Ex-Fannie Mae programmer says not guilty of virus

Rajendrasinh Babubhai Makwana is charged with planting malware designed to destroy all data on the company's servers.
(From Reuters)

The story "Ex-Fannie Mae programmer says not guilty of virus" published February 1, 2009 at 8:30 PM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.

[Penguinisto]

#1 - it's an intentionally malilcious script, not "code", and it was "embedded" (actually, appended) in another script, not in a "program".

#2 - he had root permissions FFS.

#3 - he was a sysadmin, not a programmer.

Little frickin' wonder Reuters and most mainstream journalists have no credibility.

/P

[RobertAPierce]

Penguinisto: to the non-nerd world, those distinctions are irrelevant, and the fact that they are factually incorrectly listed doesn't change the essense of the story anyway.

[medezark]

@Penguinisto --
#1: A script IS a program, written in a scripting language that allows the script to perform actions on other programs and/or the operating system. The distinction between "program" and "script" is artificial.

#2: What difference does that make?

#3: Again, splitting hairs. A programmer can be defined to mean anyone who writes/modifies, or is capable of writting/modifying, a computer program. As a script IS a computer program, he was a programmer.

[Penguinisto]

@Robert: True, to a point... but damn - it leads to PHB types putting pressure on programmers, but leaving admin inter-security unchecked.

@ medezark:

1) No, a script is not a program, any more than a .mp3 or .txt file is a "program". And if you think the distinction is "artificial", then you've obviously never heard of a compiler and are therefore unqualified to even speak on the subject.

2) A big difference when it comes to security ;)

3) Try to use that line in the company of real programmers and admins, and you're liable to be laughed out of the room.

[shazameen]

Obviously, we programmers can't expect journalists to be well-versed with technological jargon, and he was quoting the US attorney's office anyway. I think a script can be safely called code, since that's what its made of. A perl script essentially contains perl code, doesn't it. Anyway I think the point of the article is dat some programmer was trying to wreck havoc.. in either retaliation or with some other intention, after he was fired. And that everyone will agree is wrong.

[basraw]

The government will have a hard time showing he was last to modify the script.