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Terry Childs Case Puts All Admins In Danger
snydeq writes "Paul Venezia analyzes the four counts San Francisco has levied against Terry Childs, a case that curiously omits the charge of computer tampering, the very allegation that has kept Childs in jail for seven months and now appears too weak to present in court. Count 1 — 'disrupting or denying computer services' — is moot, according to Venezia, as the city's FiberWAN did not go down due to Childs' actions. Venezia writes, 'Childs' refusal to give up the passwords for several days in no way caused a disruption of the normal operation of the FiberWAN. In fact, it could be argued that his refusal actually prevented the disruption of normal network operation.' Counts 2 through 4 pertain to modems Childs had under his control, 'providing a means of accessing a computer, computer system, or computer network in violation of section 502,' according to case documents. As Venezia sees it, these counts too are spurious, as such devices are essential to the fulfillment of admin job requirements. 'If Childs is convicted on the modem charges, then just about every network administrator in the world could be charged with the same "crime,"' Venezia writes. All the authorities would have to do is 'point out that you have a modem or two, and suddenly you're wearing pinstripes of the jailhouse variety.'"
looking like insufferable, arrogant assholes.
Look, any way you slice this, Terry Childs held something at ransom or rendered useless that didn't belong to him.
Period. No fucking more arguments about that. The routers were not in his living room, and therefore NOT HIS.
The code, hardware, and configuration all belong to his employer. By withholding information about the configuration, he stole from his employer on the way out.
I don't care if he feels like he was mistreated or they might screw up the network after he left. Maybe if he spent more time not being a shit while he was there, leaving would have been easier. Or, I don't know, acting less like a typical waste of biomass bureaucrat doing nothing but protecting his little fiefdom and doing his job properly.... Making sure the job and one's successors succeed is critical to any IT role (if just for the "hit by a bus" factor) and this guy failed miserably at that.
Let his dumb ass rot in jail. He fucked himself and he deserves what he is getting. Take his car, computers, and 70th level Wizard away too because he represents the WORST qualities of the computer professional he could possibly be.
Lucky you didn't work in my IT department. I would have fired you on day one.
As an employee it's your responsibility to alert/inform your supervisor of the risks of his/her requests/demands. That's commendable, but it's your duty to accept what you feel might be a bad decision, and to follow orders.
Potentially harmful? And you're a lawyer. Gods help our legal system.
May the Maths Be with you!