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Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

arstechnica.com

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Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#401

Post by Tade0 »

bandrami wrote: post #334
Tade0 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how it's never just one thing. In my region of the world a crackdown on street racing started a few years ago. It continued because each night the police stopped someone, there was at least one DUI and suspended license. Unsurprisingly those who disregard traffic rules tend to equally disregard other rules.

I'm not a big "lock them up" guy but seriously people don't seem to understand how hard it is to actually get the state to put and keep you in jail. You have to do really really bad things multiple times. The US prison population has been falling for over a decade now and part of that is everybody now faces pressure to not use incarceration as a first (or second or fifth) option

My country has a relatively high incarceration rate for a EU member, but that is in huge part due to previous governments seeing jail as a solution to everything.

Currently the prevailing notion is that prison is often just LinkedIn for criminals, so attempts at alternatives have been made - ankle monitors and the like.

I know a total of two people who were convicted - both for marijuana possession. One got a suspended sentence as the amount was small, the other did time, but looking at the case it was miscarriage of justice - partly because of a testimony of a man who met the accused just once in his life and had legal troubles of his own, from which he wanted to get out this way.

None of them really posed a threat to society that would mandate incarceration.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#402

Post by spwa4 »

scottlamb wrote: post #39

> [Opexus] said that “the individuals responsible for hiring the twins are no longer employed by Opexus.” Getting close to the classic Monty Python line: "Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked." Jokes aside, stuff like this sucks because I suspect many employers will take from it the most extreme, dehumanizing lessons, e.g.: (a) make firings [edit: including lay-offs] as…

I don't think you understand how this works. The second person was hired because the first one wined at his manager until he was hired. Presumably this was part of a whole chain and that would make me understand why “the individuals responsible for hiring the twins are no longer employed by Opexus.” was a good idea.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#403

Post by blokey »

kuerbel wrote: post #399
weberer wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, there are ways around that. I've worked for multiple Finnish companies that do layoffs via "lomautus" whereby they put the laid-off employees on a forced, unpaid, indefinite leave. After multiple months of not receiving a paycheck, the employees inevitably "resign".

In Germany that's forbidden, you'd have to pay them. But you can be placed in a room/office with no windows (not the OS), a computer without internet access and nothing to do. How long can you go on like that? The law, sadly, can't forbid asshole employers.

Royal Bank of Scotland did that to me and a few colleagues when they didn’t want to pay redundancy whilst closing the only building for us to work in.

Was a battle of wills and eventually after 5 weeks of coming into a random branch office and sitting in an empty room, we came in one Friday to be told that the manager in charge of the building closure had been removed from the project and they would be paying full redundancy pay and we didn’t have to come back in but they’d pay for the next 3 months as well.

Fun as a 21 year old.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#404

Post by egorfine »

Loughla wrote: post #382
egorfine wrote: post #355

I was always curious how come firing a person is a risk in the US culture. Outside of the US it's almost never done like that and a person fired is expected to be cooperative and probably even continue working for another two weeks. And not only expected - this is what actually happens.

The fuck would I keep working for if I get fired? Give me my severance if it exists and let me go home that day to start looking for another job. Don't waste my time for 2 weeks to make sure your business doesn't experience any hiccups. If I'm so important that you cannot run without my knowledge, maybe you shouldn't fire me? That being said, burning everything down on your way out the door is absolutely not standard…

> burning everything down on your way out the door is absolutely not standard behavior in the US.

Then why is the termination of employment always abrupt with absurd security measures in place including escorting people out of the building?

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#405

Post by matsemann »

joe_mamba wrote: post #371
matsemann wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this specific to US culture? And what about your work environment makes it such a risk? Where people are laid off here (Norway), they're still employed by law for 3 months. Most companies don't force you to work all that time, but it's pretty common to finish up your tasks, do offboarding etc for a few weeks. Never considered it an issue. Maybe it's a high trust society thing?

>Is this specific to US culture? And what about your work environment makes it such a risk? It's called garden leave, it's popular everywhere, especially if it's a big international company with diverse workforce, sensitive to IP rights, since there's been plenty of cases of people taking company IP on USB drives to the new employer, like that Indian guy who took IP from Valeo to Nvidia and got his home raided by the…

What's stopping people's from doing that while employed? I think if you treat your employees with respect, they don't feel the need to this kind of retaliation.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#406

Post by danielxt »

skrebbel wrote: post #317
nullorempty wrote: post #223

About 25 years ago we had layoff at a company I worked for. One of the DBA's got fired along with others. Back in the day they didn't revoke access and you had your work computer available until the end of the day. Most, who were fired, just packed and went on their way. The fired DBA however, stayed behind and finished backing up the databases he was assigned to backup. Once the job was done, he packed and left. Tru…

That seems… normal? I know several stories of people who got fired (or contracts not prolonged) who finished their task at hand, did some handover to colleagues, and then left.

I think that was his point

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#407

Post by Der_Einzige »

ninalanyon wrote: post #332
gcr wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google powerwashes your corp Chromebook when they let you go. A friend was composing an email on the train when their screen went black and the device reset itself to factory settings. They even send the “you’re being fired” email to their personal email they have on file. Didn’t even schedule a meeting.

Most of the employer behaviour described in such gleeful terms here would be outright illegal in most of Europe and open up the employer to risk of being sued for wrongful dismissal, etc.

This is why the EU continues to get much more poor compared to the USA. Turns out "live to work" really does beat "work to live".

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#408

Post by loa_in_ »

Tade0 wrote: post #326
logicchains wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately enough Americans have enough guns that no matter how much people like you whine about it you'll never be able to take them away.

Burglars take them away pretty often. Out of reported firearm thefts, most happened to those who had six or more such items.

This seems like statistical bias in measurement, but it's also likely that enthusiasts would have both more count and more valuable items while also being more likely to show them off.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#409

Post by ddosmax556 »

coredev_ wrote: post #265
ddosmax556 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at it from Europe, this definitely also happens. It depends on the situation. I know of ppl who were kept bcs the parting was in good faith (which was less a firing and more an agreement that parting is in everyone's interest), but I also know of ppl who had their access revoked before firing bcs it wasn't. The latter had unilateral system access as well, which added to it. It's not about humane or inhumane,…

Europe is not falling behind on anything that is not reasonable. The increased growth in USA the last decade have largely been created by means that one day will be quite costly for you (debt). The USA under MAGA is falling apart. EU and others are actively minimizing risk by selecting non-US IT providers. EU and others are actively selecting non-US defence aystems. I say that it is very positive to protect your citi…

I agree with everything you said, it's great that they're trying to detach from US IT providers & alternative, and I do think Europe is doing a lot things better than the US.

But there's nothing like AWS, Google Cloud, facebook, Azure, ChatGPT, Tesla, etc etc the list goes on and is very long, in Europe. They're switching way too late. Why did it not happen before? Why do we have very limited IT providers, for example? Due to the culture and regulation that doesn't incentivize it sufficiently.

I'm European too btw and live in the EU and I'm happy about a lot of things we have that the US doesn't, I'm just personally worried that we're setting priorities wrong. Having a chill life in the park is good in the ideal it's just detached from what's needed to make a state run; and it will end in the EU having even less power that is has now, resulting in fewer moral values being carried into the world.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#410

Post by panflute »

Beestie wrote: post #177

I don’t know where to start with this other than to point out that there is no way in hell these two clowns had the security clearance necessary to access a prod DB at DHS. I can only assume they stole creds from another employee who had that level of clearance. Also, tax records are not stored in a DHS domain . I think this story has been sanitized to mask some details which is ok I guess but I ain’t buying the back…

I think prod db at DHS is an implication in the article while it is more likely that their employer hosted a minor SaaS which required DBs for various government department customers.
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