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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.
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.
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why are six of the last 7 stories tagged with 'idiocracy'?
I'm glad he's not actually in jail, otherwise I would have to start a FREE WALTER POWELL movement.
Proverbs 21:19
And that's the best he could do? Girly pictures during a presentation. What a loser. Probably still lives in his parent's basement.
The story says "porn", but not what kind of porn...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
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!
When someone pulls a stunt like this, all they're doing is making it hard for everyone.
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....
Next time slightly alter the presentation to make it look incompetent
For most PowerPoint presentations, that is accomplished without making any edit to the original.
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what if he was fired wrongfully? today's situation prevents any sort of justice from happening. if he was canned for politics then I have no sympathy for his employer whatsoever.
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.
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.
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.
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
Have gnu, will travel.
On the other hand, having a guilty plea for a felony related to his industry on his record is going to leave a lasting mark.
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?
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?