Terry Childs conviction

Fri Apr 30 02:23:01 UTC 2010

On 4/29/2010 21:05, William Pitcock wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-04-29 at 21:48 -0400, David Krider wrote:
>> On Thu, 2010-04-29 at 16:47 -0500, William Pitcock wrote:
>>> Surely even at DeVry they teach that if you refuse to hand over
>>> passwords for property that is not legally yours, that you are
>>> committing a crime.  I mean, think about it, it's effectively theft, in
>>> the same sense that if you refuse to hand over the keys for a car that
>>> you don't own, you're committing theft of an automobile.
>>
>> I've seen a dismissed employee withhold a password. The owner of the
>> company threatened legal action, considering it, like you, theft. My
>> father-in-law is an attorney, so I asked him about the situation. He
>> said that it wouldn't be called "theft," rather "illegal control." 
> 
> Same difference, he still committed a crime and anyone who is defending
> him seems to not understand this.  Whatever we want to call that crime,
> it's still a crime, and he got the appropriate penalty.

I beg to differ (the archives may reflect my objection last time around).

I agree that a crime was committed.

It was committed by the management that allowed this situation to exist.

It is a pretty easy matter to maintain controls that make the passwords
secure but still available to management when they need it.  The
simplest system was one of sealed envelopes in several different
District Managers locked desks.  Every now and again a manager would
take his or her envelope out and test the passwords to see if they
worked (usually just before the scheduled password change each month).

-- 
Somebody should have said:
A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.

Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting
the vote.

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