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SF Admin Gives Up Keys To Hijacked City Network
snydeq writes "Jailed IT admin Terry Childs relinquished his hold over San Francisco's multimillion-dollar FiberWAN, handing his administrative passwords over to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who was 'the only person he felt he could trust.' Childs is still being held on $5 million bail for his lockout of the city's FiberWAN, a case that has been called into question since an insider came forward with details about both the network and Childs himself. The case hinges on No Service Password Recovery commands Childs allegedly configured onto several Cisco devices, as well as dial-up and DSL modems the SFPD has discovered that would allow unauthorized connections to the FiberWAN. Childs intends to 'expose the utter mismanagement, negligence, and corruption at DTIS, which if left unchecked, will in fact place the City of San Francisco in danger,' according to his motion. The Department of Telecom and IS has cut 200 of its 350 IT positions since 2000 — pressure that may have contributed to Childs' actions, according to interviews with current and former DTIS staffers. Newsom secured the passwords without first telling the DTIS that he was meeting with Childs."
This story has a real obvious 'bad guy' in Childs.
Arrogant, supposedly unstable, egotistical.
But there are odd, contrary, little pieces of this tale that intrigue me.
I'd like to see some comprehensive treatment of this tragicomedy written a year from now, when the dust has settled, and Childs' side of the story can be heard as well.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
No, instead, he's a paranoid monomaniacal prima donna. If it is was me, I'd rather be a white cat-stroking schemer bent on world domination, because the former demonstrates a sick mind.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Childs intends to 'expose the utter mismanagement, negligence, and corruption at DTIS, which if left unchecked, will in fact place the City of San Francisco in danger,' according to his motion."
The fact that one employee had complete control over the network should be enough of a sign. Of course this is management, so they're all likely still confused on what's going on and need to have another meeting.
So...I certainly don't know if this guy is crazy or not, but there are a few things that I am surprised the /. crowd really hasn't bothered with.
1. The problems between IT and Management are so bad across the board that there is a famous cartoon relating these problems. This famous cartoon spawned the "PHB" reference. So...to listen to an IT guy complain of incompetent management shouldn't be a surprise at all. Please everyone, raise your hand if you have been handed complete and utter bullshit requirements or policies that some "PHB" without a technical clue has demanded that you implement. Now...raise your hand if you were stupid enough to EVER give them administrative rights over ANYTHING.
2. The media has a fucking field day with "evil hackers". This is so bad that the world "hacker" now means criminal and hordes of geeks wimpering and moaning about how the media stole the word. So...the media reporting on yet another "evil hacker holding city hostage" should be taken with a grain of salt. Sensationalist crap reported by people that have less than 0 IT understanding to the masses who also have less than 0 IT understanding. Million to one odds says that if they actually reported the more technical facts of this case the ratings would be near 0 and this story would have never gotten to be so high profile.
3. He did give the password to the person at the top of the chain of responsibility for this. Which to me sounds like the most appropriate thing to do. If you are so concerned that everyone is an incompetent fool then your only option is to go straight to the top. Imagine how much trouble this guy would be in if he gave out these passwords to a bunch of corrupt and incompetent folks who did bring the city down? At least this way everything continued functioning.
Finally...and most concerning to me is a quote from the article.
But without access to either Childs' passwords or the backup configuration files, administrators would have to essentially re-configure their entire network, an error-prone and time-consuming possibility, Chase said. "It's basically like playing 3D chess," he said. "In that situation, you're stuck interviewing everybody at every site getting anecdotal stories of who's connected to what. And then you're guaranteed to miss something."
Really...so basically these people didn't document ANYTHING. Because config files or not, rebulding your network if you bothered to document things isn't all that hard, it's just time consuming. But straight from their man there they would be stuck interviewing people for anecdotal stories becaues they were too incompetent to bother documenting the network. Nevermind that they seem to have cut their IT staff from 350 to 100 over the last few years. So it sounds like their IT staff was just the favored bucket to take money from, which is hardly new thinking these days. It amuses me to no end when companies/governments treat their IT staff like overpaid housekeeping, largely unneccessary drains on budgets, and an unimportant support function and then scream bloody murder when the shit hits the fan.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
I think sometimes people need to see the bigger picture. In my youth, I thought that becoming indispensable meant I was a valuable employee, and I had job security. But I had an epiphany at 2am one morning when I was fixing a problem. I COULD be the only one to fix this problem and be stuck fixing these problems forever. Or I could trust someone else and train them to fix these problems. Could my company find it easier to replace me? Sure, but it's just a job; I'll get other ones. The lost time I could have spent at 2am doing other things (like at home with my family) was worth the compromise. Any of you who missed out on anything because you were at work know what I mean.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Hey dreamchaser, this is your boss. I need write access to the email archives. The SEC has been poking around and, well, you know how it goes.
PS - get back to work.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
unconstitutional state law.
We should be able to work this out. Maybe we can just agree that you get to keep your handguns and I get to get married.
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
Being indispensable in one role will prevent you from being promoted. I was up for a coveted project but it was assigned to a less qualified person because I was too indispensable in my current project. Lest you think management was just letting me down softly, they had me train the person who was assigned the coveted project. That's right. They had me train the person who took the good job, and had me stay on my less-good project because I was really good at my current project.
I'm now trying to become a manager on the other project. They'll probably say that I don't have any experience in the field and promote the person who has it now, but we'll see.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Let me reply -- I've been there, done that. Not all that, but a little of that.
Back in 1992, I had a urethane or polyester exposure (I'm not sure which). That gave me hyper allergies, so the doctor put me on prednisone, which in 1/10 cases, causes psychosis.
He forgot to mention the possible side effects. But that didn't stop me from getting paranoia.
In my case, I was afraid that someone was putting something in my food to control me. Retrospectively, I think that my brain was essentially diagnosing its own problems, and trying to get me to modify my diet (ummm, could us neurons have a little more of that prednisone please? Or maybe we don't want it after all...)
Now, my mom just tried to keep me eating good food, and eventually the symptoms went away as the withdrawal effects went away. But it alerted me to the facts that (1) people of high IQ and high-stress jobs are highly likely to get a mental illness (2) I am susceptible, at the very least.
But my uncle, who works in psychology, mentioned that if you find yourself susceptible to mental illness, it is advantageous to get a lower-stress, more physical job. If need be, take up running (not all out, just 1/2 to 1 hr a day), gardening (pulling weeds is very therapeutic, I find), or a more physical job, or become a high school gym teacher. Also, avoid those situations that tend to make you more paranoid -- give yourself a break; and avoid those habits which you rationally know are insane. He calls this good mental hygiene.
Based on experience, I think he's right.
I'm right now an aerospace/ocean engineer by training, and a layout tech for a prestress concrete company by trade. I don't keep a computer or a TV at home, and use the computer minimally aside from that. If I absolutely need web access outside of my work computer, I go to a library.
I also cultivate a strong relationship with my wife, with my kids, and with Christ, praying as most Christians do. Although my prayers do get answers, I mean that in the sense that most strong Christians do, as well. When I've not been sure what to do, and I've prayed for God to close all the doors except the one he wants me doing, I've trusted him for that, and He's done it (as my wife, who is quite mentally stable, can affirm).
Last of all, needless to say, I'd say give up any weapons, and any hope of defending yourself against anything even through other means. Pray, and ask Christ to defend you. But as a potentially mentally ill person, if you're going to defend yourself, you're in trouble anyhow. So give that one up, and put your trust in God as your defender: "You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord, who abide in His shadow for Life; say to the Lord 'my refuge, my rock in whom I trust'. And he will raise you up on eagle's wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, and make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand."
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
"You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord, who abide in His shadow for Life; say to the Lord 'my refuge, my rock in whom I trust'. And he will raise you up on eagle's wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, and make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand."
And that, I am afraid, is not something that sounds sane at all.. but each to his own.