In the aftermath of [Terry Childs], the jailed disgruntled software engineer who created a God password and effectively locked San Francisco officials out of their own computer system, IT Grind unveils its Techie Hall of Shame. The Hall of Shame highlights figures who give computer professionals a bad name. From [Roger Duronio], the systems administrator who wasn’t satisfied with his raise, to [Kenneth Kwak], who installed spyware on his boss’ computer in order to gossip, the wrath of the IT professional can wreak thousands to millions of dollars of damages for companies and corporations to clean up. As much as these figures seem to be singular figures, we think they also serve as cautionary tales. Always have backup. If you suspect you’ve got a disgruntled employee, you should probably at the very least keep another expert eye on him. And hire more than one person to manage your systems. [Deb Perelman] asks her readers who else they think would be worthy of the Hall of Shame. We’re curious to know what you think, too.
[via digg]
I have one that should be on there. A company i once contracted out to the owner passed and his daughter who had the IQ of a peanut and hated me took over. She considered herself to be a brilliant IT person who was a genius in ever matter. anyway I knew she hated me enough to terminate my contract which i was fine with. However when she added me to the BCC email list of about 5 people discussion replacement contractors and did not realize it herself it was amusing. It also made for a nice bit of leverage on my part when it came down to prematurely terminating my contract and attempting to screw me out of $$$. Her reasons that they told me and ones discussed internally were completely different. the reasons she used internally were lies going all the way to physically damaging hardware with hammers, when presented with evidence otherwise wow was she pissed. and to this day i refuse to tell her how i got the internal e-mails that were e-mailed directly to me :P
The only reason that any of these guys made the list is because they got caught.
Just think of the ones that didn’t…
i have a good way to fix these problems…
stop treating engineers and info tech people like dirt
stop valuing managers over engineers
stop basing all decisions on profit margins and listen to your engineers instead
the list can go on, but I must return to my pcbs…
also… lowercase looks cool, but makes it hard to differentiate between acronyms like IT (read: info tech) and the word it (read: suck it, case-insensitivity)
Though I believe this Childs guy is totally wrong to do it I cannot help but ask the whys. Why would he do it, the article seems to elude to a supervisor with a personal grudge but they also say they don’t know his motive. And then the obviousand obligatory WTF, are they giving this guy access to change root passwords for anyways, I call failure on Frisco big time.
+1 to everything alex fox said…
my companies i.t. department is lead by a guy who has been doing it for nearly 20 years, he has never written a line of code in his life. Basically he was hired for a marketing position just before the company took a bad turn and started bleeding people. They needed someone to manage a small group of programmers and they gave the job to this guy since they were already paying him peanuts. Fast forward 2 decades and he’s one of the highest paid people in the company commanding an i.t. staff of a couple hundred… and he has _zero_ clue what he’s doing….
he’s a marketing guy though so he can talk a show, and all the other managers think he’s gods gift to computer systems. to give you an idea of what he does with his position… the engineering department is still using green screen applications that were under development when this guy started. Anyone who tries to bring things into modern day gets hosed because he fears you’re taking away his influence… it’s a sad state of affairs.
i completely agree with alexander.
people treat programmers/techs like shit. its absolutely true. my buddies and i in these jobs have talked about this for a while. ill be honest ive thought about doing similar things when my employer is being a jerk for no reason.
i think its because they feel out of control in a job where they are suppose to be. so because they cant control the system they try to over compensate by controlling and demeaning the tech.
I have to agree with Alex Fox and the OP. The reason these things happen is because for the most part, IT is seen as a liability and those who work in it are deemed as unnecessary to the point where said companies get ideas beyond their station and decide to downsize their IT staff – ‘it’s only Windoze’.
Any successful business needs technology nowadays. To underappreciate the people which keep the engine running is an all too common flaw, especially when they end up paying the price.
If you hire someone to keep the heart of your business pumping, be sure to compensate them accordingly or they’ll just pull the plug.
“detonate” a “logic bomb”. Boy, someone has a flair for the dramatic….
Okay, I was willing to forgive them when the first “logic bomb” was “detonated”, but when they repeated the phrase, it just became annoying.
You’re underappreciated? Boo frickin hoo! Who isn’t? bothered that the idiot with the good looks is a senior vp while you’re close to being let go? “they just don’t understand my genius but they will. one day they’ll come crawling to me for help.”
this guy is milton.
Having been in the tech world since search engines were created, the answer is obvious: Way to many I.T. graduates who only know what’s in the manual, and managers etc. who know less. Those lower end graduates aren’t at fault, the ownership is. To put my credentials on this point I’m making, I designed and deployed the first real, complete searchable phone directory in my area, and designed a key to keep kids out of school computers. Anyone want to guess how I did that, and still managed to guarantee access to the people who needed it? The year was 1994, so don’t forget the tech limitations of the day. By the way, the phone directory, which was created the same year, was subsequently copied by a multinational at no charge, despite my objection to giving the technology away.
why these people made the list… (aka ways to stay oof the list.)
1: an attack from an internal company pc. if it is done using a company pc you probibly will get caught.
2: clearly didnt encript work in progress files.. if your gona write mal code.. atleast encrypt it so some idiot doesnt stumble on it and either deploy on you machine or catch you
3: usiung their own login… if wond were to harm the company why would you use your account… you should have at least tried to hide it.
4: not enough information to tell but when messing around one should remember any legit windows machine has a back door key that microsoft keeps… this alows them to access your computers infromation for reasons many reasons. but if need be it could be used by the police with a proper warrent to check in on you.. because linux is share-ware there isnt a central location to look for this key… there by evading discovery.
4: when your caught.. your caught.. you have no way to get out cooperate and try to get off with a lesser charge. if you dont it may end up worse for you.
5: and finally mal-code isnt cool. it makes more work for the people who actualy care. cost money. and do you really think the douche at the top of the chain is gona take a loss. no he is either gona cut pay, rase prices, or sue you. mal-ware makes the rest of our lifes hell and also makes it harder for the decent people bend rules.
(i would like to note that i do run windows i have nothing to hide. from the government.)
@camerin
..I couldn’t even bear to read your post with all of the spelling errors , but I did read the ending.
, and I must say I can tell you are an avid windows user. Spell-Check in MSWord recently?