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Cyber-criminal Left In Charge of Prison Computer Network
samzenpus writes "A 27-year-old man serving six years for stealing £6.5million using forged credit cards over the internet was recruited to help write code needed for the installation of an internal prison TV station. He was left unguarded with unfettered access to the system and produced results that anyone but prison officials could have guessed. He installed a series of passwords on all the machines, shutting down the entire prison computer system. A prison source said, 'It's unbelievable that a criminal convicted of cyber-crime was allowed uncontrolled access to the hard drive. He set up such an elaborate array of passwords it took a specialist company to get it working.'"
The case of Kevin Mitnick, who was initially restricted from using any sort of communications technology whatsoever (no computer access at all, no mobile phone, etc.), other than a landline telephone...
An asshole who bombs the asshole who is bombing the Kurds while telling us that the reason he is bombing the asshole who is bombing the Kurds is because that asshole is bombing the Kurds is not such an asshole. OUR asshole, however, was an asshole who was bombing the asshole who was bombing the Kurds while lying out of his ass that the reason he is bombing the asshole who is bombing the Kurds is because the asshole who is bombing the Kurds is getting ready to bomb US, which he wasn't.
So the asshole was thinking if he told the truth he might not get to bomb and so he will lie to get his way. That asshole was supposed to work for us, by the way.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Sorry, I don't agree. The recidivism rate here is high because it's impossible to get a job with a conviction. It doesn't really matter what you do in prison, whether you just get in fights and get tattoos, or if you learn some useful skill with computers. Either way, you're going to be unemployed when you get out, and most likely your only way to survive will be to become a career criminal.
This isn't a government problem; it's private companies that won't hire ex-cons. However, it is partially the government's fault for keeping Prohibition going for decades, creating a whole class of people who can't work normal jobs because they went to prison for possessing naturally-growing plants.
I'm not an expert on this as I've never been convicted of (or arrested for) a crime, so this is just from what I've heard and read. Most employment applications ask if you've ever been convicted of a crime (other than speeding/parking tickets), yes/no. Answering this falsely can mean immediate termination if they ever find out, and possibly even get you sued (not likely). However, for them to find out means they'd have to do a background check. I'm pretty sure conviction information is publicly available, and background checking agencies specialize in finding that stuff. Not all employers do background checks; government jobs requiring a clearance obviously do this, and certain other jobs too, but most probably don't. As an embedded software developer, I think I've only had two, one when I was doing an internship for a military contractor, and at my most recent job which is in the financial industry. I don't think the other jobs did any background checks, and mostly didn't even bother checking references either.
A quick Google search turned up some Yahoo! Answers questions about this topic, with totally different answers: 1) Honesty is the best policy, some employers will understand, etc., and 2) Honestly will keep you unemployed because no one will hire an ex-con when people with clean records are available.
It sounds like your system in the Netherlands is much better, since most jobs don't need to know your criminal record (of course, unless you're around children, or large sums of money). Of course, your system on narcotics is much better too so that doesn't surprise me. We still haven't learned the lessons of Prohibition after 80 years, though unfortunately most other countries are making the exact same mistake.