Sadly its often evident with the easy power of IT.

I think the outcome in this case was correct. and if Mr Cananvan wants to seek redress he can sue Mr Holly... doubt he'll get very far...

Im looking for a contractor to put thier head in my gas oven.... daft

I need a contractor Now! applicant must drive at 150mph to get here... daft

I need a contractor to screw up this business I have a bad relationship with....daft

and similar. However, in a hostile data retrieval situation like that I would never actually turn over the data to anyone without a court order, because when you get into those situations you KNOW there is going to be court action. It's all about chain of custody and all that fun stuff. I would have also never changed anything, thats just dumb and asking for trouble.

Holly could have done this all a lot easier if he just got a couple of kids to break in.

Is their a lot of call for this kind of work? Because it would take me about an hour to rustle up a dozen kids who'd do it for trainfare and a slab of Carling.

Yours is the one with a sub-contracted rat-boy going through the pockets.

In another El Reg story, it was revealed how fraudsters used third-party dupes to be the interface of their crimes, the dupes ferrying goods and money for them. Women hit by lonely-hearts sites were duped into taking mobile phones etc to African 'orphanages'.

Well, being duped to lock out a company from its own data seems similar. Canavan, when did the alarm bells start ringing? Never? Then I have a nice suitcase of money you could deliver to Columbia for me...

thought the 'i was only following orders' defence kinda lost it's way as a general principle 60 odd years ago...

"One witness who had served in the Territorial Army for 32 years said that he advised a colleague to give the group passwords because of threats of violence."

It doesn't say much for the training they give to the TAs does it?

Surely he should have leaped over the desk and incapacitated the lot of them using his TA martial arts training? Would he hand over Britain to Johnny Foreigner simply because they looked a bit 'ard? He should be strung up.

Bloody pansy.

Can you imagine Clive Dunn handing over his password to some thug under "threat of violence"? He'd have been shouting for Mr.Mainwaring and the rest of the Home Guard to come and sort these chaps right out.

Seriously though, if one of my directors came and started asking for this stuff, I'd ask for written and authorised confirmation that such an insecure request was properly sanctioned. On the other hand, If his thugs came and loomed over my desk in an attempt to menace me into compliance, I'd simply tell them to fuck right off - what are they going to do whilst at my desk anyway? Beat me up? In the office? Come on, get real.

I don't do well being given orders anyway and somebody threaten me my general reaction is to put them out of commission right proper so I don't get hurt. I can't imagine that even if you didn't fight back that they wouldn't be serving up a good bit in HM Gaol. As to the "honestly, guv, I was only following orders...." You're screwed by your own stupidity.

At least in "following orders" like that, the contractor could not claim he was outside IR35 !!

Nothing I'm guessing.

Surely of all people there who should've known better...

But of course as with all solicitors, he probably knows the judge or someone who knows him in turn, bought him a whiskey in his private members club or golf jamboree and all's well on that front.

There's a scene in Backdraft I think it is (parp), where one of the inmates is trying to get parole and he's all nicey nicey to the parole board but then De Niro or whoever the "I know where fire's children go to school" dude was, goes up to him and says something like: "If I gave you the whole world tomorrow, what would you do with it?" - and the guy suddenly can't maintain the act any longer and says: "I'd burn 'em, I'd burn 'em all!!!!" - in a suitably maniacal manner.

Replace the phrase "the whole world" with "the whole world of solicitors" and therein lies the path to world peace and solving pretty much everything that's wrong with this country.

When did stupidity become a defense against being personally liable for criminal activities?

I thought the "He told me to and I didn't know it was illegal" option was long dead.

"Can you imagine Clive Dunn handing over his password to some thug under "threat of violence"? He'd have been shouting for Mr.Mainwaring and the rest of the Home Guard to come and sort these chaps right out."

No he wouldn't. He'd be sticking it up 'em- because "they don't like it up 'em"

I was once asked by a guy to inspect his "partners" HD I asked him why he told me he belived she was being un faithful. I said who bought the machine, She did, So I said i get back to him.

My solicitor pointed out that i coud face many charges on that one. ESP if he went bats with the info, i might have found and he began wielding an axe..........

what's that? about 10 minutes to sort out if it is a windows machine.

If they couldn't then maybe they didn't have a clue and he was touting for business.

I often used to get a director coming up and whispering that I would have to block someone's access very quickly in a very short while. I just used to disable the user for a while until things became clear, easy enough to say the fault had been a hiccup on incorrect passwords if it ever came down to it.

When our company went into administration, the "computer guy" came, backed everything up and changed the system password so I couldn't get in. Took about 1 minute for him to see sense and tell me what it was. Then he was allowed to leave the premises!