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The Trial of Terry Childs Begins

snydeq writes "Opening arguments were heard today in the trial against IT admin Terry Childs, who was arrested 18 months ago for refusing to hand over passwords to the San Francisco city network. InfoWorld's Paul Venezia, who has been following the case from the start, speculates that the 18-month wait is due to the fact that 'the DA has done no homework on the technical issues in play here and is instead more than willing to use the Frankenstein offense: It's different, so it must be killed.' On the other hand, the city — which has held Childs on $5 million bail despite having already dropped three of the four charges against him — may have finally figured out 'just how ridiculous the whole scenario is but is too far down the line to pull back the reins and is continuing with the prosecution just to save face,' Venezia writes. The trial is expected to last until mid-March. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, to whom Childs eventually gave the city's network passwords, will be included in the roster of those who will testify in the case — one that could put all admins in danger should Childs be found guilty of tampering."

5 of 502 comments (clear)

  1. i don't know anonymous coward, why? by circletimessquare · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    tell me all about hurling insults from a position of anonymity and what that has to do with being an antisocial ass. i'm fascinated

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  2. Re:All admins by DJRumpy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    See this for info on Nuremberg and the "just following orders" defense:

    http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/militarylaw1/a/obeyingorders.htm

  3. Re:there exists in this world by jo_ham · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    So which is it? Do you deliberately ignore grammar rules because you think it's "a useless convention" or to "filter out brittle minds"?

    What happened to ignoring capitals being the measure of a superior writing system? Now suddenly you've instead claimed it is a "simple minds filter" to weed out people unworthy of attempting to read your words. It's interesting that you correlate a simple mind with one that has to put in a little more effort than usual to read a passage of text. It's not about understanding the content, it's about the way the brain works when it reads ahead. The capital letters do serve a purpose that you are ignoring.

    I personally think it's because you're lazy and the whole "breaking with useless convention" angle is just an excuse.

    Novelty in writing style is all well and good when done properly, but don't try to claim that's why you do it. Novelty in writing style is something like Portrait of the Artist by Joyce, which changes substantially as the book goes on to the point where it becomes like treacle by the end, or sticking to an iambic pentameter (love or hate either, they're merely examples). It's not just choosing to ignore capital letters. There's no novelty in that whatsoever; if I wanted to read prose with no capital letters I'd just browse livejournal or facebook for half an hour.

    Again you come back to the point that people who obey the rules of grammar have nothing to offer. I beg to differ, and would not necessarily claim the opposite (since it it clear that even illiterate people can be remarkably smart).

    It boils down to people judging your content based on your laziness with grammar.

  4. Re:Childs should get twenty years by jcoy42 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    > Help me get excellent karma, I promise to always use it positively.

    FYI: this mindset is probably why you don't (yet) have excellent karma.

    If I could dig it up to link to it I would, but I have seen a person rip me a new one and when I accused them of simply blathering easy answers to jack up their karma the reply was a plain and simple "I couldn't care less about my karma, I'm saying you're wrong because I think you're wrong. And just to prove I don't care about it I'll just say Linux sux, MicroSoft is God, and here's a goatse link", which he did link.

    And it was modded +5 insightful.

    --
    Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
  5. Re:there exists in this world by Falconhell · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Crap CTS, you are simply lazy.

    We all know it and your pathetic excuses for your incomptence frankly are ridiculous.

    Grow up and learn to write properly, and more people might read your posts