| Something similar happened at a company I worked for in 1983 - they laid
off a third of the division I was in, including about � the operations staff
(but not the system manager).
What they did was to have the senior system manager shut down the system at
four PM on Thursday and announced that there would be layoffs the next day.
The next day, they did the layoffs and told everyone (laid off or otherwise)
to leave, except for the senior system manager who sat around to finish
backups. On Monday, everyone who was laid off had left and things sort-of
went back to normal.
In my last group a contractor's contract was not renewed (there was some
friction, and he had a potential to cause some damage) - as he was being
told his contract wasn't going to be renewed, his password was changed, so
when he came back from his meeting he couldn't log in.
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| I'm not sure it's appropriate to discuss with a customer how "Digital might
handle it."
Although our disciplinary policy (6.21) is not labelled "Digital Internal Use
Only," I think you're more interested in the security aspects, which would
vary considerably from site to site and based on a threat analysis.
The obvious recommendations with respect to the system are to go through the
system authorization file with a fine tooth comb to be sure all accounts
belong to real people and to be sure that all passwords are changed. Even
non-privileged passwords will have to be changed if the person had a chance
to leave a trap door program around before he left -- he could use the trap
door program from a non-privileged account.
If there is sufficient concern, the entire system should be rebuilt from
new distribution tapes obtained directly from Digital and third party vendors,
and all customer software should be examined in source, line by line, for trap
doors, recompiled, and reinstalled.
/john
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