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Good point. Perhaps a summary of Iain's work and philosophy
would be of assistance to those who haven't tripped across them, but I am really too
shocked and depressed by the news to compose one.
I'm sitting here with a brand new copy of Stonemouth, lying unread on the table,
freshly delivered, but instead of reading it, I'm just staring out at the snow falling
and remembering all the other books, where I was when I read them, and the
people I was once with.
Someone made the interesting point that:
1. in Austria, the same copyright law that applies to creative content, Art, applies to software.
2. But collected "tax" revenues are distributed only to "Artists", via an Artists' Rights representation group.
they could, legally, petition for income from the collected revenue
The reaction of the artists to this, is predictably, "What those techies do is not creative
Artists. Hypocrites. Mostly.
Sadly, I was that CIO
CIO is just First Technical Idiot in the eyes of the "Wise Guy" CEO.
I have no answers
While a lot of Michael Moorcock's work is pretty high fantasy, the setting
and characters in the "Warhound and the World's Pain" are outstanding.
An anti-knight on the grail quest, set during the Thirty Years war, with a lot
of philosophical musing on the nature of choice, humanity and reality.
While the first of a (retconned) trilogy, it is better read in isolation.
I have long dreamed of seeing this as a film or even a good game,
but sadly it seems to be out of print.
Should you find a copy, enjoy.
Anyway, is it possible to write an algorithm that adds to numbers together that is bug free? Yes:
int add(int a, int b) { return a+b; }
Ummm. Overflow? Flipping sign bit?
For over 10th years I've been using the tagline "agreeing with the Grey Area"
Excellent point.
Alan Cox wants a break, after many, many years of extremely hard work.
He has earned, and deserves, better.
I thank him, salute him and wish him the best with whatever new project
he chooses to spend his time on.
Thank you Alan.
>It seems to me that he has no legal standing. IANAL, but if his supervisor tells >him to give them the passwords, it is not his place to decide who it is 'safe' >to give them to and who is not safe. That is his employers decision.
Umm. Actually, they could simply have just fired him when he had first refused.
And they did fire him, after his refusal to yield the passwords in "open air".
He was arrested for refusing to supply the passwords, and of being a *potential*
threat, *after* he had been fired.
At which point, of course, they were his "ex-supervisors", outside of any
contractual obligation. Even if the passwords are considered as the cities property (which is a very dodgy concept), we are still talking about contract breach, and a small claims court civil issue.
Instead of that he got 7 months in the pen. Deeply, deeply unpleasant.
+ Check out the arrest reports and DA complaint.
+ Now look at the actual charges.
+ Ask yourself what the hell a corporate security officer was doing
removing (or copying) hard drives from network administrators, at night.
+ Note that his colleague, the other network admin, is standing up for him.
+ Be surprised when you find out *he* proposed security policies, including
dead-drop password safes, but the same management denied him
In all of his actions, he appears to have acted with impeccable professional and personal integrity at IMMENSE personal cost, (he's losing his house).
His is a principled stand, 7 months in jail on $5M bail for
For what? What "leverage" does he have? Except the moral high ground!
Honestly, would you like to work for these managers?
Would you rate them as "exceeding expectations"?
Would you trust them with
I'd be happy to have Mr. Childs as a colleague or an employee.
I wouldn't waste glances on the management of San Fran's. net, since in all
actions so far, they have demonstrated nothing except that they are mean hearted, small minded, incompetent (beyond belief! they put the IOS config with cleartext passwords into the PUBLIC DOMAIN!!!!)
But make up your own mind.
I mentioned earlier that I am starting to think that I would salute Mr Childs.
Well, I just read the DA's complaint, the arrest report and the bail denial.
And now I *definitely* want to shake his hand.
He's taken the Hard Road.
Free Him!
Start the perjury investigations into the 2 managers involved.
Free Terry Childs!
Yes management can ask him for his passwords.
And he can refuse, at the cost of his employment, which he did.
And they are right then to fire him, as they did.
But then they asked him again
And this time he had NO moral or legal obligation to respond.
So they had him arrested.
And held incognito (he was *so* dangerous).
And NINE MONTHS LATER he is STILL in prison.
On what charge?
*Potential* damage.
As I said the first time:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=623377&cid=24312689
Unless there are some new facts, I for one as an ex ISP SysAdmin,
would like to salute Mr Childs.
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.