Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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?
When he gave the passwords to the mayor, the mayor came with no one but his press secretary. There was no technical person to ask questions, so it is not completely surprising that they didn't get it figured out the first try (even if a reasonably competent person could have figured it out, apparently there were not many of them left in the department). The important thing is when they came back with followup questions, Childs did help them out.
Here is my question: is the entire city run this badly, or is it just the IT department?
Qxe4
Nah, he's pretty much fucked. In an honest world he'd be rewarded for being such an upstanding citizen standing against corruption and incompetence.
In this world we've got whistleblower laws because nobody wants to hire an honest man.
Most of the city is run worse. We kind of like it that way, except when the insider dealing takes out a treasured park or restaurant.
But, the prosecutor who slapped five million dollars bail on Terry Childs needs to be taken down, have his political career ended over this. The judge who approved the bail (different from the judge presiding over the trial) also has some explaining to do. ITS COMPUTERZ AND SCARY AND DIFFERENT AND I DONT UNDERSTAAAAAND is not sufficient reason to take away 2 years of a man's life, no matter how big an aspie asshole he might be.
Not to mention the 14-odd jurors who have to show up 8:30AM at the courthouse for 12-16 weeks while this idiocy unfolds. Part of their lives is being stolen away too.
Remain calm! All is well!
"Amendment 6 - Right to Speedy Trial, Confrontation of Witnesses.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
Sitting in jail waiting 2 years for a trial is not something that should happen in our country. The system is broken and needs to be fixed.
"As many HR people not look pass the 2 years in jail even if he is not guilty and even then they may not want to pay the health care costs for some like that."
PR like this puts him into a category beyond HR people. Speaking tours are one possibility. If he continues to work in IT, CEOs will be making cold calls to him personally.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
So you're saying it's time for a new national byline eh.
"Arbitrariness, Security and Hidden Agendas"
No, doesn't flow off the tongue right.
"Commercialized warfare, industrial subjugation and for-profit courts"
No, that's too wordy...
"Injustice, slavery and lies"
Hmm... I think we have a winner!
I hate printers.
Most of the city is run worse. We kind of like it that way, except when the insider dealing takes out a treasured park or restaurant.
The openness of the corruption in San Francisco is breathtaking. It's like you're in a noir movie. The mayors are all stock characters from central casting, the police department is on the take, the department of public transportation has a running scam going with the largest towing company, and there's a water scandal (google Raker Act) right out of Chinatown. All that's missing is a shifty little midget trying to slit your nose.
Hang on, someone's at the door.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
When Terry's immediate supervisors -- in the IT department -- asked for the passwords, he refused, which is flat out insubordination. The senior IT managers should have access to the network passwords. That is a part of their job description. It's the responsibility of administrators to make sure that the passwords are disseminated to the appropriate people, and stored securely. (e.g.: in a lockbox, safe, or whatever...)
If they have fired him first then ask him, that is no longer insubordination. At that point all he had to follow was the simple ethic rules govern the work of a professionals. At no point he is liable to give the password to people who he know will not put it to good use and worse possibly exposing records that were suppose to be kept secure. All I see was they are trying to get him one way or another. If the jury do not give him a not guilty verdit (after being in jain for more than 2 years) I hope the governor of California does. If not I certainly hope Obama will help the "weak in need" in this situation. Child do not deserve to be jailed for what he did. He may be a pain of you know what but he certainly is getting things done the correct way.
Speak of Obama. No one in the military should allow him to fly an F-22 solo (I'm pretty sure he does not have the necessary military training to operate such advanced plane that costs billions of dollars), even if him or Rhom demanded someone to let him fly. Should a colonel (or even a captain) denied Obama access to the cockpit they should not be jailed 2 years and then tried for that. They followed the rules and did their job. Simple as that. It would be endangering public safety to allow him to fly one, not to mention the extensive tax payer dollar that are at risk of being wasted unnecessarily.
Well two things here:
1) You sure about his contract? I see that getting paraded around a lot but I've not seen what the actual contract says. You sure it said "Only the mayor,"? Perhaps it said "The mayor, or any of his authorized agents," meaning things like the director of IT and so on.
2) The only reason it ever got to the point of the conference call and all that was his flat out refusal to hand over the passwords. He did the typical geek thing of "No, you can't have it," and they did the typical government thing of throwing a fit. If his concern was really his contract he could have simply said "Well according to my understanding of my contract, I'm not allowed to give the passwords to anyone but the mayor. So I either need to talk to the mayor and have him ask, or if you think that's wrong I need to talk to our lawyers and see what they say." Let people know your concern and what to do about it, they will probably be reasonable in working with you. Just say "No," without qualification, don't be surprised if they go overboard.
In general geek types need to learn this. Don't tell people "No," don't say "I can't be done," because usually you are lying, even if you don't mean to. Most things are possible, there are just preconditions to be met. So tell people what those are. If they can't meet them, well then they can't have it. However it makes you not the bad guy. It really goes a long way with people's attitudes too. They don't feel like they are being shut down, they are being empowered. They are being told what THEY have to do to get something done.
This goes for all kinds of requests. For example:
--Self important asshat departmental manager comes and says "I need 50 terabytes of space on the central server to store files." Company policy is that everyone gets 100GB for no charge. Don't go "No, you can't have that much space." Instead say "Well the company only gives you 100GB for no charge. If you want more, we can certainly do that buy we'll have to add hardware. That is going to cost $X dollars, which you'll need to provide the budget for. You get me the money, I'll get you the space." Now most likely he goes away since he doesn't have the money to spend. However you aren't the bad guy, you offered to help, he couldn't get what he needed. Also you never know, maybe he say "No problem, I'll have the money transferred to your group today."
--Mid-level manager demands administrative access to his PC. He doesn't have a reason, just says "I need it, you have to give it to me." Company policy is that nobody gets access. Again, don't say no. Instead say "Well company policy is that nobody has administrative access. If you'd like it, you'll need to get a policy exception. Here's a form you can take to the big boss to get one." You have him get permission, and sign something that says he takes responsibility for his actions. Again, you are throwing the ball in his court. He has to go ask for permission and if he gets it he has to be responsible. Maybe the big boss never gives permission, that's not your problem, you aren't the bad guy.
In general, that's how you want to operate. Let people know what they need to do to get what they want, even if what they need to do is something you know they won't do. It will keep them much happier over all, and help insulate you against complaints. If someone goes to your boss or boss's boss and bitches that you said no, you can show that indeed you didn't, you told them what they needed to do. You didn't stop them from doing their job, you showed them what they needed to do to be able to do their job.
It sounds to me that they screwed up badly.
So they keep trying to intimidate this guy. Keep him in jail for years without a trial, make him plea bargain out.
But he won't blink. And if he is found innocent, he has a hell of a lawsuit.
I have no idea what the policy was at the time... but I'm not sure what relevance policy 2 years after the fact is to the case. If there was indeed a policy in place that said he could only turn the keys over to the Mayor at the time I'm sure they would have fixed it in response to this incident.
As an aside I will mention that I left a previous job amidst huge layoffs and refused to give passwords to anyone but the CEO (it was a little company) because I had no guarantee that any other individual or was the new "keeper of the passwords" and certainly couldn't take someones word for it. Granted, other people had the passwords but we were all in the same boat. My point here is that there are cases where this approach is the only one that makes sense, though I don't know enough of the details here to know to what degree that was true for Childs.
I'm just pointing out his moral responsibility. He should allow access to the network to its rightful owners in a manner that doesn't put it at risk from those without the right to access it.
Then he should wait until they hire someone to replace him and give *him* the passwords. Sysadmins keep middle-management types from getting carte blanche access for very good reasons, especially when politics are involved. We've all played D&D and read comic books; we understand the Paladin mindset.
When the COO, your direct boss, and a rep from Human Resources are there
Right in the middle of the "don't" list in the City's policy (which is freely available on the web) was "DO NOT DISCLOSE PASSWORDS TO YOUR BOSS".
So, right there, he cannot disclose it and uphold the policy that he was told to uphold.
According to 4 articles I've read on the subject, he was invited to this "surprise" meeting and there was an active speakerphone with people on the other end.
Right at the top of the "don't" list was "DO NOT DISCLOSE PASSWORDS OVER THE TELEPHONE"
Again, we have a case where he could not disclose the passwords without violating policy.
I agree that he was probably in violation of the "keep your passwords in the global database" policy, and there should certainly be some ramifications for that if true.
But not disclosing the core passwords at that meeting was not an act of defiance or arrogance, although that may have been the basis for the act. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, he was acting precisely in accordance with the policy he was hired to uphold.
I'm not saying he invoked that policy out of a deep sense of honor, it was probably out of a sense of preservation.
That policy is there specifically in many companies to keep managers from doing things that their employees can be blamed for. If Childs had given up the passwords in a meeting to undisclosed recipients, any one of them could have damaged the system, and he could be blamed for it.
My boss and I get along really well. However, if my boss called me in to his office and told me to tell him my password, my answer would be "no". If he wants access to my user profile, he can go through Security and have the password changed, at which point there is a log entry that he requested that it be changed, and I lose access to my profile.
Then, if something is done using my profile, there is a security record that I was not in control of that profile at that time.
I'm not saying Childs acted in exceptionally good faith, but "I don't think you're cleared for that" is a proper response if people who are not cleared for that are present, or if strangers are listening in and you don't even know who they are.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."