I’m not making any judgement on this particular event but your rigid way of thinking that because it’s a crime it’s wrong is, well, too rigid.
If I was a citizen of North Korea and I assassinated the great leader technically speaking I just committed a crime too. You see the nuance here? Maybe you think because the laws are American and Americans can do no wrong. Extraordinary rendition was completely legal and a thousand times worse than what this guy did. 10 years for this, 0 years for torture.
I want to hear his side of the story. How did they fuck him over after he gave them years of work.
And what evil was Eaton Corporation performing? No, seriously. Put your hyperbolic examples aside that clearly don't fit the facts.
And let's say the company was evil in some way. Well, the defendant was happy to keep working for them (12 years in this case) and only started sabotating when he was demoted. So there's not a shred of a moral stand here. It's just pure self-interest, which is fine. But if you go the route of sabotage, don't be surprised if you end up jail. Is that worth it? The answer is no.
I'm reminded of a really old Simpsons quote [1].
Alternatively, you just hoard information and make yourself impossible to fire.
This article is non-specific about the charge but this article [2] says the charge carries a maximum 10 year sentence, which means it's a felony. So for the rest of his life, he'll be a convicted felon regardless of how much (if any) prison time he gets. That has consequences.
It's also strange he went to trial at all. The conviction rate in Federal court is roughly 99%. Most Federal criminal cases plead out. I'd love to know what, if any, plea deal was offered, if he represented himself (pro se) and, if he didn't, how much it cost him. It has to be tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
You see what I mean when I say, it's just not worth it? "What if it was a moral crusade?" you might ask. It wasn't. That's the point. That's why it's not worth it.
I don’t know what evil was done by the corporation. I’m not making any judgement. I need to hear the employees side of the story which wasn’t given here.
If any evil was done, why wasn't it raised as a defense at trial? We just had one. He was found guilty. The defense was actually "it wasn't me" with a bad cover up and his account was linked to the malware.
I don't understand this weird obsession with being contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian or to raise hyperbolic examples that don't fit the facts. Sometimes, even most of the time, things are just what they appear to be. In this case: likely a shitty employer and a shitty job.
He then compounded his error by going to trial (Federal criminal cases have a 98-99% conviction rate at trial), paying possibly $100k in legal fees, going to prison for possibly years and being a convicted felon for the rest of his life with all that entails (loss of rights, more difficult to find work, lower earning potential, difficulty in getting visas, more difficult to rent and so on).
And for what? What's probably just a mild inconvenience for the company for a day or two. WAs it worth it?
> If any evil was done, why wasn't it raised as a defense at trial?
Because the evil likely wasn’t illegal.
> I don't understand this weird obsession with being contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian or to raise hyperbolic examples that don't fit the facts.
False. No one is contrarian here for the sake of it you and I have a different opinion. That’s all you think someone with a different opinion than you is contrarian?
> And for what? What's probably just a mild inconvenience for the company for a day or two. WAs it worth it?
Fuck no it wasn’t worth it. That’s what I mean. It’s a “crime” but was it a crime worth 10 years? No. If you weigh the situation based on gravity the greater evil was done to him. That’s part of the whole thing about a crime isn’t the end all be all of evil. Just because it’s a crime doesn’t mean anything.
> Sometimes, even most of the time, things are just what they appear to be. In this case: likely a shitty employer and a shitty job.
Appear to be what? They have no quotations or anything about him stating why he did what he did? Because the information is missing you are making a wild guess.
I don’t know how you can make a claim out of thin air that things are often what they appear to be EVEN when you literally were not given his side of the story. In any typical investigation motive is a huge part of the analysis and we don’t have motive.
I bet the prosecutor was like you. Just destroy a mans life because he “broke the law” or did a “crime.” If a child stole food because he was hungry would you send him to juvie because it’s a crime? Let’s be real here. If I had to venture any guess about why he’s going to jail for 10 years a huge part of it is that someone fucking hates him.
Then he has no case to commit crimes. He was also happy to work there for 12 years and only effectively took action when he was fired. There's no moral stance here.
> ... you think someone with a different opinion than you is contrarian?
No, I can just spot the product of (probably undiagnosed) autism. That is, I made a statement ("it's never worth it") that to some, particularly on the Internet, is like a red rag to a bull. What makes it particularly funny is you complained about "rigid thinking" in another comment.
I was talking about taking revenge against shitty jobs at shitty companies. The more neurotypical among us know this. This is a statement that fit the facts, not some completely different hyperbolic statement like, oh I don't know:
> If I was a citizen of North Korea and I assassinated the great leader technically speaking I just committed a crime too
As an aside, you'd probably be executed if you weren't killed on the spot. Hope it was worth it. Of course, that has nothing to do with the issue at hand anyway.
> ... Because the information is missing you are making a wild guess.
Actually, I just went looking for more info [1], which adds:
1. Forensic information was found on his laptop and a development machine linking him to the attack;
2. He admitted it to prosecutors (and went to trial anyway, which is crazy); and
3. He gave the malware Chinese and Japanese names, assumedly to lay blame at a foreign actor.
> I don’t know how you can make a claim out of thin air that things are often what they appear to be EVEN when you literally were not given his side of the story.
This is what I mean by contrarian and also what I mean when technical people start making technical arguments to legal issues.
Here's the example I like to use. If the Feds trace something illegal being downloaded to a particular IP address and then find from the ISP the home it belong to, they then investigate then ultimately arrest and charge the resident of that home. "Technical" people will see that and say things like "you can't prove it wasn't someone who hacked his wifi" or similar. That's what I call a "technical argument". But it's not how the law works. Investigators will do things like look at what's on his computer, his search history, whether the activity occurred when he was likely at home and so on. This is a legal standard (eg "beyond a reasonable doubt" for criminal cases, "preponderance of the evidence" for civil), not a technical standard with absolutely zero room for doubt.
His defense (or lack thereof) at trial is information. His apparent lack of any public statements is information. The nature of the code, being that it only triggered when he no longer worked there, is information.
I strongly advise yourself to be introspective and question why you feel the need to effort-post so hard and imagine a scenario where this was justified, just because someone said "it's never worth it".
> If a child stole food ...
Exactly like this.
My advice to you, and I mean this with all the empathy in the world, is to introspect on why you have this burning need to correct every imagined wrong on the Internet, particularly for something as inocuous as "it's never worth it" about committing crimes. I guarantee you you'll be happier for it.
Lastly, you bring up all these weird exceptions where something is justified but go back and read what I said. I never said it wasn't justified. I said "it's never worth it". It's not about being right, or wrong. It's about the consequences regardless of your moral position.
Think about why you shadow-boxed with something I never said too.
> Then he has no case to commit crimes. He was also happy to work there for 12 years and only effectively took action when he was fired. There's no moral stance here.
Again, evil doesn’t need to be illegal to be evil. What the CIA did of Torturing people through extraordinary rendition was completely evil.
Additionally you’re making a moral judgement call here without hearing the other side of the story. You’re morally stubborn and while I don’t think you’re evil, you’re likely a person to conduct evil through sheer stubbornness and an inability to examine your own moral rules.
> I was talking about taking revenge against shitty jobs at shitty companies.
Depends on what the shitty company did for which you don’t what they did. No autism, just logic.
> As an aside, you'd probably be executed if you weren't killed on the spot. Hope it was worth it. Of course, that has nothing to do with the issue at hand anyway.
So. It’s not a morally wrong action. Basically your point was if it’s a crime then it’s wrong and this example was there to show you that this type of thinking is incorrect even by your own standards.
> Actually, I just went looking for more info [1], which adds
Again. No motive. Nothing about why he did what he did and what was done to him.
> This is what I mean by contrarian and also what I mean when technical people start making technical arguments to legal issues.
The word you’re looking for is overly pedantic. Such level of detail is appropriate here for someone receiving 10 years. But to you it’s too “technical” because it’s a “crime” and let’s ruin his life and likely the lives of his entire family by throwing him in jail?
Also im not asking for 100
Percent proofs on everything or anything. I’m simply saying we literally don’t know his motive. We don’t know why and what was done to him. He wasn’t quoted. That’s reasonable and if you can’t agree with that then you’re just stubborn.
> I strongly advise yourself to be introspective and question why you feel the need to effort-post so hard and imagine a scenario where this was justified, just because someone said "it's never worth it".
When I disagree and overhear something I disagree with I like to talk about it. I’m not busy so this stuff fills my time. When I agree with something I also like to post.
> Lastly, you bring up all these weird exceptions where something is justified but go back and read what I said. I never said it wasn't justified. I said "it's never worth it". It's not about being right, or wrong. It's about the consequences regardless of your moral position.
Right. And these exceptions are the consequences of rigidly following your logic. You even acknowledge my examples are clear exceptions. The point of the exceptions is to show you that THIS case without hearing the employees side of the story MAY also be an exception.
I obviously brought up those examples because you wouldn’t think those examples are morally right. I brought it up because it’s the logical consequence of your reasoning, I quote: “I've never understood this mentality. Your employer might be the absolute worst but this? This is comitting a crime. To knowingly sabotage a company this way is a crime.”
It’s like a crime is full stop wrong.
My advice to you is to ask what pushes people to commit crimes like this and what pushes people to put him behind bars for 10 years.
If I was a citizen of North Korea and I assassinated the great leader technically speaking I just committed a crime too. You see the nuance here? Maybe you think because the laws are American and Americans can do no wrong. Extraordinary rendition was completely legal and a thousand times worse than what this guy did. 10 years for this, 0 years for torture.
I want to hear his side of the story. How did they fuck him over after he gave them years of work.