It doesn’t matter. Accessing someone else’s computer system in excess of your intended authorization may, as I said, constitute a felony violation of the C.F.A.A.
For example, in Executive Security Management Inc. v. Dahl, No. CV 09-9273 CAS (RCx) (C.D. Cal. Nov. 15, 2011), two employees of a company were fired and they deleted the data on their company-provided laptops. The ex-employer said that the loss of this data caused them to lose a contract. The court said that this might constitute a violation of the anti-hacking statute.
With regard to the bolded part of your statement, having any conversation with them without having retained a lawyer would be incredibly foolish. Telling him that he doesn’t know anything about it would be a lie and would almost certainly come back to bite him in the ass later, compounding the initial error.
If you’re lucky, nothing will come of this. Otherwise you’ve acted badly. But it doesn’t seem like your client has suffered any damages as a result of this, and potential violation of law is based on your authorization to access the client’s computer, which is a pretty fuzzy area because you don’t have a written agreement about this, and too piddly-shit for the authorities to care.
I understand in certain fields there are long standing practices and it may be common to work without a written contract. But you are taking a risk when you do that. Even with contracts I’ve found it useful to maintain contact with a third party ‘collection agency’. In over 30 years I’ve only been stiffed for a single $2000 payment. And I should have pursued that one just to keep the guy from thinking he got over on me.
It takes very little moral compass to know you shouldn’t (1) deliberately sabotage work you’ve done for someone else or (2) access someone else’s computer system to do something you know they would not want you doing.
Go back in and change the admin password. If they can’t get in, they can’t figure out that the data’s missing…
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I’m sure that was meant as a joke, but an admin in San Francisco did some jail time for doing that a couple years ago. They didn’t even delete data or shut anything down - they just locked out all other admins, but that was enough to land them in the slammer.
I think there is a very good chance the OP has committed a criminal act. And the OP is being MORE than foolish by not taking all the advice offered to STFU about it.
Whether or not you get a lawyer, don’t have any further communications with the guy or his company until you’ve talked to a lawyer, not to admit it, not to deny it, not to demand your money.
In answer to your question,
the answer is, Almost anything BUT what you have done. Most likely I would have eaten the loss.
It’s likely that they do daily backups and they can redo whatever you undid. Can you visit their site/pages/whatever as an anonymous internet person to see if your work is still there?
I just wanted to give an update for those of you who assumed I was hauled off to jail. Earlier this week I received a check in the mail, along with a letter (not from the guy who hired me, but from someone else at the company) saying “sorry for the delay…”. It was the exact amount owed to me back in March, and the check has now cleared. I WOULD make a fuss about this, but I figure rather than monetary interest, I instead received a couple lessons here, so I’ll call it even.
I never heard a peep from anyone about the “damage” I did. The website actually did get fixed (with all of the additions I made) about a week after I started this thread, but I didn’t want to throw any fuel on the fire by trying to raise any issues over that. I also decided that I am done doing freelance work - I have a full time job, so I really don’t NEED the extra $, and I don’t want to take any chances with getting another bum deal, so if I get any other offers, I’m just going to give them a NO. And if this guy ever contacts me for another job, I am going to laugh in his face. And of course the big lesson here - before you react, sleep on it, and then go with the action that’s not going to put YOU in the hot seat instead of them.
Just one other thing to throw out there - I don’t know what your full time job is, but a lot of companies have clauses in the employment contract that specfically forbit taking on freelance work on the side, almost all for very good reasons.
How happy do you think the OP’s employer would have been if one of its employees was in the news for being arrested on a hacking charge?
I’m glad things worked out. Freelancing can offer random stress, it’s true. But since you have a full-time job, I’m wondering why you got so worked up over the whole thing in the first place. Have you ever wondered whether you might look into some anger or impulse control treatment?
It was mainly over the fact that I was on vacation that week, and I gave up an entire day of it to do this data entry, and then not only got nothing in return for it (well technically, I got my vacation pay from my main job), but was getting jerked around by someone who used to be a reliable employer. I’m normally a very calm person, seriously!
The clause in my contract is that if I have secondary employment, it needs to be declared with a form. Just about everyone I work with has some kind of side gig that they do, and I seriously doubt that most of them declare that they sell candles on ebay or rent a house in upstate NY…
