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Comment by ekiru | Hacker News Reader

While I think that breaking into people's stuff and vandalizing it is horrible, in the specific cases I've seen(such as the one in the article), no actual harm is done. All the victim has to do is change their password and inform people that someone else obtained their password and that they were not the ones who posted the untoward messages and photos. If the attackers have permanently taken the account by changing the password and email address, that solution is not possible, but then it's not really the scandalous posts that are the issue, is it?

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Except you don't actually know that no harm was done. What if this person that this happened to was married (that is not a fun conversation to have even if it didn't happen), or because of what was posted they lost their job. You have no idea. I am sorry this isn't a joke it is vandalism.

I never said that this was a joke, funny, not vandalism, or even not a horrible thing to do. Your example of a person losing their job over this is a good argument that harm can result from this kind of vandalism. However, I do think there is a distinction between an event causing someone to lose their job and their boss making an incorrect assumption about an event(in this case, that their employee actually posted an untoward message) and firing them. It's still horrible to break into someone's account and cause "them" to say something which will cause them to lose their job, but the vandal is not the only one at fault in that situation. No employer should fire someone for a post on facebook that appears to be written by them without first at least making sure. Realistically, they might.

Regarding the case of a married person, if you don't trust your spouse enough to know that they're not having anal sex with some other man, or at least enough to consider that less likely than that their account was compromised, you shouldn't be married to them.

I've occasionally obtained a coworker's password (If I see the keyboard and their fingers, I can see the password). However, in my case I've always taken the "Fly on the Wall" approach. It's like people watching at the mall, but you discover the unseen. Like the 29 year-old marketing girl is a sexual deviant and nympho maniac, but still loves her husband of 9 years and their 7 year-old son. The CEO is a 44 year-old man child suffering a mid-life crisis and his wife got pregnant again because she was afraid he would divorce her for someone younger like his friends have done. Secretly he fears his wife will discover the reason he hired the marketing girl was because she reminded him of a younger version of her. And my 31 year-old coworker is a bigger geek than I ever could imagine and absolutely clueless all this and more is going on around him.

We live in a matrix, not the Wachowski ripoff matrix, but the one that hides the real world with fake smiles and shallow conversations. This isn't news to most people. I get my kicks on looking at it from time to time. That said, I would never go to the level of logging in anonymously at a public wi-fi and vandalizing someone's life.

My favorite password to figure out was an old boss's: 8675309

It's one thing when they make sense alphabetically or an alphanumeric with a few numeric permutations, it's another when it's an 80's song older than you with 5,040 permutations :) Coincidently, Tommy Heath became a computer analyst and moved to Portland, Oregon after the band broke up.

Like the 29 year-old marketing girl is a sexual deviant and nympho maniac, but still loves her husband of 9 years and their 7 year-old son. The CEO is a 44 year-old man child suffering a mid-life crisis and his wife got pregnant again because she was afraid he would divorce her for someone younger like his friends have done. Secretly he fears his wife will discover the reason he hired the marketing girl was because she reminded him of a younger version of her. And my 31 year-old coworker is a bigger geek than I ever could imagine and absolutely clueless all this and more is going on around him.

Did you actually secretly go through their computers and dig up all this very private information about them? Seriously?

Because if you did, then you're not quite normal yourself.

We live in a matrix, not the Wachowski ripoff matrix, but the one that hides the real world with fake smiles and shallow conversations

It's possible to have Real Friends, though, with whom you can have heartfelt conversations about anything.

Nah, it was at startup and I just diverted emails to a collector gmail account that separated the spam from the useful stuff. It would label each one and then another coworker and I would star the interesting ones. Did this for about 6 months until I decided the stuff going on behind the scenes meant the company was screwed and we both moved on. The one I told was a former coworker from another company who shared an equal distrust.

Real Friends yes. I do not consider people I work with close friends, nor should you. Friends and work don't mix. Acquaintances perhaps...

But that was the most extensive I've ever gone. I wouldn't have messed with their personal lives. Those decisions are their own business.

It would label each one and then another coworker and I would star the interesting ones. Did this for about 6 months until I decided the stuff going on behind the scenes meant the company was screwed and we both moved on.

Well, it still sounds like you were eavesdropping on e-mail conversations. Was that the case?

Real Friends yes. I do not consider people I work with close friends, nor should you.

True, colleagues aren't often close friends, I'm aware of that. They can become rather close though, if you just happen to be compatible to that extent. True story! Happened to me once.

Friends and work don't mix.

Work and being "like friends" can mix though. I've experienced a working environment where all the people in the same room talked to each other just like they'd talk to their personal friends. Before I heard the first casual fucks thrown around, I didn't know what I had stumbled upon.

There'd be dialogue along the lines of:

    -"Hey the build is fucked up! Who wants to confess?"
    -"What does it say?"
    -"<error message>"
    -"OK, I want to confess. I'll fix it now"

(Someone looking at someone else's code)

     "What.. The.. *FUCK* is going on here?!"

Then the (potential) culprit would explain what was going on, and we'd always reach an agreement of what should be going on, all the while talking in a casual and friendly way.

    -"Fucking Java Server Faces is a piece of shit"

(It was causing us problems all the time)

All in all, it was quite awesome, in fact. I hope I'll be able to work in an environment like that again some day. Everyone was sensible and intelligent too!

As for Real Friends, I can talk about absolutely anything with my best friend, and about almost anything with a few others.

I wouldn't have messed with their personal lives.

Their personal lives are just that - personal. They're not a source of entertainment for you.

Their personal lives are just that - personal. They're not a source of entertainment for you.

I agree with everything up until that. It was work email, the personal stuff was just a side effect. I was more curious in the actual status of the company since the CEO was sidestepping questions. The personal stuff should never have been there to begin with. Besides, knowing someone screwed on the conference table after work hours is useful knowledge when you sometimes eat lunch in the conference room. If the antics happen to be entertaining that's just icing on an otherwise disappointing waste of time and money.

Well, my understanding of all this is that:

1) You were actually eavesdropping on e-mail conversations. 2) The people being eavesdropped on used their company-provided e-mail accounts. 3) You found out lots of really personal stuff about the people. 4) Your "defense" here is that they shouldn't have been talking about personal stuff on their company-provided e-mail accounts.

Correct?

Now, assuming that I've got it right, let's go through these again:

1) This is bad, mmkay? 2) This is likely to happen at, you know, workplaces. 3) Again, people's personal matters are personal. 4) This is a bit more complicated:

I'm sure you agree that by default, whenever you send an e-mail, you don't expect it to be read by anyone else besides the intended recipient(s). That's just the way people perceive e-mail - that they're sending "letters" to others.

But basically now you're saying that because these people were sending e-mails from a company account, they should expect them to be read by people other than the recipients, and therefore should avoid talking about anything personal?

It's true that some shitty companies do read their employees' e-mails, so this argument has some merit, but not all of them do. I wouldn't want to work at a company that I'd expect to be reading my e-mail all the time.

At the workplace in question, do you think people had any reason to suspect their mails were being read by others? Were they the kind of people who would even be aware of the possibility?

You said you were just trying to find out how fucked the company was, but did you really think there was nothing wrong with your approach?

Besides, knowing someone screwed on the conference table after work hours is useful knowledge when you sometimes eat lunch in the conference room.

Cute, but I'm sure the table is cleaned daily.

> or because of what was posted they lost their job.

And this is why I can't help but sympathize with 4chan on this. I agree it's not pleasant for people involved, and that overall it's an unethical thing to do... but. From a social point of view, on a large scale and timeframe, what 4chan does stretches the limits of what is socially accepted. Means aside, their purpose in this is to make a parody of christian social inhibitions. Not exactly evil, and arguably not even mean.

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