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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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The Judge and Jury don't have to know how a kill switch works. The Judge and Jury have to believe the expert testimony that one was placed and caused damage.
Sam Bankman Freed didn't get jail time because the judge and jury understood the nuances of cryptocurrency and financial scams.
I think the key here is intent. kill switch or not, proving you had the intent to harm is what you're found guilty of.
can't prove intent on code that's had all history wiped from it and sat in prod for several years.
"why does this code exist?" -- "IDK" "in your expert opinion why does this exist?" -- "I cannot express my expert opinion because of a lack of evidence"
That feels like a very... hopeful interpretation. Instead of "In my expert opinion there is no non-malicious use of this component, and SysadminX was the only one with possible access."
Intent is not always necessary, it depends on the charges.
Computer Forensics isn't a new discipline at this point. People have literally gone to jail for putting in kill switches. It's possible SysadminX is actually smarter than teams of people that are dissecting what happened after they were fired and is a real life Keyser Soze, but it's extremely unlikely.
Honestly, you don't have to create a kill switch. Most stuff will fall apart due to dependency on manual intervention. Usually because there isn't enough staff to automate it. Tech debt comes for everyone.
Ab-so-fucking-lutely.
For a job that requires a lot of reminding people "that's not your laptop, that's the companies' laptop", a lot of people get awful invested in "their servers". Just let it go.
I know their business decision, however misguided, was very personal. Prove their mistake, which they will never know or care about, by moving on to the next job. Not by trying to be the sub-villain in a B-movie.