Gizmodo was bought out by a bucket of shitheads that clearly dont have their IT sorted, so it sounds like he did this out of a sense of mischief and curiosity.

It's a fun IT story he got on leaving a bad org. Sounds like a win for a tech writer.

Why not?

That was my first question as well, along with counting the many ways this could have turned out horribly. The article calls it a prank, but this had disastrous potential. Not just for the company; anything that goes wrong in that sector, in the way of IP theft and the like, will be blamed on the prankster first, until proven otherwise.

The casual way it's discussed, and calling it a prank, gets under my skin a little. Am I alone in that?

Think of how much policy will need to be typed up because of this, and again, the potential for disaster, on both sides. I'd be floored if a former employee did this to my team, and I wouldn't care if it was a joke, at all. At the very least, the dude would be trespassed, if for no other reason than to show he's been warned.

I'm just going to imagine that this guy wanted more funding allocated for his buddies in the IT department, and did this as a parting gift.

It's Just a Prank, Bro: Office Edition