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3 of 4 Charges Against Terry Childs Dropped
phantomfive writes "Terry Childs, who was arrested nearly a year ago for refusing to turn over the passwords to San Francisco's FiberWAN network, has been cleared of three of the four charges against him. The dropped charges referred to the attachment of modems to the network; the remaining charge is for refusing to turn over the password. The prosecutor has vowed to appeal, to have the charges reinstated. We have the original story, and the story where Childs tells his side, for those who want a refresher."
Always seemed to me this was not much more than a witch hunt. Why else would them set a bail higher than for killers and rapists?
Onda Technology Institute
I'm sorry but this guy has already had time served. Even if they do find him guilty one year in jail for what he did is far more than enough. Plus 1M bail? Is he a violent criminal? ...
This sounds like a classic story if ignorant people making decisions about technical crime and getting scared. I aim that both at the city and at the judge who set the original bail.
We need special technical trials for things like this within which both the defence and prosecution are allowed to bring in technical witnesses to put the case into perspective for non-technical people (as opposed to "HACKER! Get the pitch forks!").
...sufficient to keep him from being hired...
After this thorough exposure and experience with the legal profession, law firms should be recruiting him. Not to mention his arrogance and narrow focus on a crucial point of fact indicates he would fit well in with lawyers of the same personality traits.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
I'm not really sure that makes sense either but we should know soon. It really just looks like management that was so spectacularly bad that they called in the police to handle a simple workplace dispute. It should have been escalated up the chain away from these clowns to some form of adult supervision before calling in the police.
Just a bit of wild speculation here, but it will be very interesting to find out if the inexperienced "IT security" person that sparked all this off is a relative or lover of the new management that handled this all so badly. If I found a complete stranger wandering about removing hard drives containing sensitive information I would be asking rude questions, taking photos and making threats about calling the police as well. The only way you tell a surprise security audit from a robbery is by having someone known within the company follow them around to avoid STUPID situations like this. If a manager can't get anyone or do it themselves they really have to put in their notice and get a job with less responsibility.
Very wild speculation here, but wouldn't it be funny if the entire thing was revenge for making the new manager's mistress cry?
It's like watching cable news doing a circle jerk talking about how a twitter post talks about a blog post that mentions an article that refers to an interview where the reporter asks a question about something, but no one even cares about showing the relevant clip!
They do that kind of thing on the news all the time. When they do, it is always a sign that they want you to blindly accept what they are telling you. They will tell you about a hundred times what the video clip shows and then finally show it to you after they've programmed you to accept their version of events.
Not saying that's what's happening here, but when someone hides the facts from me, I assume they are acting nefariously. Incompetence qualifies, if you are behaving as if you had a clue.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Prosecutors can be sued, but you have to show that they were not acting in good faith. Mike Nifong, the prosecutor for the Duke "rape" case was tried and disbarred for his conduct. There's accountability, but a prosecutor has to go from being a jackass to trying to screw over justice to get a lawsuit going.
As an ex-employee, it's no longer his call as to "who gets the keys"
Wrong! The SOP was that he was only to turn the passwords over to the Mayor. This has been covered extensively. This requirement DOES go away if you're fired... you don't [by default] have to turn over ANY passwords! Just say "I don't work here any more, and I don't have your passwords." Meanwhile, if you do still work there, then you're still bound by the agreement you already made to follow the policies and procedures, which means he was bound to turn the passwords only over to the mayor.
In other words, the only charge not dismissed by the judge is the only one which he ever should have been accused of (if any) and he has a solid defense against it. We shall see how it plays out, but it is not nearly as cut and dried as you imagine or pretend.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Only problem is, like so many people convicted of crimes, by the time they are in the system by a corrupt DA, they can no longer vote and may even possibly be limited to what they can protest (due to being in jail or whatever).
"Just change the law" or "just vote them out" doesn't work when the most affected people can't participate. Effectively, the corrupt can silence opposition at will.
The defense made a motion challenging the evidence and the judge agreed that there was not sufficient evidence to support 3 of the 4 charges. There was no plea here. The court threw out the state's allegations for lack of evidence. There was no evidence because what he did was probably not sufficient as a matter of law (a matter of fact would probably have been decided by a jury). The charges were merely trumped up. Fabricated. Lies.
And yet they still kept this man in jail for a year awaiting trial for a ridiculous amount of bail money for a non-violent crime.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
As an ex-employee, it's no longer his call as to "who gets the keys"
Wrong! The SOP was that he was only to turn the passwords over to the Mayor. This has been covered extensively. This requirement DOES go away if you're fired... you don't [by default] have to turn over ANY passwords! Just say "I don't work here any more, and I don't have your passwords." Meanwhile, if you do still work there, then you're still bound by the agreement you already made to follow the policies and procedures, which means he was bound to turn the passwords only over to the mayor. I'll give passwords to anybody who can produce written authorization from any executive, officer or elected official with the authority to do so.
"SOP" is completely meaningless unless it's law or a written policy authorized by the City, that the employee signed.
If the Mayor wants the passwords, that's fine with me. In fact, assuming it was just a few logins, I'd even give it to him for free, regardless of whetehr I was still an employee or not. In fact, if they want to pay for my services, I'll happily root all their servers and routers and tell them what the new passwords are.
. OTOH, I guess that explains why I'm not in jail and have more business than I can handle. The first rule of successfully working with others is "Don't be an asshole."
some of the routers where in a place with little security and that is where you may want to use that config.
Bullshit. A skilled system administrator can get root / Administrator access so long as they have access to the machine, so the benefits of giving the password up are far outweighed by the benefits of following industry standard security practices. All too often incompetent upper management needs to be protected from it's own incompetence. You can't make it my job to keep a system running smoothly and simultaneously let any incompetent idiot have root access to it. You can write me a note for the teacher all day, I'm not going to accept it. I'm going to explain to them that they can have the passwords in exactly one manner, and that is concurrent to my resignation. If they want them that bad, they get both. That is where Childs went wrong, but he may well have had the best of intentions.
All of that being said, jail for this guy is absurd, as anyone who actually reads the article and reads Childs' explanation would almost necessarily conclude the same.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Lets not forget...
I would hire him.
i did not know about this case so i went up looking back to all the story and trying to figure out what happened i've runned across these two that explain a bit http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/why-san-franciscos-network-admin-went-rogue-286?page=0,0 http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/childs-attempt-protect-network-password-gone-awry-978 What i'm now missing is what were his duties in the contract and who he had to provide those passwords. this document http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/dtis/coit/Policies_Forms/CCISDA_security.pdf cited in some post here is only about personal passwords and not system ones. So a sysadmin keeps an eye on security, he's asked by his boss in front of unauthorized people to reveal those passwords, in a improvised meeting in a place outside the place where he works. he refuse to say those passwords, he's suspended for unsubordination and some days later he's arrested, and he's still in prison He can only be guilt of being an asshole or too paranoid but since he was the only one responsible for the whole SF Wan who wouldn't have been ? you really would have give away your passwords knowing that if the day after the network would have been down it would have been your only responsability ? - "B....bbbut i gave the password to my boss!" - "Nice work! now you are fired and you'll be charged for the problem you caused with your inefficency" no really.. this story is crazy i really hope he will be released soon but then what about his lost job ? what about the loss in credibility he has to suffer due to ignorance of news that portrayed him as digital version of bin laden ?
misleading title...as the charges weren't "dropped," they were dismissed by the Judge (yes...I rtfa).
"Dropped" implies that the prosecutor did the "dropping," either due to a plea bargain or because the lack of evidence.
plus I don't like how the Examiner "labels" Childs as a hacker....he was the f*cking sysadmin and essentially the father/protector of the city's fiberWAN.
Especially considering the incompetence with computers and network security policies and practices by other city workers, he was considered the messiah/scapegoat.
(definitely, among those of us who have had to deal with the city govt)
there are plenty of other fish that the prosecutor(s) can fry that are worth the frying.
oh, btw, I can't get the triangle button to add a tag to work anymore.
Well, you don't have to turn the equipment over because of employment, you have to turn it over because your (now former) employer is the rightful owner.
Before they fired him, he was bound by policy NOT to give the password to his boss or co-workers. After he was fired, he wasn't even bound to remember the password at all much less tell someone what it was.
Personally when I leave an engagement where I had passwords, I delete personal accounts and if I was the only person with a role account password, change it to unmemorable junk, write it down, and seal it in an envelope (then forget it). That goes to whoever the policy says should have it ONLY. If others already legitimately have the role passwords I tell them to change it IN WRITING.
If they choose not to have an appropriate transitional arrangement for that to happen, that's it, I'm gone, good luck to ya! I don't remember a thing!
He indicated willingness to give the password to the mayor. Once the mayor could be bothered to get said password from him, he did just that. Too bad they made a big stink of it such that that step took place while he was in jail. As for the claims of millions in damage to "repair" the network, that seems rather unlikely unless they really were the bumbling id10ts Childs makes them out to be. Even then, that's not HIS doing.
If sysadmins unionized, they could fight stuff like this collectively. The union could pay legal fees to handle Terry Childs' case. The union could also demand liability protection clauses in employment contracts and push for legislation to further protect themselves.
Unfortunately, people these days are very well trained by propaganda to hate things that are actually in their best interest, so the idea of unionizing is repulsive to most. Too bad, a strong IT union could prevent things like this.