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SF Not an Exception In Giving IT Too Much Control

Posted by timothy on from the double-edged-sword dept.

CWmike writes "The city of San Francisco's IT department is certainly not the exception when it comes to allowing just one person to have unfettered rights to make password and configuration changes to networks and enterprise systems. In fact, it's a situation fairly common in many organizations — especially small to medium-size ones, IT managers and others cautioned in the wake of the recent Terry Childs incident."

10 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. God complex by daveywest · · Score: 4, Funny

    What was it they said in the 80's about the most common admin passwords?

    1. Re:God complex by pwnies · · Score: 4, Funny

      "1, 2, 3, 4, 5...the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage"
      -Spaceballs, 1987.

    2. Re:God complex by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Funny

      That is the combination to my luggage, you insensitive clod!

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  2. Just waterboard the guy... by tjstork · · Score: 3, Funny

    I mean, really. What do we have now? The guy loses control, flips out, locks everyone out of the system, they are down for who knows how long as they bring in crackers and consultants and what not, and the guy goes to jail.

    But...

    If you just waterboard the guy, until he coughs up the password, the system's not down for really any longer than it takes a Windows Update to screw everything up, so you can just let the guy who locked you out walk, instead of putting him in jail or prison for who knows how long.

    Waterboard in this case would be simpler, safer, and better for everyone.

    --
    This is my sig.
  3. Opportunity for router vendors by markov_chain · · Score: 3, Funny

    Cisco should start selling Childs-proof routers! *rimshot*

    --
    Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
  4. Re:It will happen again, and continue to happen. by Wiarumas · · Score: 2, Funny

    One Word: Skynet

    Singularity ftw.

    --
    I will bend like a reed in the wind.
  5. Re:Here come the elephants. by Spad · · Score: 4, Funny

    So he's going to change all your passwords *and* run off with your wife?

  6. Not qualified to comment. by Shaitan+Apistos · · Score: 5, Funny

    Whenever I register for a site where my email address is my username, the password I use happens to be the same password that I use for my email account.

    With that in mind, I'm going to go ahead and not express any opinions on security.

  7. Re:This is silly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    is that rocking-horse porn or rocking horse-porn?

  8. Failure is not an option by Sparky+McGruff · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm getting to the point in my network that I'm the only single point of failure.

    I'm sorry, Dave, I can't let you do that.

    --Your Cisco HAL 9000 Router