The Inside Story On the San Francisco Network Hijacking

snydeq writes "A source with direct knowledge of San Francisco's IT infrastructure has tipped off Paul Venezia to the real story behind Terry Childs' lockout of San Francisco's network, providing a detailed account of the city's FiberWAN, interdepartmental politics, and Terry Childs himself. Childs pleaded not guilty to charges of tampering yesterday and is being held on $5 million bail. According to the source, Childs' purview was limited to the city's FiberWAN — a network he himself built and, believing no one competent enough to touch the network but himself, guarded religiously, sharing details with no one, including routing configuration and log-in information. Childs was so concerned about the network's security that he refused even to write router and switch configurations to flash. But what may prove difficult for the prosecution in its case against Childs is that his restricted access to the network was widely known and accepted among managers and the city's other network engineers. Venezia, who has been suspicious of the official story from the start, suspects that the Childs case may be that 'of an overprotective admin who believed he was protecting the network — and by extension, the city — from other administrators whom he considered inferior, and perhaps even dangerous.' Further evidence is that fact that the network, from what Venezia understands, has been running smoothly since Childs' arrest."

Comments

Re:He's still not justified...

[Toll_Free]

The problem is, ITS SAN FRANCISCO.... Had ANYONE said anything to him, he could have said he was being persecuted, and probably won.

Welcome to San Francisco work politics / ethics. I have a home there. I pay rent 90 miles south because I can't STAND the fucking city.

--Toll_Free

Re:Are you sure he's a criminal?

[aproposofwhat]

As a card-carrying Coke-swilling social retard on a perpetual power trip, may I say that Terry's a total star.

I fail to see how refusing to give someone the password for a system which you were totally responsible for setting up, and on call 24/7/365 to support, is criminal - what is criminal is the attitude of the management who seem to have sacked the guy over a personality clash with their new security asshat, who's probably less qualified than Terry on network security matters.

I'd do the same if I was in his position - they'd have to offer me a big payoff for the information in my head, and specious lawsuits wouldn't deter me.

Re:FiberWAN should not have been deployed then

[aproposofwhat]

Childs' problems with the department got serious June 20 when he started taking photographs of the agency's new head of security after she began an audit of who had password access to the system, the newspaper said. Childs' frightening behavior prompted the woman to lock herself in an office

So basically, he's been fired for spooking some (probably less than competent) tart that's been hired to impose security on what's already a well secured system (since no other bugger can get in and screw it up).

Well done management - I'd have sacked the new security totty and kept the networking expert.