Traditionally a hacker was just an inventive and resourceful problem-solver.
"The hacker culture is built upon the acceptance that logic, knowledge and science are the true "Gods" of our religion. If I cannot prove it, if I cannot detect it, if I cannot compile it, touch it, see it, I do not believe in it. His kind of religion flies in the face of everything that I hold dear."
That's all well and good, so long as you recognize that such a belief will always limit you to being yesterdays news. There was a time that even air did not meet those criteria, let alone atomic particles, magnetic fields, electricity...
Your rules present a good and concise representation of deductive logic, but deductive logic does not present any new truths, only distillations from what is already known. You pretty much disclude inductive logic in that, which is what we use to advance ourselves.
yes, that's wonderful Tom. The problem is that there's not a single bit of evidence to suggest that they're doing that, and even less to suggest that this picture has anything to do with it.
There are literally dozens of scenarios that you could contrive that involve MS secretly doing something with G5's and not wanting the public to know about it. The trouble is that a)there is nothing strange about MS purchasing G5s. Regardless of what they were going to do with them, they'd just buy them out in the open and not care who saw. With all the thousands of people that MS employs, two pallets of G5s don't suggest ANYTHING except that some people are getting G5s. You're basing this entire thing on an interpretation of their reaction that *doesn't even make sense*, let alone point conclusively or even suggestively to your conclusions. In point of fact, if you were right they'd be MUCH more likely to not fire him, and just say "what you did was bad, but if you just take any mention of it down we'll let you go with a warning". That would accomplish all goals and ensure that the pictures remained gone for the duration of his employment. What they did do had no possibility of getting rid of the pictures that you suggest they didn't want anyone to know about.
As for connectix, it's much more likely that they bought that so that they could control development, and because they saw promise and profit in it. This way anyone who chooses to buy a Mac instead of a x86 box because they can always run V. PC on it is still paying MS.
The reality of the situation is that MS gains a lot more by Apple being a competitor than they lose.
All in all, you get a +5 for creativity, but a 0 for logic.
No it doesn't, it's your delusion that says it all... They haven't done a single thing to suggest that the picture and text themselves matter at all. The personal sites at research.ms.com are in all probability authorized sites with authorized content, put up by highly valuable team members.
"There was no "level of detail". There was nothing in the pix to even identify that it was taken at Microsoft."
But AGAIN, they clearly said that it was the COMBINATION OF PICTURES AND TEXT THAT CREATED THE PROBLEM. How many times does this need to be pointed out? They didn't like the fact that he was taking pictures and describing exactly where they were taken and what building was what. It's that simple.
"Just asking him to take the picture and text down would have been reasonable. We both agree to that."
No we don't. You say that it would have been reasonable, I say that it's not my call to make. I'm not in charge of security there.
In point of fact, if the problem *wasn't* the pictures and text, but the judgement and behavior that were the problem (which the evidence suggests), then simply asking him to take the stuff down't wouldn't be reasonable. Why can't you accept that this guy just wasn't worth worrying about? He showed himself to be the kind of guy who snaps a picture and writes in his blog about stuff that goes on at work, they might just not like that. I know that my friend Janet isn't allowed to discuss *anything* about the work she does at MS. If they found out that she had said anything to anyone, even her friends about what she does she'd be fired. She makes almost 100k a year, and is a very skilled programmer. If they're willing to fire a valuable memember of the team for rather inoccuous security breaches, why would they bother with even a second thought for a temp?
"Hold on now. Microsoft has thousands of pictures on the web, including pictures by employees like this one which is an arial view, resizeable, sitting in research.microsoft.com/~grey directory. So, what rule? Or is research.microsoft.com a compromised server all of a sudden? Or are they now going to fire all their r&d guys? "
I don't know what rule, and you don't either. Further, as I've pointed out plenty of times, the picture wasn't the problem, it was the picture along with the text. I'd like to point out though, that the picture you linked to WASN'T taken by an MS employee at all. When I google "microsoft images" I see page after page of professional MS photographs, not a huge wealth of amatuer snapshots taken by employees.
"As for there not being a logical link - this incident is a smoking gun. There was nothing in the picture to identify that it had been taken at a Microsoft location, so why the big deal? "
I don't know how to impress this upon you any other way than to say it over and over... Obviously the picture *wasn't* a big deal, or they would have gotten it taken down when the kid offered. Repeat that to yourself until you understand it.
"It's no secret that Microsoft uses Apple hardware, so why the big deal?
It's not like other employees don't post pictures on the web, even USING MICROSOFT's SERVERS to show off the facilities, so what's the big deal? "
Gee, you think that maybe the contents of a researchers web page in the research.ms.com domain might, just MIGHT be authorized content? You think that maybe they give their senior researchers maybe a bit more latitude then their temp employees?
"Someone's pet project got a little leak in it, and they went and had a shit-hemmorhage and wanted this guy gone. The picture didn't reveal anything - the text did. The text revealed that Microsoft wanted a truckload of G5s at a time when G5s are hard to get in any kind of quantity, and they are sensitive to people knowing about this particular shipment of G5s. "
And again, there isn't an ounce of evidence to support this. If MS was trying to hide the delivery of two palettes of G5's, guess what, they're capable of doing that, and some temp woulnd't stumble on them while walking through the door. Further, it was *security* who had him canned, not another project manager. If this was a problem because the picture and text were releasing sensitive info, THEY WOULD HAVE TRIED TO GET THE INFO REMOVED. You're the only one in the world who would think "gee, this person is offering to take down this sensitive information that I don't want anyone to see, but instead I think I'll make sure that it stays up forever and ever as a clever way of hiding it". In fact, if that were the case they probably woulnd't have fired him at all, because there wouldn't be any reason to, and as long as he has a job he has a reason not to distribute those images. Your rationale simply *doesn't make sense*. It makes as much sense as saying that they fired him because they just didn't like his haircut and were waiting for the first excuse. That theory has exactly as much supporting evidence as yours does, if not more.
It's quite clear that nobody cared about the picture or the accompanying text except so far as they demonstrated that this employee showed poor judgement, and the possibility of being a risk. If it had been a skilled employee or someone of some other value, they probably would have let him slide. As it is, why risk something when you lose absolutely nothing by simply firing the guy.
Or unless it was just the fact that he was inclined to publish that level of detail, and they were uncomfortable with that. Or unless it was just policy enforcing for policy enforcings sake. A temp in the print shop isn't worth much, whereas making a point that you don't do shit like that probably is worth something.
how are you going to get your usb port + flash card reader to work if you don't have permission to add hardware?
Most of these places don't allow you to store project files on local drives, it's all on the network. Even if you did put your own drive in, how are you going to import it without permissions? If you just boot another OS, how are you going to get authenticated to the domain to get access to the file shares?
"Google for images of "microsoft campus" returns 1040 results including buildings, maps, pictures, etc, so it's not like there's a "no pictures" policy."
And they quite clearly told him that if it had just been the picture alone they would have just had him take it down and left it at that.
"? Or maybe they figured that it would stop there, and asking that the picture be taken down (you've got to admit its pretty innocuous) would have drawn attention to it. After all, if you want to hide something, the best way to do it is to leave it in plain view (rare stamp "hidden" in plain sight on ordinary mail). "
You watch too much TV. If they had just wanted to "hide it in plain sight" why would they do anything, why would they even mention it? You're stretching to find justifications for an unsupported conclusion you've made. Simply asking the kid to take the post down wouldn't have drawn any attention to it, it wouldn't have been unusual at all. There's a reason that's the first thing that he suggested, it's because it would be a reasonable request. There's absolutely no way that "we don't like pictures being taken of hardware coming in, please remove the picture and any details about it" would be construed as something that would draw attention to it. It just doesn't make sense. Had they cared about the picture they would have just gotten it taken down and never mentioned it again. In fact they did absolutely NOTHING to get the picture taken down, when it was absolutely in their power to do so in an inoccuous way.
bottom line, none of your conclusions are supported by the events.
"This showed that he was not intentionally trying to break any rules. "
No, it shows that he clearly knew that taking pictures was against the rules, but thought that if he only took pictures of incidental stuff nobody would care. He thought he could skate by because the pictures wouldn't matter.
"So, why over-reacted to THESE pix?"
Because it showed the kid as someone who is likely to take pictures and post details on their blog. Since he was a temp and not worth much to the company, it's easier and more effective to just fire him than worry about what he'll take a picture of next time. Also, it's important to enforce rules so as not to give violators a potential excuse in the future.
"Of course, we can put on our tin-foil hats and think:
Microsoft FUD Dept: Lets get people thinking we're developing Windows for the G5. what's the best way to do that? I know, we'll go ape-shit over that guy who posted a picture of our G5s coming into a loading dock."
But no reasonable person would THINK that. There's absolutely nothing to show that they cared about the picture one bit, if they had they'd have taken the kid up on his offer to take it down. Talk about tin foil hats, you're taking a routine termination for an infraction of the rules and creating a huge and completely unsupported conspiracy theory out of it. There's not a single bit of evidence or logical link between this and development of a new platform for the MAC.
"In this case the guy was obviously surprised that he couldn't bring a camera and take a snap."
I disagree, I think he was quite obviously aware that it wasn't kosher, but reasoned that two pallets of G5s wouldn't matter and so he'd get away with it. He quite explicitly states that he made an effort to ensure that nothing else was in the picture.
"And that's not even taking into account the roundabout way of first asking him whether he was using an MS system to host the site.
That clearly indicates that they were out to fire him no matter what, the picture taking was really their fallback position."
I'd be willing to bet that this question was asked to determine whether charges would be filed... Taking pictures and publishing details about the campus might be a firing offense, misusing MS hardware to publish them is probably a prosecutable offense.
More likely he was asking to see whether or not charges were going to be filed. If he had hosted the info or pictures on MS hardware they'd most likely have prosecuted him for misuse of company property.
You're more than free to not take advantage of an employment offer if you don't like the terms. Nobody is forcing you to take the job.
As for being a people or hardware problem, it's both. Unfortunately you simply can't know everything about employees, nor can you control them. Therefore you need to work both ends of the problem, be as sure as you reasonably can about employees, but also make it as hard as you reasonably can for someone to pull something on you.
You seem to imply that trust is an issue of black and white... They may trust you to do your job, but not trust you to do your job with a camera in your pocket. Or maybe they trust you but just don't want to take any risks. I'd imagine if you refused they'd simply fire you.
How do you steal information that you don't have access to? I can take a picture of anything that I can see, I can't copy documents from a computer with no writeable disk drives, and which I don't have permissions to add hardware too.
I think that must have been Sherlock Holmes after getting some bad cocaine. Let's try him when he's more sober.
1. Microsoft finds picture of G5s and ancillary info that an employee took.
2. Microsoft shows absolutely no interest in the picture being taken down, and in fact does things likely to ensure that the picture remains up indefinitely and will have attention drawn to it.
3. Microsoft fires employee.
Conclusion:
1. Microsoft doesn't care about the photo or it's contents, but doesn't like employees posting pictures and details about their offices online for some reason.
Listen, if they were worried about the G5's, they would have just called the kid in, asked him to take the picture down, and reminded him that they have a blanket policy of not taking pictures or posting details about the campus. That wouldn't have drawn any attention to the situation, and would have ensured that the picture wasn't seen by many people.
"The only reason that Microsoft would react so badly is because THESE G5s are intended for something other than normal use."
The entry clearly mentioned that the picture alone wasn't the problem, but it was the picture along with the ancillary detailed information that he provided.
They don't want inside info published for the public, and he showed himeself to be someone with a penchant for doing just that. Since as a temp he's basically worthless anyway, they just fired him.
No secret plot, no evil schemes. He broke the rules (which he clearly was aware of, because he put forth the effort to make sure that his picture didn't show anything *else*, so obviously he knew that they didn't like pictures being taken), they decided not to bend the rules for a replaceable temp.
I think it's more likely simply the fact that he posted that much info that drew attention to it.
Not neccesarily "it's dangerous for the public to know that the print shop is next to shipping and recieving" but more like "it's dangerous to have someone with such a proclivity to revealing details about what goes on here to the public".
Today it was some boxes being unloaded, maybe tomorrow he takes a snapshot of the newest ad copy being done in the print shop to show people, not realizing that it's sensitive info.
And sure you can say "they should just have warned him", but really, why would you want someone with such bad judgement and a penchant for gabbing about what's going on around? So you tell him not to do it again and next time instead of posting it on his blog he just sends it out in an email to some friends...
It's obvious that he knew he wasn't supposed to be doing it (he even says that he made efforts to make sure there wasn't anything but the boxes in the picture) and was trying to just "get by" on the technicality that nothing sensative was in the pictures, so how would informing him of something that he already knew (that taking pictures was a no-no) really help?
Yes it does... If you fire someone for the exact same behavior that you allowed someone else to get away with, you provide them with a valid argument to use in a wrongful termination suit.
At that point it comes down to whether a judge or arbiter decides that allowing some people to get away with the behavior constituted a tacit approval for the behavior, and thus invalidated the rules or contracts against it, which could go either way.
This really isn't a slippery slope argument, the connection is very clear and apparant. As for being unjust, if I'm drunk off my ass and driving my car, should I be let off the hook simply because I didn't happen to hurt anyone? Of course not, you punish all drunk drivers to avoid some of them from doing harm. Same principle here. You punish EVERYONE who breaks the rules to a)attempt to avoid future rule breaking and b)ensure that there's good precedent for it if someone who is punished attempts to cry foul.
This guy obviously knew that security was a concern (since he specifically made attempts to limit the scope of his picture), but chose to take it onto himself to make the decision as to what was a violation of security and what wasn't. Well guess what, that's not his call to make. Had he asked his supervisor if this was acceptable or not then he'd have some sort of defense, but just because no harm happened to come from proscribed behaviors doesn't mean that no punishment should come from them.
Chances are that's what MS security wants.
They know that in this instance there wasn't any critical info leaked, but next time there might be. So if they just enforce the policy every time, people hear about it and know that they can't do stuff like this.
Not quite... "free speech" doesn't mean "you can say whatever you want without any consequences", it means that the government won't make certain speech illegal. If I tell my GF she's a fat pig chances are she's gonna dump me, that doesn't mean that my speech has been restricted though.
In short, whether it's a free speech issue has EVERYTHING to do with whether it's the government, because every OTHER relationship you enter into (including work) is completely by choice. You CHOOSE to work at MS, and live with whatever limitations that requires.
You've completely missed the point. It doesn't matter whether *this* instance was an actual security violation, it's the precedent that it sets.
This dude took a picture of the loading dock and put it on the web with accompanying text describing what and where it was. If you allow that to go unpunished, it provides a defense for anyone in the future who does the same thing in an instance where it *is* a security violation.
It doesn't matter how fast you go if they can't see you.
Sonar picks up big things in the water, this would look just like any number of animals or natural detritus to sonar (if it even registered it) and since it's electric probably wouldn't show up with passive sonar either.
Load up one pilot and fill the rest with contraband, that's a pretty good way to get drugs across the border without worrying about loosing the product.
Slashdot Mirror
yeah, I thought the thing was a guitar chord when I first saw it.
Until I realized it didn't have enough strings that is.
Traditionally a hacker was just an inventive and resourceful problem-solver.
"The hacker culture is built upon the acceptance that logic, knowledge and science are the true "Gods" of our religion. If I cannot prove it, if I cannot detect it, if I cannot compile it, touch it, see it, I do not believe in it. His kind of religion flies in the face of everything that I hold dear."
That's all well and good, so long as you recognize that such a belief will always limit you to being yesterdays news. There was a time that even air did not meet those criteria, let alone atomic particles, magnetic fields, electricity...
Your rules present a good and concise representation of deductive logic, but deductive logic does not present any new truths, only distillations from what is already known. You pretty much disclude inductive logic in that, which is what we use to advance ourselves.
Hey man, I'm a consultant.
don't know what *you're* talking about.
Wouldn't a fedora be more appropriate?
No they didn't... They only fired him, they didn't prosecute him, which is the extreme action for a breach of an NDA.
yes, that's wonderful Tom. The problem is that there's not a single bit of evidence to suggest that they're doing that, and even less to suggest that this picture has anything to do with it.
There are literally dozens of scenarios that you could contrive that involve MS secretly doing something with G5's and not wanting the public to know about it. The trouble is that a)there is nothing strange about MS purchasing G5s. Regardless of what they were going to do with them, they'd just buy them out in the open and not care who saw. With all the thousands of people that MS employs, two pallets of G5s don't suggest ANYTHING except that some people are getting G5s. You're basing this entire thing on an interpretation of their reaction that *doesn't even make sense*, let alone point conclusively or even suggestively to your conclusions. In point of fact, if you were right they'd be MUCH more likely to not fire him, and just say "what you did was bad, but if you just take any mention of it down we'll let you go with a warning". That would accomplish all goals and ensure that the pictures remained gone for the duration of his employment. What they did do had no possibility of getting rid of the pictures that you suggest they didn't want anyone to know about.
As for connectix, it's much more likely that they bought that so that they could control development, and because they saw promise and profit in it. This way anyone who chooses to buy a Mac instead of a x86 box because they can always run V. PC on it is still paying MS.
The reality of the situation is that MS gains a lot more by Apple being a competitor than they lose.
All in all, you get a +5 for creativity, but a 0 for logic.
No it doesn't, it's your delusion that says it all... They haven't done a single thing to suggest that the picture and text themselves matter at all. The personal sites at research.ms.com are in all probability authorized sites with authorized content, put up by highly valuable team members.
"There was no "level of detail". There was nothing in the pix to even identify that it was taken at Microsoft."
But AGAIN, they clearly said that it was the COMBINATION OF PICTURES AND TEXT THAT CREATED THE PROBLEM. How many times does this need to be pointed out? They didn't like the fact that he was taking pictures and describing exactly where they were taken and what building was what. It's that simple.
"Just asking him to take the picture and text down would have been reasonable. We both agree to that."
No we don't. You say that it would have been reasonable, I say that it's not my call to make. I'm not in charge of security there.
In point of fact, if the problem *wasn't* the pictures and text, but the judgement and behavior that were the problem (which the evidence suggests), then simply asking him to take the stuff down't wouldn't be reasonable. Why can't you accept that this guy just wasn't worth worrying about? He showed himself to be the kind of guy who snaps a picture and writes in his blog about stuff that goes on at work, they might just not like that. I know that my friend Janet isn't allowed to discuss *anything* about the work she does at MS. If they found out that she had said anything to anyone, even her friends about what she does she'd be fired. She makes almost 100k a year, and is a very skilled programmer. If they're willing to fire a valuable memember of the team for rather inoccuous security breaches, why would they bother with even a second thought for a temp?
"Hold on now. Microsoft has thousands of pictures on the web, including pictures by employees like this one which is an arial view, resizeable, sitting in research.microsoft.com/~grey directory. So, what rule? Or is research.microsoft.com a compromised server all of a sudden? Or are they now going to fire all their r&d guys? "
I don't know what rule, and you don't either. Further, as I've pointed out plenty of times, the picture wasn't the problem, it was the picture along with the text. I'd like to point out though, that the picture you linked to WASN'T taken by an MS employee at all. When I google "microsoft images" I see page after page of professional MS photographs, not a huge wealth of amatuer snapshots taken by employees.
"As for there not being a logical link - this incident is a smoking gun. There was nothing in the picture to identify that it had been taken at a Microsoft location, so why the big deal? "
I don't know how to impress this upon you any other way than to say it over and over... Obviously the picture *wasn't* a big deal, or they would have gotten it taken down when the kid offered. Repeat that to yourself until you understand it.
"It's no secret that Microsoft uses Apple hardware, so why the big deal? It's not like other employees don't post pictures on the web, even USING MICROSOFT's SERVERS to show off the facilities, so what's the big deal? "
Gee, you think that maybe the contents of a researchers web page in the research.ms.com domain might, just MIGHT be authorized content? You think that maybe they give their senior researchers maybe a bit more latitude then their temp employees?
"Someone's pet project got a little leak in it, and they went and had a shit-hemmorhage and wanted this guy gone. The picture didn't reveal anything - the text did. The text revealed that Microsoft wanted a truckload of G5s at a time when G5s are hard to get in any kind of quantity, and they are sensitive to people knowing about this particular shipment of G5s. "
And again, there isn't an ounce of evidence to support this. If MS was trying to hide the delivery of two palettes of G5's, guess what, they're capable of doing that, and some temp woulnd't stumble on them while walking through the door. Further, it was *security* who had him canned, not another project manager. If this was a problem because the picture and text were releasing sensitive info, THEY WOULD HAVE TRIED TO GET THE INFO REMOVED. You're the only one in the world who would think "gee, this person is offering to take down this sensitive information that I don't want anyone to see, but instead I think I'll make sure that it stays up forever and ever as a clever way of hiding it". In fact, if that were the case they probably woulnd't have fired him at all, because there wouldn't be any reason to, and as long as he has a job he has a reason not to distribute those images. Your rationale simply *doesn't make sense*. It makes as much sense as saying that they fired him because they just didn't like his haircut and were waiting for the first excuse. That theory has exactly as much supporting evidence as yours does, if not more.
It's quite clear that nobody cared about the picture or the accompanying text except so far as they demonstrated that this employee showed poor judgement, and the possibility of being a risk. If it had been a skilled employee or someone of some other value, they probably would have let him slide. As it is, why risk something when you lose absolutely nothing by simply firing the guy.
Or unless it was just the fact that he was inclined to publish that level of detail, and they were uncomfortable with that. Or unless it was just policy enforcing for policy enforcings sake. A temp in the print shop isn't worth much, whereas making a point that you don't do shit like that probably is worth something.
how are you going to get your usb port + flash card reader to work if you don't have permission to add hardware?
Most of these places don't allow you to store project files on local drives, it's all on the network. Even if you did put your own drive in, how are you going to import it without permissions? If you just boot another OS, how are you going to get authenticated to the domain to get access to the file shares?
"Google for images of "microsoft campus" returns 1040 results including buildings, maps, pictures, etc, so it's not like there's a "no pictures" policy."
And they quite clearly told him that if it had just been the picture alone they would have just had him take it down and left it at that.
"? Or maybe they figured that it would stop there, and asking that the picture be taken down (you've got to admit its pretty innocuous) would have drawn attention to it. After all, if you want to hide something, the best way to do it is to leave it in plain view (rare stamp "hidden" in plain sight on ordinary mail). "
You watch too much TV. If they had just wanted to "hide it in plain sight" why would they do anything, why would they even mention it? You're stretching to find justifications for an unsupported conclusion you've made. Simply asking the kid to take the post down wouldn't have drawn any attention to it, it wouldn't have been unusual at all. There's a reason that's the first thing that he suggested, it's because it would be a reasonable request. There's absolutely no way that "we don't like pictures being taken of hardware coming in, please remove the picture and any details about it" would be construed as something that would draw attention to it. It just doesn't make sense. Had they cared about the picture they would have just gotten it taken down and never mentioned it again. In fact they did absolutely NOTHING to get the picture taken down, when it was absolutely in their power to do so in an inoccuous way.
bottom line, none of your conclusions are supported by the events.
"This showed that he was not intentionally trying to break any rules. "
No, it shows that he clearly knew that taking pictures was against the rules, but thought that if he only took pictures of incidental stuff nobody would care. He thought he could skate by because the pictures wouldn't matter.
"So, why over-reacted to THESE pix?"
Because it showed the kid as someone who is likely to take pictures and post details on their blog. Since he was a temp and not worth much to the company, it's easier and more effective to just fire him than worry about what he'll take a picture of next time. Also, it's important to enforce rules so as not to give violators a potential excuse in the future.
"Of course, we can put on our tin-foil hats and think: Microsoft FUD Dept: Lets get people thinking we're developing Windows for the G5. what's the best way to do that? I know, we'll go ape-shit over that guy who posted a picture of our G5s coming into a loading dock."
But no reasonable person would THINK that. There's absolutely nothing to show that they cared about the picture one bit, if they had they'd have taken the kid up on his offer to take it down. Talk about tin foil hats, you're taking a routine termination for an infraction of the rules and creating a huge and completely unsupported conspiracy theory out of it. There's not a single bit of evidence or logical link between this and development of a new platform for the MAC.
"In this case the guy was obviously surprised that he couldn't bring a camera and take a snap."
I disagree, I think he was quite obviously aware that it wasn't kosher, but reasoned that two pallets of G5s wouldn't matter and so he'd get away with it. He quite explicitly states that he made an effort to ensure that nothing else was in the picture.
"And that's not even taking into account the roundabout way of first asking him whether he was using an MS system to host the site. That clearly indicates that they were out to fire him no matter what, the picture taking was really their fallback position."
I'd be willing to bet that this question was asked to determine whether charges would be filed... Taking pictures and publishing details about the campus might be a firing offense, misusing MS hardware to publish them is probably a prosecutable offense.
More likely he was asking to see whether or not charges were going to be filed. If he had hosted the info or pictures on MS hardware they'd most likely have prosecuted him for misuse of company property.
How is any real-life freedom being given up?
You're more than free to not take advantage of an employment offer if you don't like the terms. Nobody is forcing you to take the job.
As for being a people or hardware problem, it's both. Unfortunately you simply can't know everything about employees, nor can you control them. Therefore you need to work both ends of the problem, be as sure as you reasonably can about employees, but also make it as hard as you reasonably can for someone to pull something on you.
You seem to imply that trust is an issue of black and white... They may trust you to do your job, but not trust you to do your job with a camera in your pocket. Or maybe they trust you but just don't want to take any risks. I'd imagine if you refused they'd simply fire you.
How do you steal information that you don't have access to? I can take a picture of anything that I can see, I can't copy documents from a computer with no writeable disk drives, and which I don't have permissions to add hardware too.
I think that must have been Sherlock Holmes after getting some bad cocaine. Let's try him when he's more sober.
1. Microsoft finds picture of G5s and ancillary info that an employee took.
2. Microsoft shows absolutely no interest in the picture being taken down, and in fact does things likely to ensure that the picture remains up indefinitely and will have attention drawn to it.
3. Microsoft fires employee.
Conclusion:
1. Microsoft doesn't care about the photo or it's contents, but doesn't like employees posting pictures and details about their offices online for some reason.
Listen, if they were worried about the G5's, they would have just called the kid in, asked him to take the picture down, and reminded him that they have a blanket policy of not taking pictures or posting details about the campus. That wouldn't have drawn any attention to the situation, and would have ensured that the picture wasn't seen by many people.
"The only reason that Microsoft would react so badly is because THESE G5s are intended for something other than normal use."
The entry clearly mentioned that the picture alone wasn't the problem, but it was the picture along with the ancillary detailed information that he provided.
They don't want inside info published for the public, and he showed himeself to be someone with a penchant for doing just that. Since as a temp he's basically worthless anyway, they just fired him.
No secret plot, no evil schemes. He broke the rules (which he clearly was aware of, because he put forth the effort to make sure that his picture didn't show anything *else*, so obviously he knew that they didn't like pictures being taken), they decided not to bend the rules for a replaceable temp.
I think it's more likely simply the fact that he posted that much info that drew attention to it.
Not neccesarily "it's dangerous for the public to know that the print shop is next to shipping and recieving" but more like "it's dangerous to have someone with such a proclivity to revealing details about what goes on here to the public".
Today it was some boxes being unloaded, maybe tomorrow he takes a snapshot of the newest ad copy being done in the print shop to show people, not realizing that it's sensitive info.
And sure you can say "they should just have warned him", but really, why would you want someone with such bad judgement and a penchant for gabbing about what's going on around? So you tell him not to do it again and next time instead of posting it on his blog he just sends it out in an email to some friends...
It's obvious that he knew he wasn't supposed to be doing it (he even says that he made efforts to make sure there wasn't anything but the boxes in the picture) and was trying to just "get by" on the technicality that nothing sensative was in the pictures, so how would informing him of something that he already knew (that taking pictures was a no-no) really help?
Yes it does... If you fire someone for the exact same behavior that you allowed someone else to get away with, you provide them with a valid argument to use in a wrongful termination suit.
At that point it comes down to whether a judge or arbiter decides that allowing some people to get away with the behavior constituted a tacit approval for the behavior, and thus invalidated the rules or contracts against it, which could go either way.
This really isn't a slippery slope argument, the connection is very clear and apparant. As for being unjust, if I'm drunk off my ass and driving my car, should I be let off the hook simply because I didn't happen to hurt anyone? Of course not, you punish all drunk drivers to avoid some of them from doing harm. Same principle here. You punish EVERYONE who breaks the rules to a)attempt to avoid future rule breaking and b)ensure that there's good precedent for it if someone who is punished attempts to cry foul.
This guy obviously knew that security was a concern (since he specifically made attempts to limit the scope of his picture), but chose to take it onto himself to make the decision as to what was a violation of security and what wasn't. Well guess what, that's not his call to make. Had he asked his supervisor if this was acceptable or not then he'd have some sort of defense, but just because no harm happened to come from proscribed behaviors doesn't mean that no punishment should come from them.
Chances are that's what MS security wants.
They know that in this instance there wasn't any critical info leaked, but next time there might be. So if they just enforce the policy every time, people hear about it and know that they can't do stuff like this.
Not quite... "free speech" doesn't mean "you can say whatever you want without any consequences", it means that the government won't make certain speech illegal. If I tell my GF she's a fat pig chances are she's gonna dump me, that doesn't mean that my speech has been restricted though.
In short, whether it's a free speech issue has EVERYTHING to do with whether it's the government, because every OTHER relationship you enter into (including work) is completely by choice. You CHOOSE to work at MS, and live with whatever limitations that requires.
You've completely missed the point. It doesn't matter whether *this* instance was an actual security violation, it's the precedent that it sets.
This dude took a picture of the loading dock and put it on the web with accompanying text describing what and where it was. If you allow that to go unpunished, it provides a defense for anyone in the future who does the same thing in an instance where it *is* a security violation.
If you read about it, it won't be useful for your desktop anyway.
It's not a CPU.
It doesn't matter how fast you go if they can't see you.
Sonar picks up big things in the water, this would look just like any number of animals or natural detritus to sonar (if it even registered it) and since it's electric probably wouldn't show up with passive sonar either.
Load up one pilot and fill the rest with contraband, that's a pretty good way to get drugs across the border without worrying about loosing the product.