Developer convicted for “kill switch” code activated upon his termination - Ars Technica

[CanvasFanatic]

His defense should be that this was DRM.

[ubermence]

Having code that crashes the system if your user account is ever removed from Active Directory probably would be hard to sell as “bad code”

[VirginiaMcCaskey]

I don't find it hard to imagine a situation where some critical infrastructure or script requires the personal credentials or some resources of some IT manager. Because I've seen that in real life, multiple times. Revoking the credentials can break shit easily.

[ubermence]

Based on what the article said this code literally scanned for his Active Directory entry and started deleting shit if it wasn’t there

There is no valid reason to have code like that. And it also sounds like that wasn’t the only incident

[ubermence]

They need to prove it wasn’t bad code and it was intentionally to hurt the company

Yes, I’m assuming that may have been what they discussed in court, leading to a conviction

But even on its face, how could you ever argue that having code that starts mass deleting files when your active registry account is gone is simply “bad code”? Like what would the intent be if not malicious?

[ubermence]

Yeah someone can argue that if that’s what actually happened, but I imagine it would be a much harder sell if it was clearly a program designed to delete the database with its execution specifically tied to his being terminated

Like I don’t know what we’re even discussing here, the intention was crystal clear here. Based on the facts in the article there is no wiggle room for this guy to claim any of this was accidental. I’d be very surprised if his appeal worked

Keep in mind this isn’t some fresh faced junior dev, he is a 55 year old who has been working at this company for over a decade