it's not bricking the hardware. Locking out the firmware is a good idea. Once you swap out the firmware chip, then you have to reset the firmware.. lose the settings so an unauthorized person has a nice router, but not any info about YOUR network, security achieved. At worst you need to do a call out if some office wannabe geek tries to fix it.
it's more like the 20-year janitor that always "just shows up" and never takes vacations. Eventually everybody loses their keys, plant and office managers change, but this guy is always there so nobody gets the keys and makes sure their copies really work. Then janitor has a heart attack and now you're harassing his kids for the keys to your business.
Giving them a sealed envelope with recovery instructions and passwords is not the same as just making them have everything personally. The point is that this envelope has the "keys to the kingdom" and they are now in control. You have presented them with the information and it is now THEIR responsibility as owners to protect that information. YOUR work is finished.
they got access to the hardware.. but not access to the network because the routers were set to reset to defaults on power failure. Great plan for preventing people from stealing stuff and trying to get in from home. Bad for consultants because they would have had to reprogram the whole thing!
So when you tell the last security guard he can only give keys to the owner... then the OWNER doesn't know anything about firing him you have the same problem. You fired the guard, he's not legally obligated to be on the premises, so he can't unlock the gate! But he can't give the key to YOU because YOU are not the owner he took the keys from.
worse they had basically accused him of sabotaging the system when they asked for the passwords.. whoever he gave them to would break stuff and blame him anyway... damned if he did, damned if he didn't.
he set the routers to return to default under power failure. Actually that was a really smart move, these are in city building, probably stolen all the time. The router is only worth a few bucks, access to the network from a stolen router is priceless. The "consultants" tried to unplug them and read the settings to hack in. The routers did EXACTLY what he told them to...
The biggest problem is procedural. This is why companies have audits, why SOX auditors demand documentation and cross training in public companies. The city management ALLOWED him to become more isolated and anti-social. They routinely pulled other people off helping him and allowed him to fly solo for several years and allowed the other employees and documentation to fall painfully behind.
They didn't realize this until a new manager with a "dotted line" to his position didn't like him and tried to summarily fire him.. Then they realized first, Childs won his job back, and second he got to be an employee you "can't fire" because he had keys nobody could take! The prosecutor was dead wrong to take on a case directly from a department manager and not from higher up the HR food chain. Now the prosecutor realizes they bet their career on some petty middle-manager pushing somebody around. They're trying to find something to pin on him so they don't get seriously censured by the court for keeping this guy in jail 7 months.
he had LEGAL means to have those, so the "hacking" point is moot. If they expected him to work late, or work from home, then it was part of his job tools. That access is a civil matter, unless it is PROVEN he caused actual, measurable harm... as he was in jail from the date of accusation, they have absolutely no trail to prove anything.
Again, if that was true your boss could fire you while your on vacation, and having taken your company laptop and cell for emergencies, then charge you with theft and hacking... again, would never hold up in court with out better, legal measures first.... calling you 10x a day or sending cops to your location is not "reasonable".
no, it didn't. The manager hired contractors to try to prove Childs was causing "harm". They couldn't crack the password, and when they unplugged the routers the settings were wiped and needed to be uploaded. They didn't have those either. The manager CHOOSE to break 2-3 offices and make the problem worse. That wouldn't hold up on Judge Judy, let alone actual court.
that's the point really. His keeping the passwords is really no different than a VP keeping a laptop or company automobile. There are several civil steps that need to be gone through before "keeping" something you were previously entitled to have and protect becomes "criminal". Consider the case of loaning a car to your long term SO for many years, then the relationship goes south and you show up with the cops to take back the car she's had for several years. Yes, you can get it back, but the cops will tell you to get a judgment first and won't just let you take it. In the same way the new manager saw a "rogue" employee that was cut off, isolated, and anti-social and first tried to illegally fire him. When that didn't work, then he started harassing about the passwords and created a situation with the prosecutor to get the passwords or throw the guy in jail... a leap of about 6 other legal processes.
Like has been said before.. modems and back doors in your office or home office (if expected to work from home/call in) are quite common for admins. VPN access to servers for when they crash is common. Those don't really figure into the "criminal" part because they didn't ASK if he had them and didn't ASK him to return them... packing his cardboard box on the way out the door is not formally "asking". As far as wiping the configs, that was paranoid overkill, but considering how often city office property gets stolen, wiping the config keeps thieves from getting the network settings to the whole thing which is more valuable than any one office of downtime due to power failure.
"keys to the kingdom" passwords are quite common.. I'm the only person at my 1000 person company with ALL of a certain server's passwords plus some network ones. There's a small number of people I would release those to... if I was pre-accused of malicious intention before I even left I'd probably handle the transaction thru a lawyer.
Like he predicted, when the city hired consultants (again not thru a legal means, just some random company to "fix it") and they started breaking stuff they didn't understand isn't his problem... Remember he was accused of "damages" even though the manager had no cause to make that... they only poor performance he demonstrated was being disgruntled. Assuming he was doing damage and calling the cops is bordering on criminal filing a false report.
The proper course of action would have been for the DA to sue him in small claims court for the password. Make a valid case and allow him his grievance before a judge, then honor the ruling. Then a judge would have thrown him in jail until he talked for contempt... there's no time limit on contempt, so no need to file other charges! Frankly they're not a good lawyer if they didn't think of the simplest legal thing first.
I don't see how their a "small niche" as a company they rank 6th (AFIK) in computer sales with about 6% of the TOTAL yearly sales. The only companies that sell more are the guys like Dell, HP, and Acer... and the margin is shrinking.
Apple is the largest digital media store on the web on top of sales of hardware. The only real thing going against them is that the PC market is so vastly staggeringly big. All the big top ten companies represent only 30% of PCs sold! Like 11-50 is the next 30% and everybody else is 30% of the market! And ALL those companies ONLY sell Windows.
I never understood why Apple hasn't put some feelers out to the Linux crowd. There's a lot of hardware out there now that's not going to be thrown out just because people buy Macs. Apple should be making things like Quicktime formats supported... Apple needs a big #3 to crack the market, so that PC OEMS will crack the Microsoft monopoly for them. Apple's mistake in the 80's was thinking "they" were competing against everybody else... if the Commodore, Tandy, TI, & Atari had spent some time working together they could have kept some turf on the home front. Apple need somebody else standing with them to show they're not just a "dying" competitor to the Microsoft Man.
For example in the mobile front, Apple should be extending a hand to Palm, Google and Rim. They should work on some level of service sharing or common implementation for the phone companies/software vendors. Not necessarily that consumers would see, but that businesses would see the ease in supporting multiple versions. Three's no room for another Microsoft... people won't allow it to happen again. People see Apple going after the "one ring" and they are turned off by it on the spot.
You just have to have a computer.. it's not Apple's fault you didn't buy a Mac if you wanted to develop for iPhone rather than wasting money on a PC.
With all the tiers of development lock-in Microsoft has, it's a bit hypocritical of them. About the ONLY lock-in Microsoft doesn't have is hardware lock-in so it's easy for them to point fingers. Frankly, what about Xbox 360 development, or Zune development.. that's closer to iPhone.. where are those dev kits.. and how much to they cost? I'd be certain they are non-free and highly tied to Windows.
Right because Microsoft works SO hard to make sure developers can write for windows... Visual Studio runs on what OSes again? Windows Mobile tools run on what OSes? Xbox 360 programming is on what systems?
So Steve, when we getting our official MS Office and Outlook for Linux? We'd really like it if Microsoft was open with it's toys too!
I'm in Michigan and the Apple store and iTunes have always collected sales tax on anything. Our sales tax laws are pretty much [everything ever] unless the state has an exception, and those are few for things like food and labor services like plumbers and auto repair (but they still tax the parts).
I don't see how all these laws really change anything, they have no jurisdiction on out-of-state vendors with no PoP. And the big vendors in the state are already doing the same as their B&M's.
"Taxes are what is really annoying. I claim zero dependents with only 35,000 a year salary and i still owe NY state taxes."
That's about right. You have to spend money on tax-deductible things to get past the "standard" exemption. Your company accountant isn't pulling enough from your paycheck figuring you have something to claim that will get you a little back. When my wife and I bought our house the mortgage interest wasn't high enough to kick us past the standard deduction... you have to have a lot of tax-effecting bills (mortgage interest, business expenses like training, school, or travel, etc) to get over that "standard" deduction hump.
That's the problem with "business" taxes that aren't on property values. Michigan's reeling too, because the auto makers can basically pick and choose how much "profit" to have in a year. You and I are taxed on Income, with few deductions for "capital" investments (hint YOU can't deduct rent or car payments.. your company can). We can't choose to not make income. That's why PEOPLE have to pay the taxes. California has Hollywood and Silicon Valley.. they should generally be rolling in cash... both industries that are highly profitable...and very good at not actually showing that profit on the bottom line where the state gets a cut. That's why you don't ever let businesses off the property taxes.. it's the only thing that's hard to filch out of.
I think you have a point.. if they're watching "everybody" then they're really watching nobody.. because the caliber of the people they can afford for the task can't do that job.
The problem is that is RECORDED footage... meaning one day somebody WILL figure out how to enforce the law with them.. and it will be retroactive.
Since you brought it up. What's so different about "violent" games than "violent" R-rated movies that every kid even in the 80's had on VHS.
Why is there not a LAW restricting sales and manufacture of R-Rated movies in California? As a child of the 80's video games weren't that violent... I'll admit I thought about bashing some barrels with a hammer and beating up apes.. but it was to save a girl. On the other hand I really did want to beat up bullies as a Terminator, or a Predator, or an Eraser... I'd say terminator invented the goth guys shooting places up meme in pop culture.
How did Arnie make his money again.. it wasn't until the mid 90's (on his way down from the top) he was "enlightened" that violent media was maybe bad for all the kids that got a hold of those movies.
now they did learn. The white Macbook is a dream. You take out the battery and a thin, tin cover over the ram and hdd, 3 screws is all the tools required. They followed that up on the new 13" aluminum Macbooks, but the Pros still have that cover to remove..but they look more perrty.
I thought the white Macbook battery was the "peak" of battery usefulness. It functioned as the bottom cover where you could swap out Ram and Hard Drive with just a few small screws. And the bottom of the laptop was otherwise free of all the warning labels and access door jigsaw puzzle that "normal" laptops have... even the bottom of a Macbook is pretty.
Exactly, it's still not "user friendly" replaceable.
But it's not really about being replaceable. It's about FCC regulations. If you make a battery for "internal" usage, then it doesn't have to be as heavily built as one that's removable. By the time you add another 1/8" of plastic all around to make it "safe" and another 1/8" of plastic to make a cut out in the computer to put it in (remember the computer has to be "safe" without the battery) you're making the thing 25%-33% bigger and heavier for no marketable gain. Apple chose to go with a tighter fitting battery without all the extra plastic packaging... and increase the size of the power cells 25% with the space they saved!
Obviously, Apple didn't weld the computer shut, or make the battery impossible to remove. There will be knock-offs available in 6-9 months as these go bad and you can have them changed at home.
But again, Apple is going for the Green angle here... because YOU shouldn't be changing these at home because YOU won't recycle. Apple is compelled by environmental regulation to recycle or dispose of safely at all their stores/depots. You really don't want these batteries melting into your ground water.
didn't he have several hundred thousand stashed in his apartment? They may have had to set the bail high enough he couldn't burn his cash and never show up. Because you only pay 10% they had to make the bail really high.
When they find him not guilty, they need to start hauling in his managers for filing false police reports and the prosecutor for negligence. Even the charges are at the fringe of the common application of the law in these matters. Prosecutors need to spend some quality time on the other side of the bars when they overreach.
This is my big problem with the US system is that there is no "closure" involved. They "dropped" the charges at the trial date after disrupting your life for many months... and because they dropped them, they are free to do it again.
There should be compelling by the court to finish cases that are started. There should also be judgments on all the actors in play, at the same time. If they find a piece of evidence obtained illegally, or lawyer messed up, all the parties should have punishments at the sentencing. If the DA is wrong and you've sat in jail then the state should be compelled to "make it right" before you leave the court, not in some separate action.
I agree with FingerSoup, that all analog channels should have had a red bar at the bottom with instructions, all the time... and the HD channels would not. A lot of people with Digital TVs still tuned to Analog channels if the TV wasn't set up correctly. For example my cable company would actually SWITCH to the analog feed (on the HD channel) to run the PSA about digital.
The whole thing was totally botched to the general public.
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it's not bricking the hardware. Locking out the firmware is a good idea. Once you swap out the firmware chip, then you have to reset the firmware.. lose the settings so an unauthorized person has a nice router, but not any info about YOUR network, security achieved. At worst you need to do a call out if some office wannabe geek tries to fix it.
it's more like the 20-year janitor that always "just shows up" and never takes vacations. Eventually everybody loses their keys, plant and office managers change, but this guy is always there so nobody gets the keys and makes sure their copies really work. Then janitor has a heart attack and now you're harassing his kids for the keys to your business.
Giving them a sealed envelope with recovery instructions and passwords is not the same as just making them have everything personally. The point is that this envelope has the "keys to the kingdom" and they are now in control. You have presented them with the information and it is now THEIR responsibility as owners to protect that information. YOUR work is finished.
That is very much in the spirit of SOX.
they got access to the hardware.. but not access to the network because the routers were set to reset to defaults on power failure. Great plan for preventing people from stealing stuff and trying to get in from home. Bad for consultants because they would have had to reprogram the whole thing!
So when you tell the last security guard he can only give keys to the owner... then the OWNER doesn't know anything about firing him you have the same problem. You fired the guard, he's not legally obligated to be on the premises, so he can't unlock the gate! But he can't give the key to YOU because YOU are not the owner he took the keys from.
worse they had basically accused him of sabotaging the system when they asked for the passwords.. whoever he gave them to would break stuff and blame him anyway... damned if he did, damned if he didn't.
he set the routers to return to default under power failure. Actually that was a really smart move, these are in city building, probably stolen all the time. The router is only worth a few bucks, access to the network from a stolen router is priceless. The "consultants" tried to unplug them and read the settings to hack in. The routers did EXACTLY what he told them to...
The biggest problem is procedural. This is why companies have audits, why SOX auditors demand documentation and cross training in public companies. The city management ALLOWED him to become more isolated and anti-social. They routinely pulled other people off helping him and allowed him to fly solo for several years and allowed the other employees and documentation to fall painfully behind.
They didn't realize this until a new manager with a "dotted line" to his position didn't like him and tried to summarily fire him.. Then they realized first, Childs won his job back, and second he got to be an employee you "can't fire" because he had keys nobody could take! The prosecutor was dead wrong to take on a case directly from a department manager and not from higher up the HR food chain. Now the prosecutor realizes they bet their career on some petty middle-manager pushing somebody around. They're trying to find something to pin on him so they don't get seriously censured by the court for keeping this guy in jail 7 months.
he had LEGAL means to have those, so the "hacking" point is moot. If they expected him to work late, or work from home, then it was part of his job tools. That access is a civil matter, unless it is PROVEN he caused actual, measurable harm... as he was in jail from the date of accusation, they have absolutely no trail to prove anything.
Again, if that was true your boss could fire you while your on vacation, and having taken your company laptop and cell for emergencies, then charge you with theft and hacking... again, would never hold up in court with out better, legal measures first.... calling you 10x a day or sending cops to your location is not "reasonable".
no, it didn't. The manager hired contractors to try to prove Childs was causing "harm". They couldn't crack the password, and when they unplugged the routers the settings were wiped and needed to be uploaded. They didn't have those either. The manager CHOOSE to break 2-3 offices and make the problem worse. That wouldn't hold up on Judge Judy, let alone actual court.
that's the point really. His keeping the passwords is really no different than a VP keeping a laptop or company automobile. There are several civil steps that need to be gone through before "keeping" something you were previously entitled to have and protect becomes "criminal".
Consider the case of loaning a car to your long term SO for many years, then the relationship goes south and you show up with the cops to take back the car she's had for several years. Yes, you can get it back, but the cops will tell you to get a judgment first and won't just let you take it. In the same way the new manager saw a "rogue" employee that was cut off, isolated, and anti-social and first tried to illegally fire him. When that didn't work, then he started harassing about the passwords and created a situation with the prosecutor to get the passwords or throw the guy in jail... a leap of about 6 other legal processes.
Like has been said before.. modems and back doors in your office or home office (if expected to work from home/call in) are quite common for admins. VPN access to servers for when they crash is common. Those don't really figure into the "criminal" part because they didn't ASK if he had them and didn't ASK him to return them... packing his cardboard box on the way out the door is not formally "asking". As far as wiping the configs, that was paranoid overkill, but considering how often city office property gets stolen, wiping the config keeps thieves from getting the network settings to the whole thing which is more valuable than any one office of downtime due to power failure.
"keys to the kingdom" passwords are quite common.. I'm the only person at my 1000 person company with ALL of a certain server's passwords plus some network ones. There's a small number of people I would release those to... if I was pre-accused of malicious intention before I even left I'd probably handle the transaction thru a lawyer.
Like he predicted, when the city hired consultants (again not thru a legal means, just some random company to "fix it") and they started breaking stuff they didn't understand isn't his problem... Remember he was accused of "damages" even though the manager had no cause to make that ... they only poor performance he demonstrated was being disgruntled. Assuming he was doing damage and calling the cops is bordering on criminal filing a false report.
The proper course of action would have been for the DA to sue him in small claims court for the password. Make a valid case and allow him his grievance before a judge, then honor the ruling. Then a judge would have thrown him in jail until he talked for contempt... there's no time limit on contempt, so no need to file other charges! Frankly they're not a good lawyer if they didn't think of the simplest legal thing first.
I don't see how their a "small niche" as a company they rank 6th (AFIK) in computer sales with about 6% of the TOTAL yearly sales. The only companies that sell more are the guys like Dell, HP, and Acer... and the margin is shrinking.
Apple is the largest digital media store on the web on top of sales of hardware. The only real thing going against them is that the PC market is so vastly staggeringly big. All the big top ten companies represent only 30% of PCs sold! Like 11-50 is the next 30% and everybody else is 30% of the market! And ALL those companies ONLY sell Windows.
I never understood why Apple hasn't put some feelers out to the Linux crowd. There's a lot of hardware out there now that's not going to be thrown out just because people buy Macs. Apple should be making things like Quicktime formats supported... Apple needs a big #3 to crack the market, so that PC OEMS will crack the Microsoft monopoly for them. Apple's mistake in the 80's was thinking "they" were competing against everybody else ... if the Commodore, Tandy, TI, & Atari had spent some time working together they could have kept some turf on the home front. Apple need somebody else standing with them to show they're not just a "dying" competitor to the Microsoft Man.
For example in the mobile front, Apple should be extending a hand to Palm, Google and Rim. They should work on some level of service sharing or common implementation for the phone companies/software vendors. Not necessarily that consumers would see, but that businesses would see the ease in supporting multiple versions. Three's no room for another Microsoft... people won't allow it to happen again. People see Apple going after the "one ring" and they are turned off by it on the spot.
You just have to have a computer.. it's not Apple's fault you didn't buy a Mac if you wanted to develop for iPhone rather than wasting money on a PC.
With all the tiers of development lock-in Microsoft has, it's a bit hypocritical of them. About the ONLY lock-in Microsoft doesn't have is hardware lock-in so it's easy for them to point fingers. Frankly, what about Xbox 360 development, or Zune development.. that's closer to iPhone.. where are those dev kits.. and how much to they cost? I'd be certain they are non-free and highly tied to Windows.
Right because Microsoft works SO hard to make sure developers can write for windows... Visual Studio runs on what OSes again? Windows Mobile tools run on what OSes? Xbox 360 programming is on what systems?
So Steve, when we getting our official MS Office and Outlook for Linux? We'd really like it if Microsoft was open with it's toys too!
I'm in Michigan and the Apple store and iTunes have always collected sales tax on anything. Our sales tax laws are pretty much [everything ever] unless the state has an exception, and those are few for things like food and labor services like plumbers and auto repair (but they still tax the parts).
I don't see how all these laws really change anything, they have no jurisdiction on out-of-state vendors with no PoP. And the big vendors in the state are already doing the same as their B&M's.
"Taxes are what is really annoying. I claim zero dependents with only 35,000 a year salary and i still owe NY state taxes."
That's about right. You have to spend money on tax-deductible things to get past the "standard" exemption. Your company accountant isn't pulling enough from your paycheck figuring you have something to claim that will get you a little back. When my wife and I bought our house the mortgage interest wasn't high enough to kick us past the standard deduction... you have to have a lot of tax-effecting bills (mortgage interest, business expenses like training, school, or travel, etc) to get over that "standard" deduction hump.
That's the problem with "business" taxes that aren't on property values. Michigan's reeling too, because the auto makers can basically pick and choose how much "profit" to have in a year. You and I are taxed on Income, with few deductions for "capital" investments (hint YOU can't deduct rent or car payments.. your company can). We can't choose to not make income. That's why PEOPLE have to pay the taxes. California has Hollywood and Silicon Valley.. they should generally be rolling in cash... both industries that are highly profitable.. .and very good at not actually showing that profit on the bottom line where the state gets a cut. That's why you don't ever let businesses off the property taxes.. it's the only thing that's hard to filch out of.
I think you have a point.. if they're watching "everybody" then they're really watching nobody.. because the caliber of the people they can afford for the task can't do that job.
The problem is that is RECORDED footage... meaning one day somebody WILL figure out how to enforce the law with them.. and it will be retroactive.
Since you brought it up. What's so different about "violent" games than "violent" R-rated movies that every kid even in the 80's had on VHS.
Why is there not a LAW restricting sales and manufacture of R-Rated movies in California? As a child of the 80's video games weren't that violent... I'll admit I thought about bashing some barrels with a hammer and beating up apes.. but it was to save a girl. On the other hand I really did want to beat up bullies as a Terminator, or a Predator, or an Eraser... I'd say terminator invented the goth guys shooting places up meme in pop culture.
How did Arnie make his money again.. it wasn't until the mid 90's (on his way down from the top) he was "enlightened" that violent media was maybe bad for all the kids that got a hold of those movies.
they did OK with the Macbook Air... that one seemed to go pretty well. Probably the same guy's idea.
now they did learn. The white Macbook is a dream. You take out the battery and a thin, tin cover over the ram and hdd, 3 screws is all the tools required. They followed that up on the new 13" aluminum Macbooks, but the Pros still have that cover to remove..but they look more perrty.
I thought the white Macbook battery was the "peak" of battery usefulness. It functioned as the bottom cover where you could swap out Ram and Hard Drive with just a few small screws. And the bottom of the laptop was otherwise free of all the warning labels and access door jigsaw puzzle that "normal" laptops have... even the bottom of a Macbook is pretty.
Exactly, it's still not "user friendly" replaceable.
But it's not really about being replaceable. It's about FCC regulations. If you make a battery for "internal" usage, then it doesn't have to be as heavily built as one that's removable. By the time you add another 1/8" of plastic all around to make it "safe" and another 1/8" of plastic to make a cut out in the computer to put it in (remember the computer has to be "safe" without the battery) you're making the thing 25%-33% bigger and heavier for no marketable gain. Apple chose to go with a tighter fitting battery without all the extra plastic packaging ... and increase the size of the power cells 25% with the space they saved!
Obviously, Apple didn't weld the computer shut, or make the battery impossible to remove. There will be knock-offs available in 6-9 months as these go bad and you can have them changed at home.
But again, Apple is going for the Green angle here... because YOU shouldn't be changing these at home because YOU won't recycle. Apple is compelled by environmental regulation to recycle or dispose of safely at all their stores/depots. You really don't want these batteries melting into your ground water.
didn't he have several hundred thousand stashed in his apartment? They may have had to set the bail high enough he couldn't burn his cash and never show up. Because you only pay 10% they had to make the bail really high.
When they find him not guilty, they need to start hauling in his managers for filing false police reports and the prosecutor for negligence. Even the charges are at the fringe of the common application of the law in these matters. Prosecutors need to spend some quality time on the other side of the bars when they overreach.
This is my big problem with the US system is that there is no "closure" involved. They "dropped" the charges at the trial date after disrupting your life for many months... and because they dropped them, they are free to do it again.
There should be compelling by the court to finish cases that are started. There should also be judgments on all the actors in play, at the same time. If they find a piece of evidence obtained illegally, or lawyer messed up, all the parties should have punishments at the sentencing. If the DA is wrong and you've sat in jail then the state should be compelled to "make it right" before you leave the court, not in some separate action.
but they ran the SAME ads on Analog and Digital.
I agree with FingerSoup, that all analog channels should have had a red bar at the bottom with instructions, all the time... and the HD channels would not. A lot of people with Digital TVs still tuned to Analog channels if the TV wasn't set up correctly. For example my cable company would actually SWITCH to the analog feed (on the HD channel) to run the PSA about digital.
The whole thing was totally botched to the general public.