Why Mahalo employed a felon hacker

Post by Tichy » Thu, Mar 05, 2009, 11:08 PM UTC

nihilocrat wrote: post #37

tptacek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rehabilitate people? He was sentenced this week . The investigation started in 2005; he didn't even cop a plea until 2007. I'm all for rehabilitation, but if you can't make a judgement call not to put a convicted computer felon in a sysadmin role when he's still pending sentencing, when can you? The relativism here is just dizzying.

This particular case makes sense, it's the same as not hiring someone because they are definitely going to have to quit relatively soon, especially if they knowingly withheld that information. However, the article and its title strongly suggest that if he were an ex-convict, they would have cut him out of the process with no second thoughts. Of course all ex-cons are subhuman murderous animals! That's what I'm really…

Post by jpd » Thu, Mar 05, 2009, 11:19 PM UTC

utnick wrote: post #18

I know 'innocent until proven guilty' and all that, but I'm still pretty surprised that a judge would allow someone who is about to go on trial for computer fraud and hacking find work at a computer company and use the internet.

Post by cellis » Fri, Mar 06, 2009, 2:05 AM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #42

nihilocrat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This particular case makes sense, it's the same as not hiring someone because they are definitely going to have to quit relatively soon, especially if they knowingly withheld that information. However, the article and its title strongly suggest that if he were an ex-convict, they would have cut him out of the process with no second thoughts. Of course all ex-cons are subhuman murderous animals! That's what I'm really…

When do you know that somebody can be trusted again? Serious question - I am not sure about the best way to go about it. A spontaneous feeling would be that maybe someone should earn the trust somehow, so I wouldn't necessarily simply put them in a position where they can do the same things they did before. (Like not employing child abusers in child care). Anyway, it is hard to tell without knowing more about the per…

Post by ojbyrne » Fri, Mar 06, 2009, 3:26 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #30

Tichy wrote: post #8

Not that I am against giving people a second chance (and hey, abused youth and all), but to explain it by saying we are all criminals anyway so it is no biggie doesn't really raise my level of trust.

Every year, more than 130,000 people are convicted on felony charges for basic drug possession, a crime that hurts nobody and which is by a commanding majority of surveyed public opinion regarded as a crime that should not actually be a crime. All of these people are going to fail the criminal background checks applied across a good swath of the Fortune 500. That's a clear injustice. Is this?

Post by tptacek » Fri, Mar 06, 2009, 5:33 AM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #48

tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every year, more than 130,000 people are convicted on felony charges for basic drug possession, a crime that hurts nobody and which is by a commanding majority of surveyed public opinion regarded as a crime that should not actually be a crime. All of these people are going to fail the criminal background checks applied across a good swath of the Fortune 500. That's a clear injustice. Is this?

I think Google is in the fortune 500. Anyway they seem to go out of their way to not treat basic drug possession as a black mark. I interviewed there, and on the application form they had a question like "Have you ever been convicted of a crime (do not include basic drug possession)?"