Court: Disloyal Employees Not Hackers

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blackened144

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Hacking is getting electronic access to anything that you are not supposed to access. Once you are terminated, you loose said access. Anything after the fact should still be considered "hacking". Even if you sent yourself items before your termination, doing anything with them after you have been terminated, is still use without access, which is still "hacking". I dont see how the fact that you had legal access at one point in time somehow makes it not "hacking" when you do it after your access is rescinded.
 

rcmaniac25

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I think that if they had previous access the company would need to change all passwords, encription, etc. because the ex-employee knows them. If they don't want to do that than they need to expect data to be copyied. What the ex-employee cannot do is use it to start a business or sell the data. A business has to start some where but it shouldn't be started from someone else's work unless they sold the rights or business to the new company.
 

rcmaniac25

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Forgot, but even if they had access and the company expects data to be copied it shouldn't be allowed because it is unauthorized access.
 
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People overestimate the worth of data, unless we're talking about names, birthdays and SSNs and other things that can be used to commit fraud. Otherwise, most of it really isn't worth that much, I've never had a manager who was actually capable of generating and/or collecting useful data, they should feel flattered if somebody actually cared enough to steal it.
 

virtualban

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Passwords and other protection is against unknown threats, those that are hard to track, but whoever steals information, current or ex-employee, if found out who did that, should be persecuted. The general idea was that hackers were hard to track down, so the 'wife' (hope she's former wife by now, not just former employee) is still committing fraud despite not being a hacker. And should be punished accordingly.
 

skine

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To analogize it, imagine you invite a person into your house, but after some time they overstay their welcome and you ask them to leave. They leave in a timely fashion, but, on the way out, they grab something that they can carry out easily.

Of course, you bring the matter to the authorities and they charge the person. Of course they wouldn't charge them breaking & entering or trespassing, since they didn't break in, and left in a timely manner after your request. But that doesn't change the fact that there was a crime committed.
 

neiroatopelcc

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[citation][nom]blackened144[/nom]Even if you sent yourself items before your termination, doing anything with them after you have been terminated, is still use without access, which is still "hacking". [/citation]
No it is not. It's merely unauthorized use of someone elses property. You can still drag someone to court for that, but it isn't hacking.
 

jabliese

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@skine

What the article is talking about equates to the breaking and entering charges the authorities in your analogy do not file.
 

jellico

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[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]No it is not. It's merely unauthorized use of someone elses property. You can still drag someone to court for that, but it isn't hacking.[/citation]
I agree, this is NOT hacking and should not be subject to criminal prosecution. This is more like breach of contract. Your employment to an organization is a contract between you and your employer. The data that you have authorized access to is a tool of that arrangement. This should be left to civil court.
 

jellico

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[citation][nom]skine[/nom]To analogize it, imagine you invite a person into your house, but after some time they overstay their welcome and you ask them to leave. They leave in a timely fashion, but, on the way out, they grab something that they can carry out easily. Of course, you bring the matter to the authorities and they charge the person. Of course they wouldn't charge them breaking & entering or trespassing, since they didn't break in, and left in a timely manner after your request. But that doesn't change the fact that there was a crime committed.[/citation]
The data that was taken was a list of customers, not trade secrets or proprietary data. The person had authorized access to that data at the time; there was no circumvention of security to access it.

So, if you want to make a more accurate analogy, then it would be like inviting someone to your house, and that person makes a list of all of your friends. You and that person get into a fight and are no longer friends; but he calls all of your friends and starts having them hang out with him and do favors for him instead of you. Now tell me, what crime was committed? As I said before, this belongs in CIVIL court, not criminal.
 

ethanolson

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uh... it comes down to contractual company policy. It isn't hacking, but it's important to know that where I work, there are policies that are enforcable, ultimately by lawsuit, that mandate that I not use the computer in certain ways. Also there are policies about me not using client or employee information for personal or competitive interests.
 
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