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Ex-SF Admin Terry Childs Gets 4-Year Sentence
Robert McMillan writes "You remember Terry Childs, right? He was
finally sentenced Friday. Childs got four years in prison for refusing to hand over passwords to his bosses. This is a denial of service under California law."
What I'm going to be more interested in is the appeal. There's no way that he isn't going to try and appeal, and if as much of it has been glossed over or ignored as it seems to be at this time, he may get the conviction and any financial penalties overturned. As it stands now the city wants to bill him $900k for it.
Especially when you read the story of one of the jurors who has a CCIE (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/042910-terry-childs-juror-explains-why.html). This wasn't a case of some PHB demanding access to something he shouldn't have. This was a case of an egomaniac sysadmin trying to make himself irreplaceable by locking everyone else out. When called on this he refused, bluffed, and finally lied.
For me, the lying part is where it clearly went to criminal levels. I suppose some of the other things he did (like store the WAN config only in memory, not saved to flash and keep the only backup on his laptop) could possibly be justified as just being paranoid and poorly educated in actual security practice. However when he gave his supervisors false passwords, lied to them, to me that showed clearly that he knew he was in the wrong. He knew he was supposed to give up the passwords but wouldn't.
Hopefully it'll be a lesson to other sysadmins to consider that at work, the computers are not yours. They don't belong to you. They belong to the organization you work for. Part of that means the origination gets to decide who has access. You can (and should) have input in to that, and should make sure it is all documented, but ultimately the systems belong to them and you need to do as they say.
As IT workers, our job to is provide service, not prevent it. We need to do what we can to ensure people can get what they need. It is a service industry, like it or no.
I know I just just skip past this comment, but I do wonder why so many people on here seem to think being raped is funny. You might think the guy did wrong; you might also think that justice has really been served, and hey that's your right, we're all allowed an opinion. But he's not some big-in-the-game criminal that destoryed people's lives, so I really fail to see why joking that he should keep his arse to the wall is at all funnny.
cat:
Well Slashdot themselves had a good article they linked to (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/042910-terry-childs-juror-explains-why.html) some time back. Also, the case is most likely public record. So if you are interested in all the details you should be able to request copies of just about everything.
Agreed. America is supposed to be a civilized country. Why would anyone believe that it is appropriate to allow prisoners to be raped by other prisoners?
People joke about this and even seem to hope that it happens. This is disgusting and wrong. We have Enlightened articles about cruel and unusual punishments. Prison is supposed to be a loss of freedom, not a loss of basic human rights.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
He will likely do only 6 months of actual jail time and he can declare bankruptcy to avoid the $900K claimed by the city. By this time next year, he can exercise his control freakery at KFC protecting the Colonel's secret recipe.
This just goes to show how asinine most "anti-hacking" laws are. Most were written in the 1980s during a big moral panic about "hackers" bringing down the telephone network, corporate networks, and western civilisation as we know it. You can very easily get more time in jail for, what most would consider a prank, than for rape or other violent crimes.
It is interesting that in this case Terry Childs did very little actual damage but got 4 years. In fact more damage was done when the prosecutor decided to publish a list of working passwords for the cities computer network. Just goes to show the kind of technophobic old people working in the city offices and in law.
I know this sounds very arrogant, but I would love to see trials change so you're actually judged by your peers instead of members of the public, so for example doctors by doctors, network admin by other network admin, and such. That way you can get a bunch of people who know how far this person has stepped out of line.
Just for clarity, what Terry Childs did was wrong - but he certainly didn't deserve jail. Even if he did deserve jail he already spent a year inside before the trial (for some ungodly reason) and that was more than enough time served for this. The only reason they kept pushing this is to avoid the huge lawsuit if they failed to get a sentence longer than the time he already spent inside.
People joke about what they are scared of.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Now ideally this is in the form of someone else having access, or there being a central password store. Read in to the Childs case and indeed there was a place where passwords were supposed to be stored and he didn't do it. However even if that's not the case, you have to relinquish the passwords when you leave. If you are the only one with the root password, you have to hand it over (or change it for them or whatever). Same shit as your keys, when you leave employment, you have to turn in your keys.
You don't have to help them figure anything out, but you are not allowed to lock them out of their own systems. If you cannot see the difference, you are being deliberately blind.
Now ideally this is in the form of someone else having access, or there being a central password store. Read in to the Childs case and indeed there was a place where passwords were supposed to be stored and he didn't do it. However even if that's not the case, you have to relinquish the passwords when you leave. If you are the only one with the root password, you have to hand it over (or change it for them or whatever). Same shit as your keys, when you leave employment, you have to turn in your keys.
You don't have to help them figure anything out, but you are not allowed to lock them out of their own systems. If you cannot see the difference, you are being deliberately blind.
You and I may see the difference, but can your luddite boss and his luddite lawyer? You might think that laws and court rulings are based on responsible understandings of the facts, but then you would be wrong.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Making jokes the way Americans do about "pound me in the ass prison" indirectly condones the fact that such a prison system exists. Heck, how many tv shows have a cop quickly whispering into the ear of the just arrested (and hence not convicted eg innocent) perp about what's going to happen to him in jail?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Mr. Childs DID have a peer (or more realistically a better) on his jury. One of the jurors has a CCIE and works in network. See http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/042910-terry-childs-juror-explains-why.html for the details. Also remember that it takes only one juror for a mistrial. All jurors have to agree for a conviction.
The problem is that he flat out broke the law, and it was pretty obvious he knew he was doing wrong, he just thought they couldn't touch him. He had become infected with the sysadmin diesase of thinking that he owned the systems and could do as he pleased, and that he could make himself indispensable.
So sorry, but don't try and pass this off as "stupid jurors." The man had someone with the peak of network training sitting on his jury.
Well I'm just not sure how to respond to such obstinance. There is plenty of information out there as to why the jury voted as they did and what law was broken and so on. If you are unwilling to read and understand that, I can't help you. Some people just want to be paranoid, I guess.
Also this "Luddite boss" thing really reeks of ego mania. Far too many sysadmins think they are the Smartest Motherfuckers in the Universe and that there is no way their boss could possibly understand any of this because he's not as good at tech. Turns out that's often not the case, a manager may understand technology and more important the limits of their own knowledge about technology just fine. They may well be an intelligent individual, just with some different skills than yourself.
I'm not saying some aren't dumbassess, but then so are some sysadmins. I'm just saying this attitude of "Only tech people can possibly understand," is extremely arrogant.
It isn't about PASSWORDS it is about ACCESS. He had sole access to some systems, including some very critical ones. He wouldn't turn over access. In some cases, this would have meant creating accounts for other people. In other cases, this would have meant handing over the password. Remember that some things like root or enable have only one password.
So the issue wasn't that he wouldn't give up his own personal password, the issue was that he was denying the rightful owners of the systems (the city) access to those systems.
Also please note this all started way before he got canned.
On the other hand, I rather doubt that refraining from making the jokes would lead to imminent abolition or reform of those institutions.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
America may be civilized in the broadest sense of the term, but it is anything but civil. When you have a "civilization" where keeping people imprisoned is a $40 billion a year industry, and prison wardens allowing criminal activity inside their institutions as a cost-effective means of self-policing, you're going to have people getting raped and your going to have people coming out of prison much worse off than when they went in.
"Turned Out" is an interesting and disturbing documentary about the dynamic of prison sex and rape http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4_uvvcaDqw
I'm just saying this attitude of "Only tech people can possibly understand," is extremely arrogant.
It's also bad engineering. If the system is so fragile that you're the only one who can work on it, then you're doing a bad job. What if you get hit by a bus? What if you decide to quit so you can accept your dream job? Whatever you build should be (at least mostly) maintainable by any other average practitioner with similar credentials.
This.
The people who really ought to be having a miserable time in prison get a free pass to carry on tormenting and hurting other people for their own amusement. Other people who have nowhere to escape and nobody to turn to for help.
No sig today...
The process of "being fired" does not end your responsabilities with you stopping to work and going out of the building. It ends only when you :
1) gave back all physical object the firm loaned to you within the execution of your work (laptop, cars, etc...)
2) gave back all access key in your possession (be it physical, RSA keys, or electronics)
3) gave back all financial access you had to (firm credit card for example), and I may pass a few others.
If you do not think so, you are a "terry child in waiting", as in, risk prison if you think you can skimp on your responsability. being fired don't mean you can keep stuff from the firm, be it unique key knowledge (like passwords), or physical items.
It actually pretty dumb to think so. About as dumb as somebody keeping a laptop at home after being fired.
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I am very critical of Terry Childs actions and think, that those can at least be interpreted as criminal act. But 4 years for such a bagatelle case? What do you do with a real criminal? There was a lot of incompetence on the city side walking around which enabled such a situation. I think he was afraid of loosing his job and overstepped his legal options. But what do you do who does this to steal money or with the intent to cause damage? Shoot him?
People who drive under the influence of alcohol and kill someone get away with less.
I think the punishment is out of proportion.
CU, Martin
Sorry, that is not the definition of theft. Here is California's definition of theft. The item taken need only be "property", not an object, and includes services. There is no stipulation that the taker have no intent to return the item. In Child's case, if his withholding passwords were indeed thought to be theft, the value of the property would make it grand theft. Interestingly, since he didn't use a firearm, the maximum sentence would be one year. Though, I suppose the state could file a civil suite against him to recoup their losses. Not sure how that works.
What I'm going to be more interested in is the appeal. There's no way that he isn't going to try and appeal, and if as much of it has been glossed over or ignored as it seems to be at this time, he may get the conviction and any financial penalties overturned.
Factual disputes are for the trial courts.
You must raise the issue there and you must do it clearly and competently.
You won't be given a second chance on appeal.
The court of appeals is only interested in whether the judge or jury made a fundamental legal mistake in their handling of the case.
Prisoners rape each other, commit assault against one another and occasionally murder each other. Extortion is even more prevalent than rape in US prisons, because it is also present in minimum and medium security prisons. You can scream and shout about how all of this violates human rights you want. And claim that we are turning a blind eye to a problem. But it is simple really, we do not have the capacity to imprison and monitor so many people. We've overloaded our prisons and understaffed them. We've lost control over our prison population and at this stage we're just trying to keep them from escaping or murdering each other too often, with only limited success.
If you have go to an American prison you'll just have to get used to violence, and tolerate things like rape to survive (although it is quite rare in a minimum security prison). Pretend you're taking a vacation to some lawless country.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
>>>Theft is when you take away something [an object] that belongs to someone else, with the intention to never return it.
Precisely. Childs denied the owner his property (the passwords) or use of other property (the computers). He deserves every year of that 4 year punishment for being an asshole. There is absolutely no justification for his actions except in the minds of *other* assholes.
Like my ex-boss.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
And you're leaving out the fact that Childs had CC'ed the person asking for passwords a week earlier, on an email containing a list of usernames and passwords that he had set up. What changed in the intervening week, where the guy who you claim "wasn't authorized to have them, by city policy" was deemed an authorized user by Mr. Childs, and the day he was fired, when suddenly Mr. Childs decided he wasn't authorized?
For all the people claiming that giving out passwords constitutes "working for free after you've been fired," stop and consider this: what constitutes more work - saying (or writing) down one sentence - "The password is XXXXXXXXX", or enforcing your version of an employers' security policy for them after you've been let go ? Less than 10 seconds of writing or speaking, versus a 4 year jail term, and years spent in courts over a ridiculous semantic issue?
Factual disputes are for the trial courts.
You must raise the issue there and you must do it clearly and competently.
You won't be given a second chance on appeal.
The court of appeals is only interested in whether the judge or jury made a fundamental legal mistake in their handling of the case.
"Fundamental legal mistake" includes interpreting a statute with an overly-literal eye. The Appeals Court will get to reverse if it finds the legislature did not include Childs' conduct when using the statutory language. IAAL
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.