Senate Hacker Blames Boss 103
expriest writes "Manuel Miranda, the Republican Senate staffer under invesitgation for hacking into confidential Democratic files, has sued John Ashcroft to enjoin him against continuing the investigation. Miranda's argument consists of little more than fingerpointing. "Senators used all their official power and their influence over the press" says Miranda's complaint, "to disguise their own wrongdoing, by systematically accusing plaintiff of escalating degrees of criminality." "
Still Isn't Right (Score:5, Insightful)
He says he was "just following orders" as a previous poster has said, and that they should be in court instead of him. They should be in court WITH him.
Even though someone told him to do something that he knew was wrong, he allegedly did it anyway. I hate when people cop-out by saying "I was just following orders."
"You know, the Nazis had pieces of flare they made the Jews wear."
Chris
Some HACKING (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole thing is proof positive to me that we need a new generation in leadership of this country. These old fogies don't even understand the technology that is on their desks- how can they ever hope to understand such complex issues as why we shouldn't be letting Taiwan build all of our hardware?
Re:Clarification... (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't a "open server" it was an unsecured server. Big difference. It's just like using someones unsecured WiFi basestation. You aren't allowed to mess with people's stuff just because it isn't locked. We all learn that as children.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
But we don't excel in anything anymore is part of the point. HOWEVER, that's not the main point. The main point is that specialization and localization is a bad engineering design- it provides for a single point of failure.
Why shouldn't Taiwan be building all our hardware?
Why shouldn't Vietnam be making all our shoes?
Why shouldn't India be writing all our software?
Why shouldn't China be making all our clothes?
Why shouldn't Japan be making all our cars?
The REAL reason is because we can't trust their governments to look out for the interests of OUR people, and therefore it's stupid to put all of our eggs into one basket. Nor can we trust these other governments with their own disaster recovery- they've all been proven to be rather bad at that aspect of running an economy in the past. Plus, none of them are using LOCAL resources for their work- we ship natural resources overseas to allow them to ship back finished products. This is a stupid waste of fuel.
It's like having all our crops grown in the midwest, all our movies on the west coast, and all our fishing on the coasts. Take advantage of and leverage local resources, and let others do stuff we can't otherwise afford to do.
It would be if those other countries actually had developed resources. By and large they don't. Do you really think all of the materials in your computer come from Taiwan just because they were turned into chips and plastic enclosures there?
Re:Respecting privacy (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not a thief by trade or inclination, but you'd still call me thief (and rightly so), if you left your keys in the ignition of your car and I took it for a spin without your permission.
If I were to point out that it was your own stupidity that was at fault, I'd be merely misdirecting attention from the crime (as some conservative slashdotters do), in hopes of excusing the guilty party.
Bottom line is that Miranda gained unauthorized access to information and stole that information, and he did so at the behest of his superiors. While it seems a stretch to call him a hacker or a cracker because of his lack of skills, it describes what he did, regardless of the challenge it presented.
Since his bosses have elected to hang him out to dry, I can only hope that he is able to implicate them and at the very least, drag them into court to answer some hard questions.
Re:Clarification... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because I leave my door unlocked doesn't make it ok to steal my shit. He knew he was doing something wrong. They weren't his documents. He shouldn't have been looking at them. He shouldn't have given them to other people.
Just because doing the wrong thing is easy doesn't make it right.
-dameron
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DailyHaiku.com [dailyhaiku.com], saying more in 17 syllables than Big Media says all day.
Some Ethics. (Score:4, Insightful)
Were the Democrats mindbogglingly stupid? Yes. Should the Democratic sysadmin be summarily fired? Yes-- and probably even fired from a cannon into a brick wall. Was an initial discovery of this open share possibly accidentally? Absolutely. Was this a "hack" doable by the average seven-year old? Very likely.
Was the conduct of the Republicans ethical? In no way, shape, or form. Was it criminal? Possibly; a judge and/or jury needs to sort out the meaning of "authorized" in this context. Computer intrusion law may stretch to cover Mr. Miranda, but not his bosses-- although conspiracy might stretch that far.
Is this the sort of person you want representing you? Speaking for myself: no, to both the idiot Democrats and the unethical Republicans. What the Republicans should have done was made sure the Democrats knew to fix it, and then made sure the press knew that the Democrats had been stupid, and the Republicans had been "gentlemenly" about it and not taken advantage of those poor bumpkins.
Re:It isn't every day ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Shall I draw you a picture?Got it? Miranda's not accusing his boss, and he's not suing his boss.
Putz.
Re:Clarification... (Score:3, Insightful)
I absolutely agree with you, but there are two additional points that should be made. As you said, what he did was unethical, but it's important to acknowledge that it may not have actually been illegal. In this case, he should be fired, regardless of whether he is convicted of a crime.
The larger issue, though, is whether his bosses knew & encouraged his taking the documents. If so, they should be held to the same standard. Unfortunately, they won't be, and for good reason (from the politicians point of view): If the dems hold the republicans responsible, then next time there's a similar issue on the dems side, they'll be held to the same standard. By hanging an underling rather then the actual responsible parties, they earn favor for their next transgression.
Re:Still Isn't Right (Score:3, Insightful)