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Comment by bagels | Hacker News Reader

I was really thinking about this sabbotage thing yesterday.

In these large companies, to make changes to a lot of systems, you have to have someone else also sign on to the changes (eg. code review).

If your aim is sabotage, you would have to find a like minded saboteur to work with you. In normal times, at most places, this is risky, because most others would not want to assist you, and would likely report you.

The equation has changed. Musk has turned nearly every employee against him. It is now much less risky to explore your social graph now to find people who are of like mind. The defenses that software companies have are completely inadequate to deal with this sort of situation.

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The legal system still exists though and your changes would need to not be auditable or else you're going to get thrown in jail. And no matter how much you think you're smarter than the average bear, you're probably going to leave traces. And if Musk gets personally pissed off at some bit of particularly bad sabotage he's got enough money to hire some actual expert outside talent to manage the incident and nail your ass to make an example of you. Which he most certainly would do.

Employees interested in sabotage should not do anything stupid, they should just join the exodus.

Fantasizing can be fun though.

Of course, they will probably be found out, and probably face legal action, but that comes after the sabotage, not before.

"In the chaos of layoffs, firings, and resignations our security team was entirely gutted and as a result my login must have hacked by one of the literal billions of people on the planet with an interest in taking down this company, even if only for the lolz. The proof of our security issues, staffing woes, and public animosity has been extensively documented. Whatever traces of sabotage you may have found cannot reasonably be linked to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

Falls apart immediately when they get a warrant for your text messages and find you bragging to whatever human you have a sexual interest in or whatever.

And in general, all these "I'll just say <whatever>" arguments on the Internet will nearly always fall apart when you start backtracking under questioning and changing your story and they pressure you with evidence. Everyone always thinks that they're some kind of perfect sociopathic Patrick Bateman or Heath Ledger's Joker in their mind. You/they are not.

If you are relying on that argument, then they certainly have enough to arrest you and charge you, and the safe bet is that you'll crack.

[Also your argument gets much harder to make if they have you logging in with 2FA from an IP address that can be traced to your house or something like that--very hard for someone to fake that no matter how much fucked up chaos is going on inside Twitter]

Yeah, the better thing to say in this situation is nothing besides, "I want to speak with my lawyer"

Obligatory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

But even most people who think they're smart because they watched the video, aren't that smart, and they'll talk.

I prefer this more succinct video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjvdHE1E5eI

Seems like self-sabotage rather than employee sabotage.

If elon can fake an university degree without any consequences, his employees can fake a trojan horse

> If your aim is sabotage, you would have to find a like minded saboteur to work with you

Or forty-four billion dollars.

There's no need to actively sabotage the site from the staff position. Even if there isn't a single critical disk slowly filling up somewhere, there is a lot of dependencies in there that will eventually have a CVE.

> In these large companies, to make changes to a lot of systems, you have to have someone else also sign on to the changes (eg. code review).

Some time ago (when multiple accounts tweeted some crypto scam) it was revealed that at Twitter no such protections existed.

It doesn't even have to be active sabotage, techs notice abnormalities and incorrect requirements all the time, you can sabotage by just ignoring issues you see and not correcting people doing things wrong.

Why would anyone go and destroy their career by sabotaging an employer? Such person is clearly can't be trusted cause god knows what they do if they think their boss is an asshole. I quit two times not on the best terms with the management and the only "sabotage" was a zero-day notice and a two-week notice. It just never crossed my mind.

"If your aim is sabotage, you would have to find a like minded saboteur to work with you"

You are thinking active sabotage like git-committing a bug. Passive sabotage is trivial. I recommend skinming the CIA saboteur manual on the topic.

Risky or not, engaging in criminal activity should and will be treated as such.

Sabotaging by resigning is just perfect and enough.

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