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Adult Website Use At Work Leads To Hacker Conviction

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the questions-of-reach dept.

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."

11 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. Stupid Law by Bellegante · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!

    1. Re:Stupid Law by Bellegante · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes. Am I right in saying that if you commit a felony at work, and are terminated as a result, they don't have to pony up unemployment?

      Scenario: You want to fire an employee, and you really hate him to boot. Solution! Find a website he visits, change the policy, and send out a long rambling copy of the full policy that no one reads anyway, wait a month, get him jailed.

    2. Re:Stupid Law by iamhassi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "while the State presented evidence Appellant spent approximately 100 hours over a five month-period utilizing internet websites that were not related to his job"

      So he spent less than 1 hour of a 8 hour day surfing porn (5 work days in a week x 4.34 weeks in a month x 5 months = 108.5). That's not hard to do....

      Here's the WTF part:
      "He said his client was a good worker and had even been promoted after his supervisors found the pictures. 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."

      sounds like a huge fishing expedition, who'd he piss off in gov't? Was the mayor's daughter the dominatrix?

      --
      my karma will be here long after I'm gone
  2. Re:What the fuck? by enderjsv · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously. Abusing laws to prosecute people under ridiculous circumstances only serves to undermine those laws and weaken their effectiveness in dealing with the real crimes those laws were enacted to prevent.

    Whatever happened to those two girls charged with distribution of child porn for taking pictures of themselves and sending them to their boyfriends? This reminds me of that.

  3. Re:What the fuck? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Delivering the news is only profitable while the news is still new. Follow-up is just too boring to be profitable apparently.

    Then I hereby declare the formation of the 'Olds', which will only do pieces following up on old 'News'.

  4. Re:WTF? by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Remember- jury nullification is a right our founding fathers supported.

    The appropriate answer to questions about jury nullification belief is "No" (because they really shouldn't be asking you that question in the first place and answering "Yes" would remove your right of nullifcation.

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  5. Uploading naked pictures, sounds familiar by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  6. Re:What the fuck? by davidphogan74 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think you meant the Two Minutes Hate.

  7. wrong by moxley · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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......

  8. Re:consulting a dominatrix is a misdemeanor? by PAjamian · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually my wife and I are lifestylers. A bullwhip is just one of the many toys in our collection.

    --
    Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
  9. Re:What the fuck? by AGMW · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hence the phrase:
    Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb

    --
    Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
    handmadehands.co.uk