this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2025
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[–] wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 120 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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

[–] Elechicken@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 week 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 6 points 1 week ago

Yeah, name it after the boss, not yourself!

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[–] x00z@lemmy.world 116 points 1 week ago (4 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 63 points 1 week 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 17 points 1 week 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

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[–] AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world 94 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 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.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 90 points 1 week 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 16 points 1 week ago (2 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.

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[–] roundup5381@sh.itjust.works 54 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 37 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago
[–] roundup5381@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thought that didn’t look right

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week 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 14 points 1 week ago

Yea, sorry, English is my first language.

[–] tazeycrazy@feddit.uk 38 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

[–] andyburke@fedia.io 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 22 points 1 week ago

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

[–] Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week 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 21 points 1 week ago (4 children)

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

[–] Jimbabwe@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week 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 1 week ago

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

[–] al_Kaholic@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 week 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.

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[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week 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 1 week ago

Got it. MouselemmingFromLemmyKillswitch.exe pushed to production

[–] hodgepodgin@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

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[–] dastanktal@hexbear.net 9 points 1 week ago

This is really well executed, too bad he didn't know enough to protect his identity.

Still, so much for that reduced cost of labor.

If more people reacted like this companies wouldn't be so fast to lay people off

[–] Florn@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago

Should have done a dead man's switch instead

[–] lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I imagine you must be quite skilled to be able to manage your whole-ass company (and run their systems into the ground). So it shouldn't be a problem to get another job after being fired.

Why fuck with your future, just because of your own ego and a drive for revenge? That guy must've watched too many animes.

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