Suspend Until Payment

I have programmed two custom machines with Ctrl Lgx 5k, the boss is concerned about his final payment. He wants me to program a timer to shut down the processor in 60 days if payment has not been made. Never tried this before. Is this legal? He wants to give them a password (after they pay of course) that will return things to normal.
Anyone have any feedback on this.
Im lost.
Coments welcome.

I know someone who got sued for doing just that.

I would be VERY cautious.

Thanks

Thanks
I was concerned about that, the boss I work for would throw me to the wolves to cover himself.
I will refuse with out written documentation to cover me.

You're not the first person who's had that idea and asked about it here.
Your boss should have negotiated payment terms sufficient to get enough money upon delivery to at least cover your costs incurred up to that point.
Consider the consequences of your little time bomb shutting down the end user's process by mistake. The best outcome you can hope for if that happens is that you don't get sued. A financial judgment against you could put you out of business. If your insurance is sufficient to cover the damage award, next year you'll get whacked with a huge increase in your premium and that's if your carrier agrees to even quote a renewal. If you do manage to stay open ask yourself how many of your existing customers will want to continue to do business with you. And all that's just in civil court. Depending on the nature of the end user's process, if shutting it down like that could cause injury or worse you might be subject to criminal charges. A judgment against you in criminal court could mean somebody goes to jail. Given all that, is it worth it?

Maybe you should be doing business with a better class of customers.

Just remember, Time Bombs are illegal & YOU will lose, even though you are just an employee of the equipment builder, if you program one.

Our company used a timed routine which prevented the machine restarting from a stopped condition if certain passwords were not entered. According to our 'Accounts Receivable', other than a few customers having trouble with typing an 8 digit number into the HMI there were no complaints. On final payment a final password was provided.

The role of the passwords were clearly spelled out in the customer contract. (I made sure of that before doing the code.) This wasn't a 'public safety' type of installation. As mentioned, an incorrect password only prevented a re-start. The timed routine did not shut the machine down if it was running when a new password period started.

The company has since stopped using the password method.

If someone did that to me or my company, the thread title would be "Badmouth until Bankrupt". Legal or not, never s**t in your customers lap.

Let's set aside the phrase "time bomb"; we're not talking about an explosive device.

I would assert that logic which shuts down or prevents restart of a control system without intentionally causing damage or creating a hazard is legal to implement. If it's part of a safety installation or a public works project, there might be exceptions.

In general, employees do not take on civil or criminal liability except in cases of gross negligence or in the case when an employee is acting under a professional license.

I don't know of any Federal or State statute, or even of well-known civil case law, that suggests that a system cannot be implemented with software the prevents its operation without proof of payment.

Most of us are reading this post on a computer operating system that won't run after a few days without proof of payment.

Any dispute about whether it's part of the payment contract or not is a civil matter.

I personally disapprove of these methods, but I've had customers who use them.

oldnerd said:

I have programmed two custom machines with Ctrl Lgx 5k, the boss is concerned about his final payment. He wants me to program a timer to shut down the processor in 60 days if payment has not been made. Never tried this before. Is this legal? He wants to give them a password (after they pay of course) that will return things to normal.
Anyone have any feedback on this.
Im lost.
Coments welcome.

Click to expand...

The follow-on posts are on target, but miss a key point.
Somehow, some person was good enough to take a down payment from (a while ago), but NOW, cannot be trusted to make the final payment.
Sounds like a leadership and engineering management problem, not a financial problem.
When will the grown-ups take back the world? I miss 'em.

we've all encountered "activations"

...the way Bernie Carlton puts it seems perfectly on the up and up to me.

I think this makes all the difference:

The role of the passwords were clearly spelled out in the customer contract.

Click to expand...

From the other end, the thing better work perfectly ...just the way you said it would

Ken Roach said:

Let's set aside the phrase "time bomb"; we're not talking about an explosive device.

Click to expand...

To a lawyer & the courts it's legally called a "Time Bomb", and the person who writes the code is the one legally responsible.

I don't want to be too argumentative, and I'm not asserting authority in the matter because I chose engineering over law school.

Liability is assigned and calculated differently in criminal and civil law, and I think you're talking about criminal acts like sabotage.

While the term "time bomb" might be used to describe the software function to a layman or even to a jury, those two words do not have a specific legal meaning.

I'm passably familiar with basic contract and tort law, and also with specific case law like United States v. Lloyd.

The charges against Timothy Lloyd were "Computer Sabotage" under US Code 18, Section 1030(a)(5)(A) criminalizing "knowingly caus[ing] the transmission of a program, information, code or command, and, as a result of such conduct, intentionally caus[ing] damage, without authorization, to a protected computer".

So in a case like the one with Tim Lloyd and Omega Engineering, Lloyd was charged with a Federal crime because he intentionally caused damage and losses.

In a case like the one OP described, he would be implementing an activation and de-activation feature that would be governed by the contract terms between the OEM and the customer. Ideally it would be disclosed and agreed to in the purchase documents.

The middle ground would be if the OP implemented a de-activation feature at his manager's request and authorization, but his company did not disclose its presence to the customer.

If it was done so that the system shut down safely, there might be a civil case for breach of contract because of legal theories like "implied warranty of merchantability" that suggests that a device is suitable for its intended use.

But unless it was intended to cause damage and losses, and was done without authorization, I don't see civil or criminal liability attaching to the software author.

I think there is a more important decision you must make here. I've know individuals that have done this. It is a reputation that ends up sticking with them for the rest of their careers, even after they have left the questionable company . I'm talking about doing this without clear stating to the purchaser by contract that this will be done.

So the real question is if this backfires as many times it does, are you willing to have it on your unwritten resume for the rest of your career?

I see all the posters are American. I'm not surprised you all run scared of the consequences of trying to get what is rightfully yours when we read a woman gets a million dollars for spilling coffee on herself and other such liable cases.

It's a little different in the UK.

Aabeck said:

To a lawyer & the courts it's legally called a "Time Bomb", and the person who writes the code is the one legally responsible.

Click to expand...

Does this mean that if I download a bootleg copy of Windows and install it, that I can sue a particular person at Microsoft when I can't get it to activate? "But your Honor, I really really need it! Please let me have it for free!"

My point is, Microsoft doesn't want me using a piece of software I haven't paid for; how is the OP's situation any different? It should be spelled out in the contract, as Microsoft does with its EULA. Locking out a piece of software or hardware and rendering it to a safe state for nonpayment is fine, as long as the client knows about it from the beginning.



-rpoet