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While I'm quick to render my own verdict, especially in the tech realm where I live, work, and play, I was glad the article included this: "Members of the publ

While I'm quick to render my own verdict, especially in the tech realm where I live, work, and play, I was glad the article included this: "Members of the public are reminded that the indictment only contains charges. The defendant is presumed innocent of the charges and it will be the government’s burden to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial." Trial by Internet and Guilty-by-default isn't a good world to live in.

supercanuck 9y ago
The internet is not taking anyone's freedoms away, the internet is punishing people's reputations. big difference.
- mieseratte 9y ago
  Punishment when we have yet to assess guilt.
  - supercanuck 9y ago
    What punishment would that be? People inside the company sold right before the dip. That is a fact. Seems like you are arguing they should be free of consequences. We judge people on their actions all the time, it is difficult to know their intentions. Other people have to be on the otherside of that trade. It’s publically good to know there are possible untrustworthy actors in a company, especially when it is extremely difficult to prove white collar crimes
    - Domenic_S 9y ago
      Selling before a dip is not a crime.
      - supercanuck 9y ago
        I feel like I'm being misunderstood. My point is that if you are a leader in a company and you sell before the dip which is based on some pretty negative event, you should not necessarily go to prison or have freedom's taken from you. BUT, I don't think that means you shouldn't be subject to some reputational consequence. Should we trust your statements when you get on that investor call? Isn't your prior actions relevant?
        mulmen 9y ago
        I don't see the benefit to this system. If we assassinate reputation based on coincidence then we have introduced an unnecessary element of chance. I would much rather base my opinion on facts. If the CEO lied to shareholders on a call or used inside knowledge to sell shares illegally then the reputation damage will come from the conviction. In the absence of this evidence I see no benefit in assuming guilt or otherwise damaging the CEOs reputation.
        saagarjha 9y ago
        > I don't think that means you shouldn't be subject to some reputational consequence. Why not? What if they were just unlucky? Why do you get to decided whether their reputation suffers?
      - s73v3r_ 9y ago
        When you know of something like the revealing of a huge breach, it is.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Plenty of people have assessed guilt. It has not been demonstrated in the court of law which is an important difference. However, when you consider how many people don't trust the US court system. You can't expect them to reserve judgement based on what they consider a biased system.
    - dumbfounder 9y ago
      Exactly. Criminal convictions have a higher standard than civil, which obviously have a much higher standard than the court of public opinion. Just because you don't get arrested and convicted in criminal court does not mean you aren't "guilty" using a less stringent standard.
    - prewett 9y ago
      What exactly do you mean by "people don't trust the US court system"? That the guilty go free? That the innocent are wrongly convicted? That guilty people are not prosecuted? That justices are corrupt? And approximately how many people have this view? I'm getting kind of tired of this rhetoric on how the US is so bad/corrupt/untrustable/whatever the word is today. We have some of the best courts in the history of the world. How would you like to get tried in Chinese, Russian, African, or South American court? Or be tried in the middle ages? Are they perfect? No. Will there be miscarriages of justice? Yes. Are you likely to experience one? No. And if you think it's that bad, well, there are plenty of other countries you could move to and find out if they are better. Or you could work to improve the system we do have (after studying it enough to understand it well enough to actually improve and not just change it).
      - lovich 9y ago
        Just because other places are worse doesn't mean the US is good. The US legal system enforces the law, not justice. It does a lot of work to make it more equitable but it's still obvious that if you have money you live by a different set of rules. The majority of the population couldn't pull off what the affluenza teen did, beat up their girlfriend publicly like Chris Brown with little to no affect on their career, or rape a kid and only serve 60 to 120 days in jail[1]. Every one of these instances of injustice degrade people's trust in the system If I was an average person I'd rather be tried in the US, but if I was rich it seems like it doesn't matter. Our legal system seems pretty equivalent in outcome for the upper class. You only get more than a trivial punishment if you manage to upset someone with more money or power than you [1]http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-07/news/sns-rt-us-usa-wisconsin-billionaire-20140606_1_sexual-assault-charge-wisconsin-billionaire http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-07/news/sns-rt-us...
- saagarjha 9y ago
  Why does the internet have the power to hand out punishment?
jonknee 9y ago
Either the CEO is incompetent and didn't know about a huge failure of his organization or he's a criminal, either way the verdict of public opinion is not going to be kind.
- Jesus_Jones 9y ago
  It's very unlikely that he didn't know about the security problems, that hadn't be released. I'd say about 99.9% chance that he knew. We know that it's very tempting for otherwise intelligent people to fall victim to this, like our favorite domestic lifestyle wallstreet-er CEO, Martha Stewart.
  - TylerE 9y ago
    Stewart was done for obstruction and perjury, not insider trading.
    - spear 9y ago
      Not to pick on you because I see this response a lot, but that's really misleading. She was also indicted for insider trading and though that charge was thrown away by the judge, the SEC also filed a civil case against her for insider trading. She settled that one by paying $195,000 and agreeing not to serve as an officer of any public company for five years. It's not like the insider trading didn't cost her anything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImClone_stock_trading_case#Repercussions_and_aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImClone_stock_trading_case#Rep...
  - mulmen 9y ago
    Can you share the dataset you used to calculate the 99.9% probability? Do you have experience with other CEOs in this kind of situation? Do you have inside knowledge of Equifax? I'm not sure how anyone can be so certain in the absence of evidence. Indeed this is the reason we put the burden of proof on the accuser and assume innocence.
    - jonknee 9y ago
Waterluvian 9y ago
It's really tricky because while you're absolutely right, they generally don't indict innocent people. So when like 90% of these cases are guilty or a plea, it's way too easy to just forget about the 10%.
- pixl97 9y ago
  >So when like 90% of these cases are guilty or a plea I don't really like how plea agreements work in the US either. Too many of them are "Agree to this lower charge or we will Aaron Swartz you, and you will go bankrupt trying to defend yourself."
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    Aaron Swartz (most likely) broke the law. The problem there was that many people disliked the law.

supercanuck 9y ago

The internet is not taking anyone's freedoms away, the internet is punishing people's reputations. big difference.

mieseratte 9y ago
Punishment when we have yet to assess guilt.
- supercanuck 9y ago
  What punishment would that be? People inside the company sold right before the dip. That is a fact. Seems like you are arguing they should be free of consequences. We judge people on their actions all the time, it is difficult to know their intentions. Other people have to be on the otherside of that trade. It’s publically good to know there are possible untrustworthy actors in a company, especially when it is extremely difficult to prove white collar crimes
  - Domenic_S 9y ago
    Selling before a dip is not a crime.
    - supercanuck 9y ago
      I feel like I'm being misunderstood. My point is that if you are a leader in a company and you sell before the dip which is based on some pretty negative event, you should not necessarily go to prison or have freedom's taken from you. BUT, I don't think that means you shouldn't be subject to some reputational consequence. Should we trust your statements when you get on that investor call? Isn't your prior actions relevant?
      - mulmen 9y ago
        I don't see the benefit to this system. If we assassinate reputation based on coincidence then we have introduced an unnecessary element of chance. I would much rather base my opinion on facts. If the CEO lied to shareholders on a call or used inside knowledge to sell shares illegally then the reputation damage will come from the conviction. In the absence of this evidence I see no benefit in assuming guilt or otherwise damaging the CEOs reputation.
      - saagarjha 9y ago
        > I don't think that means you shouldn't be subject to some reputational consequence. Why not? What if they were just unlucky? Why do you get to decided whether their reputation suffers?
    - s73v3r_ 9y ago
      When you know of something like the revealing of a huge breach, it is.
- Retric 9y ago
  Plenty of people have assessed guilt. It has not been demonstrated in the court of law which is an important difference. However, when you consider how many people don't trust the US court system. You can't expect them to reserve judgement based on what they consider a biased system.
  - dumbfounder 9y ago
    Exactly. Criminal convictions have a higher standard than civil, which obviously have a much higher standard than the court of public opinion. Just because you don't get arrested and convicted in criminal court does not mean you aren't "guilty" using a less stringent standard.
  - prewett 9y ago
    What exactly do you mean by "people don't trust the US court system"? That the guilty go free? That the innocent are wrongly convicted? That guilty people are not prosecuted? That justices are corrupt? And approximately how many people have this view? I'm getting kind of tired of this rhetoric on how the US is so bad/corrupt/untrustable/whatever the word is today. We have some of the best courts in the history of the world. How would you like to get tried in Chinese, Russian, African, or South American court? Or be tried in the middle ages? Are they perfect? No. Will there be miscarriages of justice? Yes. Are you likely to experience one? No. And if you think it's that bad, well, there are plenty of other countries you could move to and find out if they are better. Or you could work to improve the system we do have (after studying it enough to understand it well enough to actually improve and not just change it).
    - lovich 9y ago
      Just because other places are worse doesn't mean the US is good. The US legal system enforces the law, not justice. It does a lot of work to make it more equitable but it's still obvious that if you have money you live by a different set of rules. The majority of the population couldn't pull off what the affluenza teen did, beat up their girlfriend publicly like Chris Brown with little to no affect on their career, or rape a kid and only serve 60 to 120 days in jail[1]. Every one of these instances of injustice degrade people's trust in the system If I was an average person I'd rather be tried in the US, but if I was rich it seems like it doesn't matter. Our legal system seems pretty equivalent in outcome for the upper class. You only get more than a trivial punishment if you manage to upset someone with more money or power than you [1]http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-07/news/sns-rt-us-usa-wisconsin-billionaire-20140606_1_sexual-assault-charge-wisconsin-billionaire http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-07/news/sns-rt-us...
saagarjha 9y ago
Why does the internet have the power to hand out punishment?

jonknee 9y ago

Either the CEO is incompetent and didn't know about a huge failure of his organization or he's a criminal, either way the verdict of public opinion is not going to be kind.

Jesus_Jones 9y ago
It's very unlikely that he didn't know about the security problems, that hadn't be released. I'd say about 99.9% chance that he knew. We know that it's very tempting for otherwise intelligent people to fall victim to this, like our favorite domestic lifestyle wallstreet-er CEO, Martha Stewart.
- TylerE 9y ago
  Stewart was done for obstruction and perjury, not insider trading.
  - spear 9y ago
    Not to pick on you because I see this response a lot, but that's really misleading. She was also indicted for insider trading and though that charge was thrown away by the judge, the SEC also filed a civil case against her for insider trading. She settled that one by paying $195,000 and agreeing not to serve as an officer of any public company for five years. It's not like the insider trading didn't cost her anything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImClone_stock_trading_case#Repercussions_and_aftermath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImClone_stock_trading_case#Rep...
- mulmen 9y ago
  Can you share the dataset you used to calculate the 99.9% probability? Do you have experience with other CEOs in this kind of situation? Do you have inside knowledge of Equifax? I'm not sure how anyone can be so certain in the absence of evidence. Indeed this is the reason we put the burden of proof on the accuser and assume innocence.
  - jonknee 9y ago

Waterluvian 9y ago

It's really tricky because while you're absolutely right, they generally don't indict innocent people. So when like 90% of these cases are guilty or a plea, it's way too easy to just forget about the 10%.

pixl97 9y ago
>So when like 90% of these cases are guilty or a plea I don't really like how plea agreements work in the US either. Too many of them are "Agree to this lower charge or we will Aaron Swartz you, and you will go bankrupt trying to defend yourself."
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  Aaron Swartz (most likely) broke the law. The problem there was that many people disliked the law.