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Terry Childs's Slow Road To Justice

snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia provides an update on the City of San Francisco's trial against IT admin Terry Childs, which — at eight weeks and counting — hasn't even seen the defense begin to present its case. The main spotlight thus far has been on the testimony of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. 'Many articles about this case have pounced on the fact that after Childs gave the passwords to the mayor, they couldn't immediately be used. Most of these pieces chalk this up to some kind of secondary infraction on Childs's part,' Venezia writes. 'Just because you give someone a password doesn't mean that person knows how to use it. Childs's security measures would have included access lists that blocked attempted logins from non-specified IP addresses or subnets. In short, it was nothing out of the ordinary if you know anything about network security.' But while the lack of technical expertise in the case is troubling, encouraging is the fact that the San Francisco Chronicle's 'breathless piece reporting on the mayor's testimony' drew comments 10-to-1 in Childs's favor, which may indicate that 'public opinion of this case has tilted in favor of the defense,' Venezia writes. Of course, 'if [the trial] drags into summer, Childs will have the dubious honor of being held in jail for two full years.' This for a man who 'ultimately protected the [City's] network until the bitter end.'"

4 of 253 comments (clear)

  1. Men like these... by jdpars · · Score: 5, Funny

    Men like these are all that stand between us and the terrorists who would destroy our internet-based communications.

    1. Re:Men like these... by jdpars · · Score: 4, Funny

      Something tells me that at the very heart of this entire matter is someone's porn stash hidden on a city computer. Probably the mayor's.

  2. Re:$5 million bail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How many children would you have to rape to get bail set that high? How many people would you have to kill? How many computer offenses would you have to commit?

    that would be about 2 illegal song uploads or 23 killings.

  3. Linktacular by pipingguy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Summary needs more links that won't be read.