Recently I left my company, well let's say it was a mutual parting. Those of us that work in the IT industry have a lot to think about when we leave and there are some tips I want to impart to the readers of this zine.

Right To Work

Texas is a right to work state. What this means is that they can fire you for pretty much anything. You can also leave at any time, however; you want to give them at least 2 weeks to replace your elite ass. When you are fired ask for the cause. It's like asking the cop why you were just pulled over. Even though they can fire you for whatever reason (with the exception of race, religion, gender, etc) they usually provide cause. In my case the initial reason was for alleged security violations, although this changed afterwards. Yes they were accusing yours truly of hacking the network. This can be typical if you are known to be a hax0r in the company. I had already performed security audits on behalf of the company and this was documented. (Hint #1: keep all this type of documentation).

Severance

Now the truth was I could have owned that network inside out, I was given Domain Admin rights several times and had written lots of code to perform admin type functions. But I hadn't hacked a single thing. It came back to me through confidential sources (Hint #2: Have trusted sources who will advise you when things are being said about you) that my boss was making allegations about me. They were unsubstantiated and he didn't even have a single log file to back up what he was saying. This is known in the legal world as Slander. (or Defamation of Character never did figure that out) Our HR director was out of town on vacation so I took vacation time till he returned (Hint #3: Don't confront assholes like my boss directly, have an HR person there to moderate). During the time in between I consulted with some security folks I knew and talked to some lawyers. Realize that any violation like the one stated is prosecuted under USC Title 18 (computer fraud and abuse act of 1985). This is serious shit. You do NOT want to have to deal with this.

People hear the word hacker and want to shit themselves. Having this on a record could ruin your career, unless of course your just doing hacker related stuff and then it's a crap shoot ;) Now since my boss (we'll just call him Asshole for the rest of the article) had been heard making these allegations he puts the company in a dangerous legal position. A lawsuit wouldn't involve just Asshole, it would involve the whole company. Companies don't like this at all, it's expensive, it generates really bad press and everyone loses. Realize that suing your employer isn't looked too kindly upon either. Now he denied saying this stuff later on but I didn't expose my sources (Hint #4: protect those who have confided stuff to you). If it went to court then of course you have to ask them to testify, but remember at the time they still have jobs there. No matter how tempting it is you have to protect these people who helped you out.

The outcome was that since I promised to sign an agreement barring me from suing in the future I received a few more paychecks for my time. This is known as severance and is negotiable. Ask for at least a month and two if you can.

Show Character

In every meeting during the exit you have to rise above their petty bullshit. I had to resist calling Asshole a clueless fucking moron several times when certain servers were mentioned. He brought them down by accident trying to 'protect' them from my 'attacks'. In actuality there was no attacker, unless you include him. I had to be sympathetic though, he was trying to do his job. He just didn't know what the hell he was doing. Asshole wasn't stupid though, he covered his ass very thoroughly, including lying about things I said and he said. Call these lies miscommunications, it sounds much better. I know it sucks doing all this stuff, but realize that these practices saved me from a very embarrassing situation.

Equipment

If you realize something is up (I was warned about a week or two before) start removing anything that could be used against you. Even little shit like having a cracked piece of software could be used against you. Also remove anything personal, I had a couple hundred meg's of email and some personal coding projects. IT is allowed to go through all your stuff when you return it, this includes your email, mp3 collection and private pr0n stash. (Hint #5: REMOVE ALL YOUR pr0n!). This is especially true of hacker type situations, I was cited for having auditing software. When I wasn't sure if things were all going to shit I encrypted all the good stuff with PGP using a 4096 bit key. This is incase they came suddenly and I didn't have time to remove things while having the stuff available at the same time. If you want to be really paranoid carry a big ass magnet with you, does wonders for data. Not very clean though and some things could be recovered.

Know the Rules

If they are stating hacker related activities realize that they have the burden of proof. This means that you ARE actually innocent till proven (kinda) guilty. What this means is they need to have a shit load of log files with time stamps showing that you really did the exact things that they claim. They must also have those little windows when you try to log in to the alleged boxes stating 'Unauthorized login to this box is prohibited by law' or something similar. Basically they have to prove you didn't know you weren't allowed to be on the box(s). Without that their chances of winning are about 5% in a court. Any decent lawyer will tell them that. If they have this stuff find a lawyer in your area that deals with this shit, it's fairly new and you don't want a moron representing you. If you are not filthy rich (like yours truly) contact the EFF (electronics freedom frontier) (www.eff.org) and ask them for help. They are all about the new state of technical laws and have helped several folks out such as Jon Johanson of deCSS fame.

Leave Peacefully

Call me a fucking hippy or whatever but I try to make too many ripples when I leave. This industry is pretty small and shit gets around. You don't want it to come back to haunt you later. I only burned the bridges I had to (Asshole in particular), everyone else is helping me find another company to work for.