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Disgruntled Engineer Hijacks San Francisco's Computer System
ceswiedler writes "A disgruntled software engineer has hijacked San Francisco's new multimillion-dollar municipal computer system. When the Department of Technology tried to fire him, he disabled all administrative passwords other than his own. He was taken into custody but has so far refused to provide the password, and the department has yet to regain admin access on their own. They're worried that he or an associate might be able to destroy hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents, including emails, payroll information, and law enforcement documents."
...you disable his account *before* you tell him he's fired.
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
Or they could just unplug it? Lost productivity is better than lost data here, I'll bet.
Idiotic new law in 5...4...3...
We all dream about doing this to our ex-employer, but he's the one who's had the balls to do it!
No, not all of us do. Especially those of us who don't do things that get ourselves fired.
This guy's the limit!
If you need a recognized code of ethics to tell you that sabotaging your ex-employer's system isn't right, then no code of ethics can help you. Unfortunately this guy screws it up for all of the honest techs who work hard to earn the trust which they need for doing their jobs.
I don't understand how it's possible to be locked out of a system that you have direct local access to. You should at least be able to pop in a livecd and edit /etc/password from a livecd. If you need to decrypt stuff might as well start cracking the hash.. they certainly have the computing power to do it o_O
A reputation, based on people with a serious ideological axe to grind. Blind faith in the market producing magical efficiency gains is contrary to everything I have seen during my professional life, both in the public and private sector. From my perspective, I have never seen one bit of evidence to show there is any truth to it outside the imaginations of Tory politicians.
Furthermore, people like you who are so besotted with 'market forces' did attempt to introduce them to public services in the UK, and it has been an unmitigated disaster. The inability of internal prices to truly reflect the quality of services has resulted in huge waste, massive bureaucracy and a decline of standards. Now, the ideologues are at it again trying to push for a new round of 'targets' in the NHS. They never learn.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
In the scenario you descibre, the streets would become choked with dirty, unsafe buses and traffic would grind to a halt. This, in fact, happens.
Like so many market fundamentalists, you just can't see how easily your ideology falls flat on its face in the real world, or you would've seen the flaw in your own argument.
You are essentially laying all inefficiency at the feet of the 'state' - i.e. any actor that isn't an entrepreneur - and then using that as 'proof' that the entrepreneur is more efficient. This is what people smarter than you refer to as 'circular logic'.
Perhaps, when you've grown up, experienced the real world a bit and stopped reading Ayn Rands bullshit, you might get a clue.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
(windows systems too.. I mean it is a muni we're talking about..)
But yes.. physical access to a device trumps all. It's probably something like they only have -one- guy that knows what he's doing.. and he just went from being fired to Fed-pound-you-Penn
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
Productivity? By a government agency?
This is not about productivity, it is about control.
I've patched programs stored in a DB without knowing the DB admin password, just by hexediting the DB files.
Worst. Idea. Ever.
You should be ashamed of yourself, not proud.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
You are being disingenuous at best. Are your roads in order, is the traffic calm and orderly? Do you have electricity in your home? Are you being raided by armed bandits? what about clean water, can you drink the water coming out of your faucet? What about the mail, is it being delivered?
Need I go on? You are suggesting local, state and federal government do nothing.