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Advice To Twitter Worker Who Deactivated Trump's Account: 'Get A Lawyer' (thehill.com)
An anonymous reader quotes The Hill:
A prominent attorney for cybersecurity issues has this advice to the unnamed Twitter worker said to have pulled the plug on President Trump's Twitter account: "Don't say anything and get a lawyer." Tor Ekeland told The Hill that while the facts of the case are still unclear and the primary law used to prosecute hackers is murky and unevenly applied, there is a reasonable chance the Twitter worker violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act...widely considered to be, as Ekeland explained it, "a mess." Various courts around the country have come up with seemingly contradictory rulings on what unauthorized access actually means. Ekeland said the Ninth Circuit, covering the state of California, has itself issued rulings at odds with itself that would have an impact on the Trump Twitter account fiasco as a potential case. The Ninth Circuit ruled that employees do not violate the law if they exceed their workplace computer policies. It has also ruled that employees who have been told they do not have permission to access a system cannot legally access it. Depending on which ruling a court leans on the hardest, a current Twitter employee without permission to shutter accounts may have violated the law by nixing Trump's account.
Ekeland points out that just $5,000 worth of damage could carry a 10-year prison sentence.
Friday the New York Times also reported that the worker responsible wasn't even a Twitter employee, but a hired contractor, adding that "nearly every" major tech company uses contractors for non-technical positions, including Google, Apple, and Facebook.
Ekeland points out that just $5,000 worth of damage could carry a 10-year prison sentence.
Friday the New York Times also reported that the worker responsible wasn't even a Twitter employee, but a hired contractor, adding that "nearly every" major tech company uses contractors for non-technical positions, including Google, Apple, and Facebook.
The greatest legal minds advise that if you have access to a system you can do whatever the fuck you want with it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If they are authorized to disable accounts that violate their Terms of Use, it seems like it is part of their job. If it were anyone else it would be no problem but good forbid Donald Trump get smacked.
Oh he's getting a cigar alrighty.
Clinton style.
As soon as you have to pay a lawyer, you are FUBAR.
Remember how money gets distributed by courts. Lawyers first.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It's a fucking travesty!
Had this been any other president or political candidate, airlines would be diverting traffic to extradite this guy already.
But hey, if 'cause Trump' finally gets the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act the scrutiny it sorely needs, then I'm all for it.
I'd prefer if they let the guy just walk away. He made a fool of himself and achieved nothing, which is punishment enough. And he risked his own skin career-wise for what he believed in (or couldn't control himself about), which is something to respect.
What about the employee who turned it back on? How much damage is that?
While these comments are fairly amusing, Trump and Twitter entered into a contractual agreement. This employee violated that agreement. Unless you are an expert in contract law, you can't begin to estimate the potential damage done or even which states rules apply. In fact, just pick a favorable State and sue. While Twitter claims they can terminate services for no reason, Twitter wasn't involved here. Civil suit damages can reach crazy numbers fast, so even if you don't see jail time aka CFAA, you may never make another dime.
I think the worker could pretty easily say that he terminated the account for hate speech, and he would WIN in court. Then the tables would be turned, and Twitter would be forced to justify why it has allowed a hate-speech account to violate its terms of service for such a long, long time ...
Assumptions based on what I've read: The contractor's actions appear to have been intentional, applied after termination, done without company directive, and did harm to the business. I think this ticks a lot of the boxes of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. While the action was "easily" (I assume) undone without loss of data, the negative reactions to the company must have a bottom line calculation. Hell, if Twitter doesn't sue the contractor then it can be viewed as condoning the act, and Twitter's public shareholders likely have a class-action suit ready-made for lack of effort regarding their fiduciary responsibility, since being publicly traded comes with a responsibility to act in the best interests of their shareholders, and a multi-billion dollar company is a juicy target.
the negative reactions to the company must have a bottom line calculation.
I don't care who this happened to; Trump, Omaha, some unknown janitor - it's hugely damaging to find out someone in such a low level position can so easily mess with an account without authorization from the holder.
We all know that support personnel have to be able to manage accounts to do their jobs, but remember they also always ask you questions as well related to the account that one presumes are also to give the system enough confidence the person is working on behalf of the account holder to make changes - especially in the case of something as extreme as account deletion of a verified account.
After this there are huge questions of trust in Twitter to disallow capricious change, that very much affect their worth as a company. Is every low level employee with a grudge against some high level Twitter user going to be able to execute account deletions going forward? That is why you are probably going to see very public action against the employee.
On a side note, trust is also a big issue for the employee who did this - how could any company hire them for a position of trust again? And these days, working with any computer system is pretty much a position of trust because of how fragile internal systems usually are.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
U know it.
No, I doubt it.
IANAL, but it is widely understood that the prosecution carries the burden of proof. In this case, the prosecution would need to prove that hate was a motivating factor in the crime, in order for it to be characterized as a hate crime. Deactivating Obama's Twitter account just because you don't like his politics would not qualify.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Seeing as how the experts canâ(TM)t figure out if it is a crime and the victim is the idiot a very large village had to try very hard to send away the most appropriate punishment is to throw he book at him.
By which I mean the biggest book Donald Trump can personally read and explain correctly. So basically pelt this guy with some Seuss and letâ(TM)s be done with it.
The motive would have to be color. Also, orange, unlike black, is not a protected class.
Also, just because someone may or may not be a citizen, does not give us an excuse to use different rules. Nothing good comes of that path.
People living in a country illegally are breaking the law (obviously) and should be punished with jail time and then deportation.
The idea is to make it unprofitable to live in a country illegally. Living with a constant fear of being caught and deported is one way of achieving that. Declaring illegals to be outside the protection of the law may be another.
It is similar to how drunk drivers are punished in my country. If you drive drunk and get caught, you get punished, that's obvious. But you may also be punished for an accident that you did not cause. In an effort to reduce the number of drunk drivers, the government in my country passed a new law. If there is an accident involving more than one car and one of the drivers is drunk, then he is automatically guilty of the accident
That means, if you are stopped at a red light and somebody rear-ends you:
1. You are guilty of the accident and will pay a fine for causing an accident while drunk (higher fine than just the accident or just driving drunk), they may even take your license for a few months.
2. Your insurance company may refuse to pay so you may have to fix the other guy's car from with own money.
3. Your insurance payment will definitely be higher for a few years because of this.
And this is just so driving drunk would carry more risk than the usual increased risk of an accident and the risk of getting caught.
The press and media have been working for years to destroy their own credibility.
Also, just because someone may or may not be a citizen, does not give us an excuse to use different rules. Nothing good comes of that path.
People living in a country illegally are breaking the law (obviously) and should be punished with jail time and then deportation.
I was more thinking of Gitmo, but I'd say punish them for crimes they commited, and perhaps a token amount for the costs to ship them out. If they commit a crime they must of course serve the time or face that punishment before they are allowed out. There is no reason to make it excessive.
The idea is to make it unprofitable to live in a country illegally. Living with a constant fear of being caught and deported is one way of achieving that.
Create/use an identify check system. Punish the employers for hiring the illegals. Problem (mostly) solved.
Most illegals are from an overstayed visa from what I recall, so Trump's wall aint going to do much. It surely isn't going to stop drugs. I bet with a bit of work you could almost just catapult the drugs over into a nearby waiting truck. or, if it is the wall with the see through areas, you just slip a specially shaped pipe through and the person on the other end collects in a bucket, or possibly a heavy duty balloon. Use a minor bit of air pressure and it would be quick.
Could also use a single LVL from say the equivalent of menards. Nail some 2x2's on the side and you can climb almost any wall, then you just need a knotted rope to get down. Could also go to one of the coasts and just hold onto a board until you drift over to a beech, etc, etc. Hell I bet you could put together a big drone without any real trouble that people simply grab onto. They get floated over dropped off and return. Of course there is also all the freight we move back and forth. Lots of possibilities there. The wall also won't keep out terrorists, other than maybe the stupid ones. Besides many of the new terrorists grew up here and were radicalized here.
To be honest the biggest thing I think that might slow terrorism is if we did elect a devout Muslim president. I don't see that happening in my lifetime though. Hell, I'm not even sure a woman will get the job in my lifetime. The racists are going overtime since Trump said it was okay to be proud of your racism again.
If you want to make it unprofitable for undocumented foreigners, then the government should prosecute the employers that hire them.
However, that won't happen, because the Republicans don't really want to change anything. They just want to use the issue politically.
make an effort to make a splashy exit the last day at work.
If the Fastest Delete Key In The West here had been working for Microsoft or Amazon and deleted a bunch of high profile clients' cloud accounts on his last day, he'd want a lawyer just the same. The fact that he only did it to one user and didn't cost anyone any real productivity is probably the one good thing he's got going for him.
There is NO SUCH THING as HATE SPEECH, there is only SPEECH.
A lot of people seem to. His haters cannot seem to keep themselves from immediately going ad hominem on every tweet, and echoing to each other how great their tweets are. If his account is removed, where will they find something with which to pass the time?
Not to mention, people are filing suit over being blocked. So yes, some people seem to care. Too much so.
Nail some 2x2's on the side and you can climb almost any wall, then you just need a knotted rope to get down.
If you climb over the wall, you may be detected easier (it probably is possible to detect when something is climbing the wall), the wall may have barbed wire on the top and, if caught, you will not be able to say that you somehow managed to get here by accident ("I thought this was still Mexico").
At least this is my opinion.
As for a Muslim US President - well, that day I would be really happy with the government of my country, even if it is corrupt. Islam does not seem to be compatible with the Western way of life. Also, a Muslim President would be another problem IMO - it would be very difficult to criticize his policies (especially if those policies were even partially based on his religion) without somebody calling you a racist. That is, you can criticize a Christian politician for banning abortions as much as you want, but criticizing a Muslim politician for the same policy would be more difficult.
I personally do not consider myself a racist, but I would consider myself "behavior"-ist or "culture"-ist. That is, I really do not care about the color of your skin (Muslim is not a race by the way), as long as you behave the same as everybody else in the area. If you behave differently, then I will consider the differences and decide whether I like you or not. However, if a bunch of people who look similar are behaving the same, but it is different from the norm, then I may have a problem.
For example, a man behaving like an asshole towards his wife or women in general - well, he's just an asshole. A big group of men behaving like that is a problem though. And if more members of that group want to immigrate, I will be against it, we have enough assholes already. Either stop being an asshole or - if that behavior is normal in your country - stay in your country.
In my opinion, immigrants and refugees pose several problems:
1. They demand welfare from the government. Money, that could be used to support our own poor people. Some immigrants have the audacity to demand more money than the locals get.
2. If they do not want to assimilate into our culture then there will always be some friction between us.
3. The immigrants are more likely to be common criminals.
4. The immigrants and their children are more likely to be terrorists (this seems to be exclusive to Muslims).
5. They might reduce the salaries of locals by offering to work cheaper (this applies more to more wealthy countries).
Remember forks censorship is ok when the left does it.
This wasn't "the left". It was a lone wolf performing an act of digital vandalism, and he'll face the consequences of his actions.
That being said, it might benefit his approval rating if Trump spent less time incessantly whining on Twitter about sensationalized issues du jour, and more time learning how to suck less at being president. He could start by reading the Constitution.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I think the parent post meant Trump should _understand_ the Constitution. It'd help if he understood it better than you.
The Obama administration's immigration policies were perfectly constitutional. Are the police acting unconstitutionally when they fail to arrest me for jaywalking? No? Oh, then let's turn to your other piece of bullshit: the employment authorizations. You know, the ones that the AG/Director of Homeland Security can, according to legislation passed by Congess and signed by Reagan, give to ANYONE for ANY reason. Obviously it was way out of line to offer those authorizations to people Republicans don't like for reasons Republicans think are bad.
The problem with Trump's immigration orders, and the reason they're continually in court, is not because they exceed his powers, it's because he's too fucking stupid to keep his mouth shut and not implicate 14th Amendment concerns. All it would take for those orders to stand is an actual rational basis and, you know, some actual facts besides the fact that Trump _wants_ to discriminate.
We want E-verify, but evidently that's a hate crime. A lot of resistance to an obvious step. Other countries have it, I don't see why it's a big deal.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
That was not hate speech, no matter how much you want to fucking redefine the term.
It's useless cunts like you declaiming shit like this as 'hate speech' that led to Trump getting fucking elected in the first place. People can see that it's not hate speech, so they immediately distrust anybody claiming it is.
Incidentally even under your pathetic fucking definition that tweet doesn't count. It doesn't attack anybody.
If you disagree with the policy then put some fucking arguments together and state sensible objections to it. Don't just fucking squeal, "HATE SPEECH!!!" and pretend you've won the debate. You've merely killed your own credibility.
Progressives really like "hate speech" laws. It makes it easier to censor people, you know, just like what is happening in Europe.
Om, nomnomnom...
He would have to start by learning to read first. He could stare at the Constitution all day, but he certainly couldn't read it in any meaningful way (i.e. understand it.)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
That has to be some of the most stupid shit I have read in quite some time. Trump has everyone guessing what he'll do next because he is a mentally unstable sociopath who doesn't know what he is going to do next, and when he does things fails to grasp the gravity of what he has done.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
By your alleged definition, any critique of a population group, religion or nationality is hate speech.
Fuck that and fuck you. Sign me up for the hate speech bus because if telling cunts like you that you're cunts is hate speech then I'm right on board.