31–40 of 57 posts
Calacanis' reaction is an interesting one. As he states himself it was the risky, not socially acceptable, decision to make. His telling of the story makes it seem that he made the right decision. I would agree. A little grace, which by definition can only be shown to someone completely unworthy of it, is encouraging. I am fascinated by my own reaction when I read stories like this. Why is it that justice waived prod…
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Knowingly having a hacker in an organization is a very difficult predicament. Yes people should be given a second chance, but is it worth all the possible negative press. I would not have kept him on. I don't know the guys though.
Knowingly having a hacker in an organization is a very difficult predicament. Yes people should be given a second chance, but is it worth all the possible negative press. I would not have kept him on. I don't know the guys though.
I don't think that your incorrect usage of "hacker" is going to win many good feelings here on "Hacker News".
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would consider this smart P.R. John Schiefer was sentenced yesterday (3/4/09), and the story seemed to break today. John was actually convicted for identity theft, fraud, and stealing bank account info. So the charges were pretty serious. Infoworld makes it sound like he just used the bank account info to pay for domain registration and web server space. It seems from the report the biggest victim was a company he…
Obviously I didn't write the post in order to get PR. This is NOT the kind of thing you want PR for. We decided to submit letters to the judge in order to have John's sentence reduced from 60 years to something more reasonable. In order to do that we had to go on record, and those records came out yesterday at the sentencing which I attended. The Register called today and I thought it would be best for me to explain…
I'm sad to think that they would have cut him out of the process if they had known. I sort of hate our culture which demonizes anyone who has ever been prosecuted by the justice system and quickly shuffles them into a corner of "people who we can't legally round up and gas but are just as worthless". It's really unhealthy to think that decent, worthwhile people can't ever make mistakes in judgement (and learn from th…
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.
That's what I'm really annoyed about, so maybe this situation really just doesn't fit, but I still felt it had to be said.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would consider this smart P.R. John Schiefer was sentenced yesterday (3/4/09), and the story seemed to break today. John was actually convicted for identity theft, fraud, and stealing bank account info. So the charges were pretty serious. Infoworld makes it sound like he just used the bank account info to pay for domain registration and web server space. It seems from the report the biggest victim was a company he…
Obviously I didn't write the post in order to get PR. This is NOT the kind of thing you want PR for. We decided to submit letters to the judge in order to have John's sentence reduced from 60 years to something more reasonable. In order to do that we had to go on record, and those records came out yesterday at the sentencing which I attended. The Register called today and I thought it would be best for me to explain…
As I said before I think the charges against John are serious. I don't know what is fully going on and I don't know know John personally. So I really don't have enough knowledge to form an opinion of his character. So since you know John and say that he is a good person, I believe you. He obviously has technical skill and knowledge, so I see no reason that he can't become a productive member of society once he gets out of jail.
Although no news reports currently mention that John worked at Mahalo, that will probably change. As you mentioned, the Register called you today. And once people see that John worked at Mahalo, they are going to link Mahalo to a convicted cracker. Naturally that is going to raise some questions about your company.
Sure you could have not made a statement and refused to answer any questions. That is your right. I really don't see how using Mahalo could put my identity or computer at risk (My level of computer knowledge might be making me overconfident). So some of the questions people raise about Mahalo are probably going to be invasive and will not have much to do with a user's experience using the site. But the P.R. is bad, and if you hadn't made any statement, people will probably have assumed the worst about your company.
Also, I am sure that John needs any support he can get right now since I am sure that he is going to be attacked. So I'm sure John appreciated your public support of him.
So basically an open and honest explanation helps mitigate that bad P.R. Now if people are curious about why you hired John, they can get answers directly from you. And you posted the blog before news reports reports came out about you hiring him, so it really does not come across as defensive. I made that comment about your blog post being smart P.R. because that post and its timing is one of the best responses that I can think of to any questions about your company.
All the best, Chris
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously I didn't write the post in order to get PR. This is NOT the kind of thing you want PR for. We decided to submit letters to the judge in order to have John's sentence reduced from 60 years to something more reasonable. In order to do that we had to go on record, and those records came out yesterday at the sentencing which I attended. The Register called today and I thought it would be best for me to explain…
I'm not sure, but I think he might be saying: "Mahalo was getting the publicity one way or the other, so by posting this before the story broke, you got a chance to control it".