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Ask HN: Ex-Employer gossiping I “hacked” their platform – what to do?

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Re: Ask HN: Ex-Employer gossiping I “hacked” their platform – what to do?

#31

Post by dvtrn »

ulfw wrote: post #18
soared wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think a lawyer will impact the water cooler.

and it will cost you a ton. I love when people immediately jump to "lawyer up" like that's just nothing.

How do you define "a ton"? Midway through my career I worked in an employment litigation office, just to sit down with an Associate (capital A) for 30 minutes to an hour, consultations ran from free to quite comparatively affordable considering the cost of going all-in on litigating the affair.

If there's talk going on inside the walls of a former employer that could jeopardize someone's career and future earnings potential, I think a consultation at minimum is prudent.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-Employer gossiping I “hacked” their platform – what to do?

#32

Post by matt_the_bass »

lidHanteyk wrote: post #4

In he-said-she-said situations, have a good story. Deflect: > Ha, yeah, I did no such thing, but they certainly want a scapegoat, don't they? So, when I was there, lemme tell you about their data security practices... Gain empathy: > Right, it's understandable that they'd want to blame somebody . And who better than me, walking out the door, going to spend more time with my family? And minimize: > But yeah, there's n…

I disagree with your 1st suggestion. When hiring someone, I expect them to have a clear, concise, mature explanation. Gossiping in response with “lemme tell you about their...” is a big red flag to me. I don’t want to hire a blabber mouth. I think an appropriate answer is more in line with your second and third comments. I think it is fine to say “I left months before they had this problem. Perhaps they are looking for a scape goat and I’m convenient. I’d be happy to discuss my opinions of security design in general, but I won’t discuss specifics of what was done at that company while I was there. I may not have agreed with their choices. I’ve made the choice to leave there”

Re: Ask HN: Ex-Employer gossiping I “hacked” their platform – what to do?

#33

Post by Sanzig »

bluntfang wrote: post #21
ulfw wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and it will cost you a ton. I love when people immediately jump to "lawyer up" like that's just nothing.

lawyers cost money too. companies don't want to use their law resources for something like this. sometimes a letter on a law firms letterhead with harsh words is enough to at least get the company to take action. this probably won't cost you more than $1k, which if you believe your career is at stake is far less than future income.

Exactly - a scary letter should be enough to get the CEO to call the offending employees into his office and tell them to knock it off, as they may be opening the company up to liability. Any sane CEO will see that there's zero upside to allowing these rumors to continue and plenty of downside.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-Employer gossiping I “hacked” their platform – what to do?

#34

Post by f38zf5vdt »

thrwaway999 wrote: post #30

A similar situation happened to me several years ago. My former employer claimed I was involved in a data breach a year after I quit. The FBI raided my home and questioned me for hours about what I knew. I was not involved and had no knowledge of any incident. I would strongly urge you to retain counsel with a criminal defense attorney and seek to squash this as soon as possible. When a company claims that someone, e…

Yes, so some terrible truths:

1. Talk to lawyers, who will probably tell you to talk to no one and to refer LE/legal notices you get to them.

2. Never reach out to your old company about this. You probably should not have done this in the first place, since perversely asserting your innocence often makes you look more guilty (since 'that's exactly what a guilty person would do').

Basically, if this evolves into a legal matter it's out of your hands. Try not to get anxious about this, since rumors at an old company are entirely out of your control. If you're innocent, internal or external investigations should prove so.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-Employer gossiping I “hacked” their platform – what to do?

#35

Post by throwaway743 »

Juliate wrote: post #16

Been there myself and seen it in other places too. It can actually be a good filter, prospect-wise: a company that does gossip about/blame an ex-employee for some of their failures is advertising their own lack of agency. If they were smart, they wouldn't gossip, and not even let the gossip go. That's very bad strategy, both internally and externally. If they're not, well, I can't tell you what to do. What happened t…

> when looking for employment, when relevant, I explicitly mentioned this experience and what came with it, and what I was then looking for in a new company/position/team, so that I was the first to pitch what did happen and how I reacted to it.

It's always said not to mention negative situations with past employers. I've been through some shit along these lines in the past, but at times wish to be honest about what I seek in a place of employment to give comparing perspectives. How did you go about explaining this?

Re: Ask HN: Ex-Employer gossiping I “hacked” their platform – what to do?

#36

Post by harrisonjackson »

There's already some good advice in the thread for the OP.

I'll add-on that this should not have been an issue in the first place. The company should be protecting their customers better than this. It is already a failure of the process when employees are _maybe_ revoking their own creds on the way out. Not to mention what other issues actually led to the breach.

I'd also suspect a current employee (I feel sick even typing that out) before one that has moved on months ago.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-Employer gossiping I “hacked” their platform – what to do?

#37

Post by FDSGSG »

tyingq wrote: post #29
scandox wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that legal in the US? And what is the sharing mechanism? Word of mouth?

Varies by state, but legal in most places. Big companies have automated reference checking. Via truework or theworknumber, or similar. Which can also verify salary...urgh. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-...

>Which can also verify salary...urgh.

This seems so vulnerable to data entry mistakes that such data might just be completely useless.

What happens when stated salary doesn't match salary verifier numbers? Do you just not hire that person?

Re: Ask HN: Ex-Employer gossiping I “hacked” their platform – what to do?

#38

Post by Juliate »

throwaway743 wrote: post #35
Juliate wrote: post #16

Been there myself and seen it in other places too. It can actually be a good filter, prospect-wise: a company that does gossip about/blame an ex-employee for some of their failures is advertising their own lack of agency. If they were smart, they wouldn't gossip, and not even let the gossip go. That's very bad strategy, both internally and externally. If they're not, well, I can't tell you what to do. What happened t…

> when looking for employment, when relevant, I explicitly mentioned this experience and what came with it, and what I was then looking for in a new company/position/team, so that I was the first to pitch what did happen and how I reacted to it. It's always said not to mention negative situations with past employers. I've been through some shit along these lines in the past, but at times wish to be honest about what…

Well, shit happens, there's no denying about that, whatever HR/recruiting wizards can say.

* Don't put your negative experiences on the fore front.

* But don't hide them either, because:

1. if you do hide them, they might always bite you in the neck later (personally, or professionally);

2. there's a lot to learn here as well, and that's what you need to take the focus on: what you learned from it.

If you can show that you confronted the negative experience, and solved/learned something out of it, you demonstrate a very valuable strengh to your potential employer: humility, courage, resolution.

Plus, that you prefer to bring potential bad news yourself.

That's worth mentioning.

Re: Ask HN: Ex-Employer gossiping I “hacked” their platform – what to do?

#40

Post by [deleted] »

Juliate wrote: post #16

Been there myself and seen it in other places too. It can actually be a good filter, prospect-wise: a company that does gossip about/blame an ex-employee for some of their failures is advertising their own lack of agency. If they were smart, they wouldn't gossip, and not even let the gossip go. That's very bad strategy, both internally and externally. If they're not, well, I can't tell you what to do. What happened t…

[deleted]
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