports!?
Try the Economist magazine: no sports section, no horoscope, no celebrity gossip columns, no tips on cooking or motorbike maintenance. It's almost like reading just the news and informed comment on the news.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Unfortunately we live in a world where the law can be manipulated by schemers who want to eliminate and vilify political enemys in the workplace as they see fit, even by using laws not appropriate to the crime or misdemeanor. This guy got screwed looking for a screw. How ironic. But that does not make what happened to him right. The law should be blind, but it is now very bent at an angle where it can be manipulated, as we are all seeing.
In fact, all laws are intended to prevent someone doing something that others don't like.
Mostly we agree with the ones about not killing someone intentionally, and it's in most of our interests for us to drive on the same side of the road as everyone else when travelling in the same direction... so most of us don't argue the case.
But what about paedophiles. Obviously they are in a minority and the rest of us are able to legislate their predilection out of bounds. What about people who want to eat their own excrement; should they be able to eat it in public? What about people who want to strip off and go naked. Should they be able to wander around the shopping mall without regard for the rest of the population who might object?
There is no 'right' and 'wrong'. God isn't supervising us. Laws are man (and woman) made to suit those who are in a position to make them. For the most part they are emotional decisions, not rational ones and they are no worse or better for that. We might use rational thought to attain our ends, but it is our emotions (the drives built into our brains) which determine those ends.
Now, back to the point. I personally don't care if the guy wants to post naked pictures of himself on some website, so long as I don't have to see them. Not my sort of thing, but I don't mind if someone else wants to do that.
Obviously, some others don't agree. There's no logic to it, just what you feel easy with, and who can get their rules passed.
What makes you think that this law was never intended to apply to cases like this. Do you think the lawyers who drafted it are so stupid as to not understand how it would inevitably be used?
I am glad I am grown up and retired. It seems from my vantage point that the law has lost all common sense and direction. These aggressive and ambitious prosecutors are convicting experimenting teens for sex crimes, and misusing statutes like the one under discussion to get another notch in their respective belts. What public good was served by prosecuting this poor slob as a hacker? None. He has no dangerous computer skills. What public good was served by prosecuting those girls for sexting? None. Criminalizing anti social or maladaptive behavior is clearly against the public interest. The guy should have been fired at most, but perhaps merely warned and sent to counseling. Now society has another unemployable felonious ward instead of a taxpayer. The same applies to drug laws IMHO.
We need better feedback on prosecutors who over reach to further their ambitions and appease the lynching impulse in their constituencies. There are too many SOBs like that creep who pilloried those Duke athletes. Are there not enough real criminals?
Our justice system is just plain broken. Senator Webb of Virginia is co-sponsoring a bill to study and revamp it from top to bottom. Check out the video on the LEAP website (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition). http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Of which there are none.
Odds are his employer blocks those kind of sites.
Yes simply visiting them would be inappropriate, but not hacking.
However, if you were unable to visit them due to your network security infrastructure, and to do so circumvented your network security then yes, that is hacking.
Likely it was something simple like setting up a proxy at home, and doing it that way. Who knows perhaps he using something a bit more exotic. In this way he would compromise the security of his employers shared network for his own personal use.
There are a lot of websites that get blocked like facebook (thank god not slashdot!), and I have thought about doing this myself. Then again I am not stupid enough to actually do it. I will re-evaluate my decision when and if they decide to block slashdot (which won't happen anyway, as likely the network IT folks like access as well).
Anyway the guy is an idiot to be looking at this sort of thing at work...
If he gained access to a restricted site via a proxy it could be concidered hacking.
Where the readers can't distinguish between porn and flowers. Are you all so porn-addicted that you genuinely see no difference?
The trial court's decision was upheld by the OH intermediate court of appeals. This case screams for an appeal up to the OH Supreme Court. The statute as applied here seems to fit right into the void-for-vagueness doctrine, which the US Supreme Court described as follows:
"Vague laws offend several important values. First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warnings. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges, and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory applications." Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108 -09 (1972), quoted in Village of Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, 455 U.S. 489, 498 (1982).
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/15.html#f8
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Adblock FTW?
The Prophet George Carlen said all people are either stupid, crazy, or full of shit. At first, he would agree with you about stupidity trumping malice. That's a reasonable assumption before you grow wiser and more cynical and begin to suspect that a great deal of the stupid and crazy behavior is coming from a much larger group of duplicitous twits that play dumb and insane and get away with it because they are primarily full of shit. Without a doubt whatsoever, when you add up the facts of this story, everyone is completely full of shit. Even stupid and crazy people would not pursue the inept legal contest, bad press, and controversial topic unless they had ulterior motives shrouded in the full of shiftiness of fake idiotic lunacy. My sense is that management was dying to fire this guy all along, they never liked him, or his politics, and youthful stride, and they just wait for an opportunity - any diversion will due. That would be grounds for dismissal as well as a red herring that would divert attention from the real motives of those in charge who are full of shit, and hide behind stupid, insane or crazy corporate and legal drama. Its a "slight of hand" diversion, but it seems a better explanation as to how the events would unfold in such ludicrous fashion. It looks really stupid when hacking and porn are legally indistinguishable, but after a while you figure it out and see the light: Stupid is a great way to hide in plain sight. And crazy is also equally disguised, undermined, and underestimated. Genuinely stupid lunatics would deny such a character defect. Only a bullshitter would perpetuate the lie and volunteer to wear the dunce cap. This way it looks like a case of how the law is a blunt instrument, not a surgical scalpel, and it often bludgeons the middle ground with a club. When a hostile environment manages to work to managements advantage, then they're not as stupid as they look. Its just really hard not to get attached to the idea than only a moron could act so idiotically.
and I love Georgia O'Keefe's work.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
"He added that the city had never actually disseminated a policy regarding internet usage to tell workers what was inappropriate."
Without a policy, how could anything he did be unauthorized? I'm just sayin'. Hopefully his attorney remembers to mention this little tidbit at the appeal.
That aside really need to amend that law... just about everyone could be convicted of this the way it's worded.
Technically using Google and clicking the wrong link by accident could get you put in jail. Would it? Probably not, but it could if you pissed the wrong people off.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Idiot, maybe yes,
Hacker?
Give me a break.
Stupid D.A.'s have nothing better to do than abuse and misuse the laws that are given to them by well meaning legislators
.
Wikipedia link on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
Jumpstart the tartan drive.