How about the maintenance services who act lazy reporting client issues to the main vendor? That's one of the undetected patterns I believe.
Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software
41–50 of 156 posts
Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software
#42Wow, does 6-months in jail seem a little severe? How does one even get someone prosecuted for this crime? We hired a licensed plumber on 2 occasions - to install a sink and later a shower. We just had a different plumber out because the sink was plugged up. He pointed out that the prior plumber had installed the sanitary-t upside down basically guarantying it would eventually become clogged. We also had him look at t…
Just sued for the cost of putting the job right.
Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software
#43I read the DOJ link and it just states “intentional damage to a protected computer.” If he had accidentally written sloppy code that happened to break periodically would that have been illegal? I don’t fully understand what law he broke and how such a law would not also apply to the seemingly infinite cases of built in obsolescence.
> If he had accidentally written sloppy code
The damage was intentional (i.e., not an accident).
Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I surmise that the password feature is not meant for true security. It's not protecting the whole document, just the spreadsheet formulas and VB code. Requesting a password for changes to the formulas obviously prevents accidental mistakes, and makes it unambiguously clear that only some people in the enterprise (those who know the password) are 'supposed' to make these edits. Quite clever, as far as it goes.
Makes sense. The software needs to access that code for the spreadsheet to work, so if it was encrypted for example, then the spreadsheet would be unusable unless you know the password
I guess in any case, if you really care about security, you could just encrypt the file separately and only send someone the encrypted binary.
Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software
#45It is somewhat like drm, but nobody goes to jail when books stop opening and old games break
Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software
#46> The parties in the case stipulated a total loss amount of $42,262.50
That's an oddly specific loss amount, especially the 50c
Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the one hand, yes, that's crazy. On the other hand, an argument can be made that company accept proprietary software in binary form all the time, and this is no different ! Still a good laugh from the sidelines...
> On the one hand, yes, that's crazy. On the other hand, an argument can be made that company accept proprietary software in binary form all the time, and this is no different ! It's a little different if only from a professional dignity perspective, lol. Also, every senior programmer I've ever worked with who makes use of third-party binaries will find a moment to say, "I'll just decompile it if it ever gives us any…
Corporations have no professional dignity.
Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software
#48Wow, does 6-months in jail seem a little severe? How does one even get someone prosecuted for this crime? We hired a licensed plumber on 2 occasions - to install a sink and later a shower. We just had a different plumber out because the sink was plugged up. He pointed out that the prior plumber had installed the sanitary-t upside down basically guarantying it would eventually become clogged. We also had him look at t…
I understand it depends on whether the FBI can show malice, planning and intent, and the size of the damage ($42k in the Siemens case). So in your plumber case it's probably impossible unless it's like a pattern of fraud rather than just one mistreated client. If a plumber actually tried to make a fraudulent business model out of such behaviour, then I could totally believe they might get jail time. Furthermore, if you sue the plumber yourself, that's a civil case and so jail time is not possible at all (the Siemens case was handled by the FBI).
I personally do not think that 6 months' jail for stealing $42k from somebody is so severe, to be honest, it's a lot of money.
Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is actually pretty nice diff / compare two spreadsheets functionality inside of Excel. Screenshot: https://support.content.office.net/en-us/media/9149c7e8-6f0c...
Seems to be dependent on what edition of Excel you have - I had a look for it and couldn't find it... (I'm using the up to date version from Office 365).
Open the Quick Access drop down menu and select More Commands.
In the Excel Options dialog box, select All Commands under Choose commands from.
In the list of commands, scroll down to Compare and Merge Workbooks, select it and click the Add button to move it to the right-hand section.
Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software
#50I read the DOJ link and it just states “intentional damage to a protected computer.” If he had accidentally written sloppy code that happened to break periodically would that have been illegal? I don’t fully understand what law he broke and how such a law would not also apply to the seemingly infinite cases of built in obsolescence.
Of course if he just wrote bad spaghetti code with no boundaries, no tests, and that breaks everything from time to time, he'd have locked in the company, make other developer's experience a nightmare, and so on and get away with it.
I think this might explain a few things I have seen or heard about in my life.