Red Ring Of Death Whisteblower Gets Canned

A Microsoft contract employee who spoke on record in Dean Takahashi's in-depth look at the red ring of death fiasco has, shockingly, been fired.

Robert Delaware was a game and hardware tester at VMC, a Microsoft contractor. In 2006, he found a crash bug that could be duplicated on every game he tested. "If you coordinated the music player with the dashboard, you could get almost every 360 to lock up," he said in the VentureBeat report. "I did it first on a combo DVD/audio disk. With NBA 2K6, you would select the music. The screen went black." Delaware added that he believed "at least some" of the problems associated with Dead Rising were attributable to an Xbox Live dashboard update embedded in the game, and that the practice of including dashboard updates in games was also responsible for other hardware failures.

Takahashi wrote that Delaware was aware of the risks he faced in speaking on record, and he ran headlong into those risks on September 10 when he was informed that he was being let go because of the article. Delaware told VentureBeat that he also expected to face civil charges from VMC and Microsoft, presumably for breaking the non-disclosure agreement he was almost certainly subject to, but nonetheless says he doesn't regret speaking up, calling it "the moral thing to do." Of the potential civil action, he added, "I'll fight it. If they want to come after me, bring it on."

Moral it may be, but going on record with his comments was practically begging VMC to fire him. Non-disclosure agreements are legally binding contracts, and companies like Microsoft don't put them in place just because their lawyers have families to feed. It's difficult to fathom his motivation to tempt fate like this, as it would have been just as easy for him to speak anonymously, as several other sources did. Regardless of whether he felt an attributable source would carry more weight or he just wanted his 15 minutes, he blatantly broke the terms of his NDA, and if Microsoft wants such agreements to be taken seriously in the future, it's obligated to do something about it. If he's lucky, he'll be fired, the whole thing will blow over and a few months down the road he'll get a job testing for EA; if he's unlucky, Microsoft will decide to make an example of him, and pursue the matter to its most punitive conclusion. "Bring it on" is a great sound bite, but as recent history has shown, not always the best choice of words for an uncertain future.

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Retarded fool. As they said, go anonymous. I know the term is ruined by the 4Chan use, but anonymous whistle-blowing (*snicker*) could have saved this guy a lot of grief. Glad he ratted out MS, but going down as a martyr won't help or hinder the case, so why paint a big bullseye on your head?

Wow, he's either noble or stupid. I can't tell which.

Wait, no, I can.

He wants to come out looking like the heroic David facing the Goliath that is Microsoft... instead he ends up like a rat challenging a python.

I assume he wanted to quit anyway, this way he gets his wish + 15min of fame.

I admire his courage.

Lt. Sera:
I assume he wanted to quit anyway, this way he gets his wish + 15min of fame.

And $150K of lawsuits too.

It's interesting what he said though. I hadn't even realised that DR came with a Dashboard update (which unsurprisingly enough could have caused failures).

Well... big businesses bite back, it seems. He knew of the risks when he did this, and he'll live with the consequences.

Khell_Sennet:
Retarded fool. As they said, go anonymous.

Agreed, leaking it around /v/ would have been a surefire way of finding it on hundreds of YouTube videos, plus snitch inserts in gaming magazines and so on.

Yet it's interesting to know that these dahsboard updates can cause crashes, because I think something similar did happen with some xboxes (original ones), right ?

Well whatever reasons he's doing it for it proves one thing, you cannot hide things or close peoples lips, with words and NDA's.

It may cause a lessening of corporations arrogant, roughshod attitude, although I doubt it.

At least, They may take all his money, but they'll never take his Freedom.

I admire his courage, but I wonder how prepared he really is for the fallout.

Well typical non-disclosure agreements hold anyone who breaches the agreement liable for any lost revenue resulting from the disclosure of sensitive materials. It's iffy ground to hold someone responsible for projected sales, but it can happen. If he doesn't get himself a VERY good lawyer, he could owe Microsoft for a LOT of money.

It was a good thing to do, but... Why? Was it seriously just for fame? If it's an easily-duplicable crash bug, then people could've just tried it, if they wanted confirmation... Weird... And, y'know, illegal. This makes no sense.

If he didn't want to keep quiet about a company's questionable dealings then he shouldn't have signed a non-disclosure agreement. Sure it was the right thing to do, but it was also the wrong thing to do to violate his agreement. The rats who snitched on their bosses in the mafia were called rats for a reason - they were rats.

Calabi:
Well whatever reasons he's doing it for it proves one thing, you cannot hide things or close peoples lips, with words and NDA's.

It may cause a lessening of corporations arrogant, roughshod attitude, although I doubt it.

At least, They may take all his money, but they'll never take his Freedom.

Keep telling yourself that once he's jailed...

Imagine his next interview...

"It will be great to have you on board here at [insert name here]! Here are some paperwork to fill out and you can start monday once you sign this non-disclosure agreement.
Awww wait. Nevermind."

hehe

Morality through anonymity methinks was the way to go on this one.

Considering how little temp testers get paid, he really had nothing to lose and was probably hoping they would fire him over this.

Go for broke or go home.

aren't they supposed to come clean on these types of things anyways? guess he'll get sued for being honest and upfront and at the worst have nda's made illegal or at least in some instances

Well, this doesn't really fall under whistle-blower laws because he's not exposing illegal activities. What he should have done is raised the point to his superiors. If they refused to do anything about it, then he could have done something more drastic. While I admire what he was trying to do, I think there were things he could have done differently in order to preserve his job and fix the problem.