A programmer was sentenced to 10 months in prison for deleting code after leaving the company. JD.com said it cost 30,000 yuan to restore the database. Netizens: This is a real grudge.

Mengchen Xiaoxiao sent from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit | Public Account QbitAI

The topic of "programmers deleting the database and running away" once again became a hot search, with over 100 million views.

However, this time what was deleted was not the database, but the code I wrote myself !

The person involved is a 29-year-old programmer who developed code for the JD.com home delivery platform for three months.

On the day he resigned, he deleted a series of codes he had written, including platform coupons, budget systems, and subsidy rules.

A closer look reveals that the programmer resigned on June 18 , the day of JD.com’s big promotion.

Recently, the programmer was sentenced to ten months in prison .

In addition to these dramatic details, many onlookers also discussed issues such as extreme behavior when leaving a job and code permission management.

Let’s take a look at what is going on.

Private login control platform delete code

According to the criminal judgment of the Yangpu District People's Court of Shanghai, in March 2021, a 29-year-old programmer named Lu was employed by a Beijing-based information technology company and was responsible for the code development of the JD.com Daojia platform.

On June 18, 2021, Lu resigned.

On the day of his resignation, he logged into the code control platform (the server is located in Shanghai) with his own account without permission and deleted the codes for JD.com’s coupons, budget system, and subsidy rules that he had written during his tenure , causing the relevant projects to be delayed.

On September 23, 2021, Lu was arrested by the police.

After the incident, the company hired a third-party company to restore the database to ensure smooth system operation, and spent a total of about 30,000 yuan.

With the help of his family, Lu paid 35,000 yuan in compensation and obtained forgiveness.

The verdict showed that the defendant Lu violated state regulations and deleted data stored in the computer information system, which had serious consequences. His behavior constituted the crime of destroying the computer information system .

However, since Lu truthfully confessed his crimes after being arrested and voluntarily pleaded guilty and accepted punishment, he can be given a lighter punishment according to law.

Currently, Lu has been sentenced to ten months in prison , from September 23, 2021 to July 22, 2022.

According to Qichacha, Shanghai Jingdong Daojia Yuanxin Information Technology Co., Ltd. does have a wholly-owned subsidiary in Beijing, named Beijing Daguan Information Technology Co., Ltd.

△ Image source: Qichacha

From Liepin, we can see that the company is recruiting back-end development engineers for JD.com Daojia, who will be responsible for the rapid iteration of systems such as coupons.

△ Image source: Liepin

This case also sparked heated discussions among many netizens.

Netizens hotly discuss: There are still doubts

It can be seen that compared with the previous case of deleting the database and running away, this case is somewhat different.

What the defendant Lu deleted was not the production data in the database, but the code he wrote during his work.

Some netizens who are familiar with the IT industry have discovered problems in the details and believe that there are still some unclear points that cannot be explained based on the existing information.

For example, what code was deleted?

If it is the code for the production environment, it stands to reason that large companies will have strict management methods for the online release of the code, and it needs to be reviewed by peers and superiors before it can be merged into the main branch.

How could this person have such great authority?

If it is the code in the development environment, an important function of the code control platform is version management. Both Git and the older SVN have backup functions that can roll back deleted operations.

So why did the company spend 30,000 yuan to hire a third party to recover the data?

In any case, this case once again reminds everyone that the fruits of labor during employment belong to the company according to the contract.

Even if it is the code you wrote yourself, you cannot delete it on impulse, otherwise it will only make your life more and more confusing.

Not to mention the 10-month prison sentence plus compensation, the criminal record will affect future job hunting. It's not worth it.

In addition, the verdict also stated that the defendant Lu was able to truthfully confess his crimes after being arrested, compensate the victim unit and obtain forgiveness, and he can be given a lighter punishment according to the law.

A 10-month prison sentence is indeed light compared to similar cases that have caused a sensation before.

No matter what you say or what you say, the criminal law is no joke

Deleting the database and running away was more of a self-deprecating joke among programmers in the early years.

The joke is that after deleting the database due to operational errors or other reasons, you can only run away.

Every time the mysterious code "rm -rf /*" appears, the experienced driver will smile knowingly.

However, in recent years, such joke-like stories have repeatedly occurred in reality.

The biggest impact was that in early 2020, a programmer at the e-commerce SaaS WeMall deleted a database, causing the company's server to malfunction for 8 days, affecting more than 300 merchants and causing the market value to evaporate by 1 billion in just one day.

The defendant in this case, He, was eventually sentenced to six years in prison for the crime of destroying computer information systems .

After that, a 40-year-old Lianjia programmer was sentenced to seven years in prison for deleting his own 9TB database , also for the crime of destroying computer information systems.

The crime of destroying computer information systems is stipulated in Article 286 of my country's Criminal Law and includes three crimes.

The first is the provision regarding the destruction of the system itself.

Whoever, in violation of State regulations, deletes, modifies, adds or interferes with the functions of a computer information system, thereby causing the system to be unable to operate normally, and if the consequences are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention; if the consequences are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years.

The second paragraph is about data.

Anyone who violates national regulations by deleting, modifying or adding data and applications stored, processed or transmitted in a computer information system shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph if the consequences are serious.

The last one is destructive programs such as viruses.

Those who intentionally create and spread destructive programs such as computer viruses, which affect the normal operation of computer systems and cause serious consequences, shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the first paragraph.

In addition to cases such as deleting code and libraries, the recent case of a developer named Zhang being sentenced for helping others clock in remotely on DingTalk has also attracted a lot of attention.

The Danniu Assistant APP developed by Zhang can destroy the function of the DingTalk system to obtain the user's real geographic location. It is also a paid software, with a monthly package of 25 yuan and an annual package of 89 yuan.

At the time of the incident, there were 100,000 users, with a profit of approximately 5 million yuan .

The court ruled that Zhang's behavior met the crime of "intentionally creating and spreading computer viruses and other destructive programs" in the crime of destroying computer information systems, and the consequences were serious. The first instance verdict sentenced him to five years and six months in prison.

The second-instance court held that "Danniu Assistant" did not fall under the category of "destructive programs" in the criminal law, but Zhang was still convicted of the crime of destroying computer information systems and was sentenced to four years in prison .

In addition, developing game plug-ins similar to the "plug-in" of Danniu Assistant will also be considered a crime of destroying computer information systems.

At the end of December last year, the defendants Zhou, Sun and Yao were sentenced to 4 years, 3 years and 10 months, and 1 year and 6 months respectively for providing plug-ins for the game "Genshin Impact" and making a profit of 1.99488 million yuan .

These examples show that the consequences of destroying computer information systems are quite serious.

As this netizen said, don't be impulsive and take the teasing seriously.

First instance judgment:
http://www.hshfy.sh.cn/shfy/gweb2017/flws_view.jsp?pa=adGFoPaOoMjAyMqOpu6YwMTEw0Myz9TI3usUmd3N4aD0xz

Reference links:
[1] http://www.hshfy.sh.cn/shfy/gweb2017/flws_view.jsp?pa=adGFoPaOoMjAyMaOpu6YwMTA00Myz9TcwObrFJndzeGg9MgPdcssPdcssz
[2] https://weibo.com/7399555658/LeQChtDkM
[3]https://s.weibo.com/weibo?q=%23%E4%BA%AC%E4%B8%9C%E5%88%B0%E5%AE%B6%E7%A8%8B%E5%BA%8F%E5%91%98%E7%A6%BB%E8%81%8C%E5%BD%93%E5%A4%A9%E5%88%A0%E5%BA%93%E8%B7%91%E8%B7%AF%23&Refer=top
[4]https://www.liepin.com/job/1939418135.shtml