EVENT
Llama Release and My Conviction Day
- November 1st, 1993, is a date I will remember for the rest of my life. It was the official release day of my book Llama book (Learning Perl).
- On that exact same day, I was confronted by local law enforcement and authorities.
- The investigation ultimately culminated in July 1995 with my conviction on three computer-related felonies. See State of Oregon v. Randal Schwartz for full details of the case.
- I spent over $270,000 on defense lawyers, fines, and "retribution," not counting lost work time or lost contract opportunities.
- My bail and probation restrictions strictly prevented me from working on computers or systems without documented disclosure of my case.
- Looking for a way to support myself, I requested a special exception from the presiding judge to perform corporate "training," arguing that as an instructor, I would have highly limited access to any corporate "secrets" or internal systems.
- The judge granted the exception, and thus Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. was reinvented from a generic consulting shop into a dedicated Perl Training Company.
- Ironically, at almost every corporate client location I traveled to for training, the client's sysadmins would immediately hand me a network cable and plug me directly into their unrestricted internal network anyway ("oops!").
These facts are as Randal recalls them, but much time has passed for most of this. If you find a factual error, please email realmerlyn@gmail.com.