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The Inside Story On the San Francisco Network Hijacking

Posted by Soulskill on from the connection-reset-by-lack-of-peers dept.

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."

4 of 471 comments (clear)

  1. a third option? by circletimessquare · · Score: 0, Troll

    is this the one that involves the men in black suits or the space aliens?

    i seem to have hit a nerve with the paranoid schizophrenic establishment

    i apologize for offending you with my need for plausability

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  2. Re:Is this really the case? by SuSEboy · · Score: 0, Troll

    It's hard to believe that management didn't care that a single employee was the only one who knew anything about critical infrastructure, no matter whether the employee arranged things this way because he thought no-one else was good enough or because this was his was of becoming entrenched.

    I find that easy to believe. Even easier to believe that they didn't know this was the case, or knew but did not understand.

    It's not actually the case of people not knowing the passwords or such, from what I've read in the news sources, it looks like he's locked out the other people who should have access. Think of him as a an admin who either changed the passwords of all the other admin users or deleted their accounts.

    And I'll think of you as an asshole who didn't read the fucking article.

  3. Re:He's still not justified... by Hyppy · · Score: 0, Troll

    Believe it or not, government employees are protected from their employer's snooping by the 4th Amendment.

  4. Re:He's still not justified... by Hyppy · · Score: 0, Troll

    Well, of course they have the ability to. I also have the ability to murder the next door-to-door salesman that shows up at my house. That doesn't mean it's legal.