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Accused Rogue Admin Terry Childs Makes His Case
angry tapir writes "He's been in jail for seven months now, but former San Francisco network administrator Terry Childs says he's going to keep fighting to prove he's innocent of computer crime charges. Childs was arrested on July 12, charged with disrupting the City of San Francisco's Wide Area Network during a tense standoff with management. Infoworld has also conducted an interview with Childs."
It sounds like the problem isn't that web journalism is lite but that there really isn't a lot of new information.
http://p8ste.com - Web based Clipboard
According to Wikipedia, either:
Central Queensland
Congressional Quarterly
or
A symbol indicating that the spelling is actually correct, believe it or not.
Does that help?
he couldnt record it nor talk about the trial... not much you can do with 30 minutes
If he's been in jail that long then he waived his right to a speedy trial and was unable to come up with the money for bail.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
CQ or Cadit Quaestio means "the spelling (or the simple fact) has been checked and double checked", so there's no need to check it again. As it was editorial markup, it should not have appeared in the published version of the story.
If something you mark as CQ later turns out to be wrong (because you haven't bothered to check), well that's egg on your face, isn't it?
Does anyone find it curious that the city managers claim they couldn't get access to the system without Childs passwords. I mean how difficult is it technically to reset a password, especially with physical access to the system. And with most reported 'news' nowadays, the facts keep changing with each new itteration:
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.Security Director J. Pieralde .. highly suggests that Childs still had current system admin rights .."
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Sep 10 2008 "The SF rogue admin Terry Childs installed a 'terminal server,' which appears to be a router, on the city's network, but investigators haven't been able to find or log into it"
"Childs has become increasingly hostile at work and defiant toward certain managers and has failed to comply with standard work procedure, as described above by the only system administrator situation"
"On the late afternoon of Friday 6-20-08, Security Manager J. Pieralde was conducting an audit inventory of equipment at the OMP Data Center. As she proceeded with her work, she was confronted by Childs and Childs began taking pictures of her, using his SF Owned cell phone. Pieralde became so concerned for her personal safety that she locked herself in a room and contacted Director R. Robinson by cell phone, informing him of (S) Childs' behavior
"Over the last months, Childs has refused and not authorized or allowed any other system administrators to the FiberWAN
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"The Labor Relations representative, Mr. Leung, then informed Childs that because of his insubordination and his failure to answer questions by a superior of his insubordination and his failure to answer questions by a superior he was being suspended from his employment
" Childs' City owned work cell phone, pager, ID cards, and access cards were taken from him
"Approximatly, an hour later, a page was received on the pager and a check of messages revealed a message from one of the routers .
"Mr. Maupin was also able to determine that Mr' Childs had, in fact, intentionally configured multiple Cicso network devices with a command that erases all configuration date in the event that someone tries to restore administrative access or tries to perform disaster recovery. This command was created for military applications that require deployment of network devices in areas that may have the possibility of hostile forces that could get physical access to network devices
Does anyone else apart from me think this is technologically nonsense
Not only does the guy sound sane, it sounds as though he's got grounds to sue the folks who are trying to prosecute him. TFA suggests these incompetents were upset to find (1) a modem that had been in the admin's office since before he started working there, and (2) a modem set up to page him on any problems, and (3) a modem set up to handle emergencies.
Obviously, this was not handled well by either side, but I'm inclined to believe the guy in jail over the clearly incompetent managers.
Bail in this case is $5,000,000. A bail bond would cost $500,000.
So much for the Eighth Amendment.
It should also be noted that Childs handed over passwords to the Mayor while in jail.
Oh, and bail is refunded if you show up for court.
Not necessarily. I was arrested on a completely made-up charge a couple of years ago, and at the end of it all they kept 10% of my bail for no other reason than profit. It wasn't very much money compared to what I spent defending myself, or having to change jobs because of what the arrest did to my security clearance, but it still pissed me off.
On TV, the cops always interview the accused, to try to ascertain if they've got the right guy. Not necessarily so in real life. Never once did a police officer or prosecutor ever talk to me or look at the copious evidence I gathered in my defense. As far as their interaction with me, the process consisted of them showing up at my door at night with cuffs, then finally dropping the charges on the morning of the jury trial when the prosecutor realized they didn't have anything.
According to Mr. Childs, the passwords were requested by his skip-skip-level boss, 2 HR people, and an unknown number of people listening in via speakerphone in an unscheduled meeting he was pulled into while onsite at one of the office locations. A Police detective was also standing by.
I can only hope the true story of what happens here comes out eventually.. but that is unlikely.
-e.g.
You are an idiot. I suppose his landlord (if he rents) is just going to waive his rent? His insurance company isn't going to want their money? The rest of the world doesn't care why he isn't working. He still has bills that will need to be paid. His lawyer is undoubtably sending him bills as well.
There are many stories in the military of unqualified or otherwise useless individuals being promoted. There are two primary reasons. First, as you said, because it's nearly impossible to have someone fired. Second, because the one thing that accompanies a promotion is a transfer.
Ingredients: Turkey, Mechanically Separated Turkey, Water, Salt, Flavour.
Because it's the state against an individual. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a way to try to rebalance a situation that's rather unsymmetrical: a state organization with enormous means at its disposition is accusing one person. When the state investigates, they can put thousands of officers at the job. They have the power to go anywhere, interrogate anybody, investigate everything.
The accused is alone. No matter how rich he is, he runs the risk of going bankrupt if he tries to match the state in its investigations. And he could go to jail if found guilty. Therefore, it's only fair to give the defendant the benefit of doubt in court.
It's a different situation when it's a citizen against another. I have the right to form an opinion on whether someone is guilty or not without giving him all the leeway a court needs to give, and I have the right to tell my opinion to anybody who will listen. It's not as if my opinion could send anybody to jail.
I presume you dealt with a bail bonds corporation?
They are a third party to the whole situation, and their product is getting you released from jail if the court allows this, and sets a bail amount.
No. Bail wasn't more than about $1000, and my wife bailed me out with our money. The police kept the 10%. Like I said, it wasn't a large amount.