this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2025
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[–] wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 78 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Dipshit. Just do bad coding and leave timebombs that could be considered an accident.

[–] Elechicken@lemmy.ca 16 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, there's a reason he got fired and it wasn't because he's a genius...

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 2 points 16 hours ago

Yeah, name it after the boss, not yourself!

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 1 points 8 hours ago

That just makes you a bad developer. And ripe for firing.

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 72 points 18 hours ago (6 children)

For developers in similar situations, where the corporate overlords make your life miserable; use dead man's triggers Instead of a simple killswitch: manually start handling certificates, introduce memory leaks that you can easily clear, have excessive disk filling logs that you can daily clear, and all kinds of other stuff that is a perpetual dumpster fire that you extinguish as part of your job. Oh, and don't forget to forget commenting and documenting. The next developer should instantly learn the pressure they have been putting on you.

[–] peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 33 points 17 hours ago

Errr

That's EXACTLY why I did that in the past. It wasn't an accident at all. Nope. It was future proofing my job. Completely intentional.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I'd like to imagine countless instances of this that we never hear about because there just isn't anything concrete to write a news article about

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

Well the guy from the article is named David Lu and added a function with the name IsDLEnabledinAD. That by itself deserves an article.

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[–] AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world 70 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (6 children)

company ruins life of employee: stonk

employee ruin company: immediate imprisonment

edit:

Ultimately, Eaton Corp. bore substantial costs getting its network back online

actually, it did nothing to the company but cost it a few bucks. do not pass go/collect $200.

this person was not fired, he was laid off. he was not actively harming the company until the company ruined his life.

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[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 62 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

The defendant breached his employer’s trust

The company breached employee trust when they fired a bunch of people during a "realignment".

Four years is far too long. If he had run over the CEO in the parking lot he wouldn't have gotten four years.

[–] bhamlin@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

It's because they can quantify damages that way. Because you legally cannot put a value on the life of a "human" (still unsure if CEOs are human, but legally they still are), it's just "murder" and not "you cost us eleventy billion dollars in downtime." One is more negotiable in terms of damages than the other.

[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 3 points 44 minutes ago* (last edited 43 minutes ago)

Then Ceos should be treated and charged with every crime a company commits or this is another class problem I'm going to solve. The guy who made the opiod crisis literally walked away with a billion dollar fine but should've gotten multiple live sentences for multiple murders.

[–] roundup5381@sh.itjust.works 44 points 20 hours ago (7 children)

Have to make an example of them lest the surfs realize they have power

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 29 points 20 hours ago (2 children)
[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 13 points 19 hours ago
[–] roundup5381@sh.itjust.works 5 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Thought that didn’t look right

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 10 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

They're both words. Serf is the one for a person subject to someone else's rule just to live. (obvs not fully accurate definition, but dictionaries can give you the real deal)

[–] roundup5381@sh.itjust.works 13 points 19 hours ago

Yea, sorry, English is my first language.

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[–] tazeycrazy@feddit.uk 27 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

No one reviwing his code? Sounds like a timebomb in its self.

[–] andyburke@fedia.io 17 points 19 hours ago

This was my first thought. Just zero code review going on? Some random server only that dude knew about? tf kind of controls these people have in place?

Oh right, none of the shit the company should have had.

Instead of jail time, the government should consider giving this guy whistleblower status and investigating the corp for negligence.

[–] Alaik@lemmy.zip 4 points 11 hours ago

Gotta stay "lean".

[–] amzd@lemmy.world 20 points 6 hours ago

4 YEARS?! And gaming companies can just build a kill switch into their game and get no penalty?

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 20 points 20 hours ago

Kinda funny. 4 years seems excessive to me but what do I know.

[–] Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 13 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Kinda heroic, ngl. I think the prison sentence is appropriate, but if I was let go after 11 years, I’d harbor fantasies of doing something similar. They’d stay fantasies, though.

[–] al_Kaholic@lemmynsfw.com 15 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Prison? For shutting down the computers? How many lives were lost because of his actions, how many were saved?

[–] tazeycrazy@feddit.uk 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Lives lost is not the test of what was a crime and what was a prank. This could have done a lot of damage to everyone who worked there and any of there clients. The company could have done more but they can't micro manage everyone nor should they.

[–] thedruid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

That company DID harm people. They get a pass though. They're s company. The people st the too are better than us peons

[–] Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 0 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

I don’t know what his former company does, but it’s easy to imagine scenarios on both ends of the spectrum. From processing Bejeweled microtransaction payments to ER intake or ambulance dispatch. Doesn’t really matter in the end. Software is everywhere and we all use it. Unless the company is so bad that damaging it is a political act of defiance against evil (I’m looking at you, Nestle, Blackwater, etc), then there’s really no good argument for employees burning shit on their way out.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

It appears to be a company that makes software for power plants. I wonder how secure their software is.

[–] tazeycrazy@feddit.uk 1 points 1 hour ago

It could have shut down the company. I imagine there clients are looking to move to a competitor as they may be more trustworthy.

[–] al_Kaholic@lemmynsfw.com 0 points 14 hours ago

Corporations are like billionaires you don't become one without willfully destroying the planet, stealing wages from the labor, and sometimes straight up murder. If you look hard enough they are cancer.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Good, make sure you document that. Then be sure any such thing that accidentally happens is named after the person who most deserves to be pruned.

[–] Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 6 points 16 hours ago

Got it. MouselemmingFromLemmyKillswitch.exe pushed to production

[–] hodgepodgin@lemmy.zip 11 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

this was stupid. A career ending move. no one’s gonna hire someone who wrote a logic bomb at their last job.

[–] thedruid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Yeah they will.

[–] thedruid@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

Good. Some one should sponsor and hire this guy.

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