It is much more important to know what sort of patient has a disease than what sort of disease a patient has - Sir William Osler
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Closing down San Francisco 'part of the job'
THE NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR who closed down the city of San Francisco's network in 2008 said he was just doing his job.
Terry Childs, 45, said that by refusing to hand over passwords and locking his managers out of the network he was following the department's written policies on protecting security.
He said that "there were a lot of reasons" for not giving up the passwords to the city's FiberWAN network to his bosses or the police.
Childs told the court that something really bad could have happened to the network if his non-technical managers were allowed access.
He told the court that in a July 9, 2008 meeting with department officials and a police inspector all they asked him for was his username and password. No one ever asked him specifically for access to the system.
Childs said written guidelines developed by the state, the city and the computer industry all say, "You do not ever give up your username and password."
After the meeting he was put on administrative leave and jailed a few days later. He only agreed to give up his username and password to Mayor Gavin Newsom on July 21 after Newsom visited him in jail.
City officials claimed that Childs booby-trapped the network to bring it down, however it stayed up all during that period.
Childs said that the decision to give the passwords to Newsom was made by both him and his attorney at the time. He said that he did not want the network to be harmed. Newsom concluded during his meeting with Childs that Childs did not trust anyone in the department.
The system password Childs gave Newsom didn't work at first, and it wasn't until hours later that Childs' attorney provided two installments of configuration instructions that, together with the password, finally enabled city technology managers to get back into the system. µ
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all i know is that they were trying to get his assistant to get the router passwords for months and he wouldnt give them up according to his assistants testimony which you can find transcripts of. a network device root password is not YOUR p*ssword. your email p*ssword is YOUR p*ssword. the switch/network passwords are the citys PASSWORD
you dont get severance in government, yes he probably should have gotten an attorney quicker before he decided to rig the routers to erase themselves after a password change
go to cybercrime.gov if you cant trust the admin to give up the router config, the city was completely right in being terrified of what an insider could do after the fact
And your proof is? They never found any booby traps or anything of the sort. The system never went down. Instead the Vendors saw this as a perfect opportunity to exercise "FUD Factor" (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) and gouge the City for millions to "fix it". The City was complicit and bent over to accept the "shaft" on behalf of taxpayers because it bolstered the City's paranoid position.
This is a case of extreme unwarranted paranoia on the part of the City. They perceived a non-existent problem with an employee who had been an excellent employee. Then THEY turned on him. His response was normal. It was HIS password, and THEY were on a witch hunt. His only mistake was not securing an attorney immediately to negotiate terms of his severance and the handing over of the "keys".
He is innocent.
It's simple, you NEVER give out your password.
It's behaviour such as his which will spoil the broth for any fly on the wall which is hoping to land sloppy seconds.
Rule Britanntica says no more smoke, and no more smoke; Jamie Oliver say eat right and no more junk food.
When are peeps going to learn
to keep the mouths shut?
one a penny, two a penny,
hot cross buns
Big eared bunnies
should not hear one
peep one
and they'll have none
hey bloke...the network didnt come down because the others saw the booby trap that would cause the routers to self destruct so didnt touch it. No one uses this feature but military unless you are being a jerk. He pulled the pin from the grenade and dared the stupid mgmt to try and do anything.
surprised Gavin Newsome and SFPD ever do anything right, but glad they pursued this. most dont have guts for negative publicity
yikes...Sir TC had rights to create a port mirror anywyere on the network at any time and only he knew config. Sniff the network muchas so that all IM traffic and database p**sw*rds now on his le_brick in attic. He will p0wnd the citys workers when he gets out if he wants to.
you think echelon is scary...a rogue with a reason is hella scary...change control for changes sake peoples