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Fired IT Worker Replaces CEO's Presentation With Porn
An anonymous reader writes "52-year-old Walter Powell wanted revenge when he was fired from his position as an IT manager at Baltimore Substance Abuse System Inc. So, he hacked into their systems — installing keyloggers to steal passwords. Then, when his CEO was giving a presentation to the board of directors he replaced the slides with pornographic images. Powell has now been given a 2 year suspended sentence, and 100 hours community service."
For no jail time, I think it was almost worth it. Too bad Terry Childs didn't get the same deal.
He should have substituted his presentation to a community group, city hall or some other public presentation. Showing porn to the board of directors is 2nd only to showing them increasing profits.
Nothing like a lemon party to cure old, crankiness and make anew with his employees.
I wonder what the sentence would have be if he replaced the slides with puppies or butterflies instead of porn? Less perhaps?
When you walk away from a job there is nothing more satisfying than letting it fall to shit after you go. Doing something on the way out or after you leave just proves you didn't have any positive effect on the business.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Smells like he might have gotten his idea from this recent SMBC Theater video. (NSFW)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Next time slightly alter the presentation to make it look incompetent, possibly not even catching the attention of the person presenting it if possible. Instead of an obvious hack.
why are six of the last 7 stories tagged with 'idiocracy'?
So you got fired, that sucks. But have some professionalism. It's jokers like this which give IT a bad name and hamper it from being seen solely as a profession rather than a trade. What a jerk.
p.s. And that's the best he could do? Girly pictures during a presentation. What a loser. Probably still lives in his parent's basement.
I'm glad he's not actually in jail, otherwise I would have to start a FREE WALTER POWELL movement.
Proverbs 21:19
How did the presentation go?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
This story reminds me of a friend who, 20 years ago, was the IT person for a small aerospace startup that ran a Macintosh network with a single dial-in. (He may even be reading this: hats off, Mr Jones!)
They fired him, unamicably, and failed to change the passwords on the dialup (among other mistakes not later abused). So he decided to get his revenge by dialing in and sending multiple copies of a word document to every printer in the company (501 copies, iirc, guaranteed to empty every paper tray). The document was a quote from the Blonde Bimbo Office Manager ("BBOM"), in 36-point Helvetica:
"I've been at the bottom, and I've been at the top. I don't care how much dick I have to suck, I'm not going to be at the bottom again." Signed, [BBOM]
I was still there when it happened. The best part was, the BBOM took a stack of these printouts to every person in the building, shrieking: "Did you do this? Did YOU do this??" Nobody know who did it, in fact I think few even suspected the dialup.*
Now those are some lulz.
[*I didn't know it was him until months later, after the company laid off 90% of its staff, including me. Its doors shut a year later.]
I can see the fnords!
It's not an IT thing. Everyone does this.
I was the IT guy for a company that did company restructuring, or failing that, liquidation. If you've ever been to Ohio and you're the right age you'll remember Carpet Barn and Tile House. I was the guy who liquidated their technical assets. That's a fancy way of saying the boss gave me a truck and a map and said "if it's worth more than 2 cents and plugs into something, put it on the truck." So I got to see every single Carpet Barn.
Now to be fair, they closed very suddenly. It was a Thursday. Workers showed up to locked doors. Salesmen had taken down payments from customers the previous day. The money was lost and never refunded, people didn't get their carpet. It was a bad scene.
You should have seen these places.
Workers opened up the doors with bolt cutters and trashed every single outlet. Holes kicked in the walls, refrigerators turned over, coffee pots smashed into copiers. Office furniture beaten into splinters. Carpet rolls thrown everywhere. Every store looked like the scene of a riot.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I'd say that's a pretty appropriate story for a blog named "Naked Security."
I can see the fnords!
but I bet that guy got his sentence, and said... "WORTH IT!"
When someone pulls a stunt like this, all they're doing is making it hard for everyone.
HA HA HA......
Pics or it didn't happen
Of course there is an argument that if he was sufficiently ignorant to get himself caught, then he deserved to get sacked in the first place....
Someone with such a poor attitude and decision making skills should be fired.
When the idiots on to decide that it's not worth spending time to document, update, repair, patch, anything because it's just a waste of time, not only will shit break, but it will take long enough for an replacement cog to come up to speed that they might as well close their doors and take a long vacation. I had the luxury of watching a crash and burn like this. The boss had too much ego involved to ask us to come back and dig him out. I helped one of my old coworkers out to lessen his pain a little, but waited until they had their going out of business sale before I actually want back. I still have my old office chair that I managed to pick up for about $15.
All arguments about the guy's maturity and professionalism aside, I've got to admit that 100 hours of community service isn't a bad price to pay for a "Fuck you!" prank like that. And I'll bet his only regret is not being able to see the reactions at the meeting.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
that's all
This guy would have been smarter if he had found another disgruntled employee and waited a while and then framed him. Or could it be that that is what happened, he could have been marked as an obvious target and someone smarter set him up! Whomever did the hacking it was still childish, the equivalent of keying someones car.
I don't own an IT company but I wouldn't want to work with this guy. Very childish. I can't wait until we finally see these clowns plant child porn or evidence of credit card fraud and other serious crime so they can prove what I have said for years about that subject and computer vulnerability. The first being that no content should be illegal no matter how vulgar it is aka 1st amendment (instead use it to track down people and make sure they aren't committing crimes and making content). Second computer systems are insecure and any lay person should discount any digital evidence taken from a persons personal devices (it's just too easy to frame people). Hacking in inherently unprovable unless you actively bug a persons house and computer and can show he manned the keyboard and can be video recorded tying the things they accused him of doing. I say this because even I would be smart enough to rig a persons computer to do things in the background while he was physically at the computer.
As far as law enforcement I am surprised that more people aren't up in arms over the fact that with a simple accusation the police can come in and permanently seize thousands of dollars of computer equipment and all your personal information and just maybe you'll get it back five years later when it's obsolete and only if you managed to actually prove your innocence (not found not guilty). Further they take can take all your backups so you have nothing to restore from. Then they will probably try to strong arm you with the lure of getting your property back. And this is all legal.
Or you can just do this...
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1140683&cid=26985821
At least he didn't stab the CEO like they do in India. If the CEO culture doesn't improve, it will come to that eventually in USA. Mark my words.
Network Admins usually have admin passwords so why did he need to use a keylogger? What kind of retard doesnt look at a presentation before he presents it.
Every once in a while, I'll think about some crappy situation I was in while doing something really cool, like driving along the coast. That's when I know I got the best revenge.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
To satisfy his urge for revenge he committed an act that proves his firing was probably the right thing to do.
Not only would I not hire the guy... I damn sure wouldn't want to work for him either.
or it didnt happen.
We had a similar issue happen in my office once - not replacing a presentation with pornography, but instead, a recently terminated employee (who was misguidedly provided remote access at all) whose role involved managing calendars and appointments for a handful of executives and leaders, created fake, inappropriate appointments with officers and very high ups.
Leadership came down to our offices and asked why this person was allowed to do this after having been let go. Unfortunately, that was the first indication that they had been 'offboarded'. HR never communicated to us.
Whoops.
look at the up side free prison health care
TFA makes it clear what happened: he didn't replace a presentation with porn on the way out, he actually used his old logins after the fact to control the computer during a presentation and bring up porn. So not exactly hacking, but also pretty clearly illegal.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
He did it for the LuLz
Have gnu, will travel.
I think it would be more appropriate to compare him breaking into the company after hours and replacing the slides after he was fired.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
I'm just saying...let's us have a look at the pictures and judge him by that.
Reminds me of this short
I love reading stories like this. This fucked in the head system we have that treats people like machines to throw away, would have more stories like this if we collectively grew a set of balls. I keep thinking of the stapler guy in Office Space when I read this story.
Here is a thought for the "omfg you are too old crowd" think of every picture you see of Einstein. He's not some young buck, he's a wild haired old geezer in every famous picture of him. Frankly you need a good mix for a good IT squad. Of course you need the wizkids, but you also need the salty old guys as well. Give them a multi-player game to play when they have down time to help them sort out their teamwork issues. That shouldn't be hard to do, considering you have to pry them out of a game most of the time. Just make sure their gaming is productive as a team.
Anyway, if they got rid of the old Chief, you would think he still has some indians around as well. That might make me nervous if I was the manager, and if I just pulled a dick move, and fired the head of a department and had done is too tactlessly that I ended up part of the collateral damage. That and if I wasn't at least a bit paranoid enough to sweep for crap like keyloggers or anything "off the reservation". That and who doesn't keep a close preview on what slides they are about to present? I know if I am presenting one, I will be tweaking it all the way there and probably some after I am done. Of course I am thinking most of the universe is on their laptop. /yawn
Get off my lawn!
Take the Red Pill.
pics or it didn't happen :)
Over any 5-year period, I hire an average of 1 to 3 IT professionals a month. The performance of each directly reflects on my ability to provide my clients with individuals whose judgement is sound, and who can accept that"at will" employment means they can be laid off at any time without a reason.
With this "little" lapse in judgement, I can assure you that he is not likely to get past HR and background checks, and even less likely to get past me.
If he left with drama elsewhere, he is probably a risk to leave with drama in a future job as well.
I want the best people I can find, and part of that is to figure out the extent to which each individual is likely to suppress personal and professional issues when it makes sense to do so.
I do my best to leave every client and employer on a positive note, regardless of what frustrating shortcomings on their part I discovered along the way.
If you can't do so, just hope you don't want your resume to be embraced by me or anyone in any company who thinks like me,
You don't have to agree with all of my positions on the issue. But if you can't disagree without being disagreeable, I really don't want you on my team.
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
same thing as always, plenty of wanking and dick waving.
You can't handle the truth.
If there's a weakness in the security, it should have been taken care off regardless. Sure, now they have to sweep the whole network for back doors the guy may have put in, but if they did their job properly in the first place, the guy wouldn't have been able to do this.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
One of the largest spammer-friendly ISPs in the Netherlands had their brand new pay-per-copy printer/copier on a public IP address and failed to firewall it. Guess what happened on Friday night after ehr... someone discovered it. Sources revealed that the machine was quickly sent back to the company that provided it.
Pics or it didn't happen!
It's not for presentations.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
For our first year physics course, we had a much loved and feared professor. Many anecdotes developed around him though the years.
One night, I was sitting with a fellow student I worked with on a postgrad project, swapping some of these anecdotes instead of working. Then I told this one:
The prof in question used a huge auditorium to lecture. Those where still the days of the overhead projector, and due to the size of the room, he had two specifically made up with stronger lights and modified lenses - one to use (he wrote on one like a sort of glorified blackboard), the other was for backup.
So, what someone did one night was to make a photocopy on flimsy from a pin-up poster, unscrew the glass from the projector bed, mount the copy under the glass, reassemble, and pre-focus the projector on the new subject of interest.
Next morning, prof comes in, greets class, and goes through normal routine of switching on projector and taking his stationery and notes out while the projector warms up to working temp, and in this case slowly revealing the picture behind his back, to the amusement of the class.
When he discovers the picture behind him, he calmly hefts the projector off the stage he was set up on, shattering it to pieces, plugs in the backup and continues with the lecture as if nothing happened. Awed silence ensues.
While telling the story, the friend just sits there with a sort of knowing expression. Tells me: I know, I was one of those who did it.
It's come up in a few posts and now I'm curious enough that I have to ask. I've heard of Walmart but what sort of job is a "greeter" and how does that translate into English instead of Walmart corporate doubleplusgood doublethink?
I'm in a land where "gimp" is merely a graphics program or a guy in Pulp Fiction and a "pastie" is something you eat so I don't understand the American words sometimes.
If you want the best people you can find, why do you limit yourself to those who will accept "at will" employment terms?
He's 52. Even 40-somethings find it difficult to land a new job, regardless of how they left the previous one. Obviously, he isn't bothered about getting another job.
That's pretty much the industry standard. People still value pay/benefits over possibly job stability, aka contracts.
If employment isn't at will, it's difficult to fire them even with proof. Even if you pay off the rest of their contract and tell them to GTFO. I agree someone should have to have a good reason to fire you, but look how hard it is to fire people in government work.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
A fellow had just been hired as the new CEO of a large high tech corporation. The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with three numbered envelopes. "Open these if you run up against a problem you don't think you can solve," he said.
Well, things went along pretty smoothly, but six months later, sales took a downturn and he was really catching a lot of heat. About at his wits's end, he remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first envelope. The message read, "Blame your predecessor."
The new CEO called a press conference and tactfully laid the blame at the feet of the previous CEO. Satisfied with his comments, the press -- and Wall Street -- responded positively, sales began to pick up and the problem was soon behind him.
About a year later, the company was again experiencing a slight dip in sales, combined with serious product problems. Having learned from his previous experience, the CEO quickly opened the second envelope. The message read, "Reorganize." This he did, and the company quickly rebounded.
After several consecutive profitable quarters, the company once again fell on difficult times. The CEO went to his office, closed the door and opened the third envelope.
The message said, "Prepare three envelopes."
....
But don't forget that that (your..) bad manager did his bad job a few more years, getting managing experience (in the most costly way), and will jump ship. Just make sure that your network is up to date on your side of the story, or they might try to bite you again from their grave.
Pictures, or it isn't true. TFA is worthless if not providing link to the presentation.
Invita Invidia
(1) Most people saying that it's "almost worth it" aren't really serious. If they were, this sort of case would be unexceptional. But it is exceptional. These sorts of events are relatively rare. So if you think the point of criminal punishment is deterence, any penalty at all will still deter most people.
(2) The deterence theory of punishment is largely discredited, at least in western style liberal democracies. Take the death penalty in the US as one example. There is quite a bit of good data that suggests that capital punishment does not act as a deterent. Yet, many (if not most) US citizens want to keep the death penalty legal and cheer when murders are put to death. Better theories are the retributive and restorative theories of punishment. The first seems crass to me, but there is good evidence to support it. The second is pretty interesting but one has to take a few metaphysical leaps to make sense out of it. For a good treatment see the section dealing with justice and punishment in John Finnis, ``Natural Law, Natural Right''
This is why I think the Lulzsec antics are just going to cause more problems. We already have enough problems with our geriatric members of Congress trying to pass restrictive tech laws to protect their Hollywood friends and their "digital property" and the last thing we need is the same folks writing laws making "hacking" (such a vague term now) a 10+ year in prison felony.
He not only got insignificant revenge, he was stupid too.
Any BOFH worth his salt:
1. Would delay any action for long enough to have plausible deny-ability
2, Would make changes slowly and subtly so they were not immediately obvious.
Examples:
A script that modfied all the percentages and total/subtotals in a spread sheet by a random small percentage.
Putting a bunch of errors in the financial report that was going tot he printers to be mailed out to everyone.
Replacing 1 file in a thousand with a copy from the backup system every week.
Once a month randomly overwrite some user's hard drive ideally making it look like a hardware failure.
Reconfiguring a few ports on the network switch to lock out a MAC address at random.
Auto emailing interesting files to the competition.
Scale this, starting with small things 6 weeks after you left, and gradually increasing so that the new IT department is scrambling to keep up.
You also have to do this in a way that is not obvious. You want systems where a machine inside the network establishes the connection, using a well known port so that it doesn't make much of a blip in network traffic analysis. And you actually want multiple such machines to avoid losing your access by a smart sysadmin. And it probably would help if you had a computer in a box that was attached to a spare cable and stuffed into the ceiling space.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.
tomhudson = GREEDY ADVERTISER!!! Proof's below, & thank-you webmistressrachel, and this post shows later below what lengths he'll go to for protecting his pennies (ac trolling & stalking of myself, + libeling myself even):
I really want to stress this to you apk, (and whilst doing so needle tomhudson about it!) trolltalk isn't a forum anymore. It's an advert for TomHudson's...software. - by webmistressrachel (903577) on Wednesday June 22, @01:28PM (#36531394) Journal
QUOTED FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2250914&cid=36531394
Hilarious (but... that's what you get for being obnoxious trolls whose motivation is GREED apparently!) & the amazing lengths you went to were incredible (see my p.s. below where you ac stalked & trolled me + told others to do so as well). Bad, bad, bad tomhudson, lol!
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TOM HUDSON'S "FAIL LIST" ON DISPROVING MY POINTS ON HOSTS FILES NUMEROUS TIMES:
(Since HOSTS can block adverts online/adbanners so you get more speed, &, so you are protected vs. malicious content in online adbanners also)
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tomhudson bullshit on HOSTS is outnumbered 30:1 vs. apk evidences:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2087330&cid=35847946
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tomhudson BURNED on DNS vs. HOSTS and CPU cycles/memory & more used on HIS "ideas" vs. HOSTS vs. apk's ideas:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2087330&cid=35879374
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tomhudson BURNED & RAN on HOSTS vs. VIRUSES vs. myself yet again:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2088808&cid=35877448
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tomhudson says "hosts are so 90's" & apk's fellow RESPECTED security person wrote a noted article on them in 2009: (based on his readings of MY posts in forums no less)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2088808&cid=35876806
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And others also...
APK
P.S.=> PROOF/EVIDENCES THEREOF in tomhudson calling me the HOSTS FILE TROLL etc. & stating to his trolltalk.com pals to stalk & troll me via AC replies:
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"Wait until he starts on another kick, then reply to him as an AC. It's the new meme". - by tomhudson (43916) on Sunday May 09 2010, @08:29PM (#32150544) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1646272&cid=32150544
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#2
HOWTO: trolling the hosts file guy in one easy step
"The next time you see a post by him, just reply anonymously. And to really mess with his head, reply anonymously to your anonymous post, disagreeing with your first anon post (extra points if you claim in the second post that you're him - that REALLY sets him off). He'll accuse you of being me" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @01:38PM (#35841122) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086424&cid=35841122
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#3
"if you're going to tell this guy to stop spamming his hosts file crap, make sure you do it anonymously" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @12:45PM (#35840680) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086920&cid=35840680
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and of course, tomhudson's numerous
Answer the question, YES or NO, in regards to this http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2261040&cid=36541158
A simple YES or NO will do.
APK
@ trolltalk.com. See how "open SORES" he really is. He already "proved himself" here anyways in his own words telling others to stalk n troll apk over a year ago here http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2261040&cid=36541158
Yes or No. We know U do adbanners, + ac stalk & troll:
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"Wait until he starts on another kick, then reply to him as an AC. It's the new meme". - by tomhudson (43916) on Sunday May 09 2010, @08:29PM (#32150544) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1646272&cid=32150544
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#2
HOWTO: trolling the hosts file guy in one easy step
"The next time you see a post by him, just reply anonymously. And to really mess with his head, reply anonymously to your anonymous post, disagreeing with your first anon post (extra points if you claim in the second post that you're him - that REALLY sets him off). He'll accuse you of being me" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @01:38PM (#35841122) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086424&cid=35841122
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#3
"if you're going to tell this guy to stop spamming his hosts file crap, make sure you do it anonymously" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @12:45PM (#35840680) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086920&cid=35840680
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Answer YES or NO. We know U do adbanners + stalk & troll others (from "trollStalk.com" pun intended, see below)
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"Wait until he starts on another kick, then reply to him as an AC. It's the new meme". - by tomhudson (43916) on Sunday May 09 2010, @08:29PM (#32150544) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1646272&cid=32150544
---
#2
HOWTO: trolling the hosts file guy in one easy step
"The next time you see a post by him, just reply anonymously. And to really mess with his head, reply anonymously to your anonymous post, disagreeing with your first anon post (extra points if you claim in the second post that you're him - that REALLY sets him off). He'll accuse you of being me" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @01:38PM (#35841122) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086424&cid=35841122
---
#3
"if you're going to tell this guy to stop spamming his hosts file crap, make sure you do it anonymously" - by tomhudson (43916) on Saturday April 16, @12:45PM (#35840680) Homepage Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2086920&cid=35840680
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They should call it "trollStalk.com"
Now you are convicted felon (probably, 2 years suspended), can no longer vote, and are almost certainly unemployable with the exception of the most menial of jobs. You are not some "l33t hacker," you basically did what any 14 year old computer savvy kid knows and can figure out. You have the maturity of a 14 year old as well, and it's probably what ended up getting you fired in the first place. So was it worth it?