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Arrests For Selling Poison-Ware In Spain
An anonymous reader writes "Spain's FBI equivalent has arrested the management of a software company (Google translation; Spanish original) for selling custom software to small and medium-sized businesses with 'controlled errors' that resulted in the software bombing on a predetermined date. They would then charge for fixing the problem and press the client into buying a maintenance contract. More than 1,000 clients were affected."
I don't agree, and I'm not saying they deliberately cripple the code. By going for cheaper development process they can ensure continued product enhancements and a much stronger need for product support in mission-critical environments. (ugh, did I say mission-critical? How come Microsoft products even end up in that sector???)
How often does anything that looks like an obfuscated C contest entry actually get committed to a repository ?
It happens all the time where I work. I maintain some old code written by an old hacker (he's got a credit in the K&R book!) Shit like this is not uncommon:
*(&z + z) |= ~tqq + m ? u9 >> 2: 741 | w & 0x8F ? ~(~t11) : foo
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
I'm not an expert but I'd say that depends on what kind of company it was. If you have a SRL (Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Limited Liability Company), they can go after you for fraud (the limitation of liability is restricted to debts), otherwise I think it's harder...
Here in the US, not only is it not illegal to do that, but several companies hold patents on different ways of doing that. It seems to be heavily encouraged to ass-rape every customer you have ever had here, but there is actually a place where this is not so!!?!?!? EGADS!
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
A friend of mine works for a company that sells software to a government department a central African country (I want to keep the details vague to avoid incrimination). After completing the contract and delivering the software, reps arrived one day and simply stated "We're not going to pay full price for the software - we're not making as much money out of it as we thought we would." This country does not have much of a justice system to appeal to if you don't have a politician in your pocket, so my friend's company intentionally released code to make the system stop working if the payments are late. AFAIK that fixed the problem.
I'm just curios if these companies were perhaps faced with a similar situation...