SF Admin Gives Up Keys To Hijacked City Network 581
snydeq writes "Jailed IT admin Terry Childs relinquished his hold over San Francisco's multimillion-dollar FiberWAN, handing his administrative passwords over to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who was 'the only person he felt he could trust.' Childs is still being held on $5 million bail for his lockout of the city's FiberWAN, a case that has been called into question since an insider came forward with details about both the network and Childs himself. The case hinges on No Service Password Recovery commands Childs allegedly configured onto several Cisco devices, as well as dial-up and DSL modems the SFPD has discovered that would allow unauthorized connections to the FiberWAN. Childs intends to 'expose the utter mismanagement, negligence, and corruption at DTIS, which if left unchecked, will in fact place the City of San Francisco in danger,' according to his motion. The Department of Telecom and IS has cut 200 of its 350 IT positions since 2000 — pressure that may have contributed to Childs' actions, according to interviews with current and former DTIS staffers. Newsom secured the passwords without first telling the DTIS that he was meeting with Childs."
'the only person he felt he could trust.' (Score:5, Interesting)
LOL, omg the net (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not saying I agree with his methods but we have no idea what really went on here
and if we're talking about 200 IT jobs lost in the last eight years and security
being a joke this guy might end up a hero...and for any of you young goofballs out there
with ass cherry jokes, your pot smoking will more likely get you there...this guy will
be playing tennis and knitting at the very worse...
I just wish we could have proof of age on the Net so we didn't have to tolerate
the "anonymous effect".
Cheers.
Re:Self-defeating (Score:5, Interesting)
He's probably hoping for whistleblower protection, and intends to show that he was being terminated wrongfully for threatening to blow the whistle.
It may be a desperation move, but until the facts come out, we don't know. If it turns out that he was being terminated wrongfully, it's possible that the city of SF could be forced to keep him on their payroll... on the other hand, I'd speculate that he's grasping at straws.
I've read some about the "situation", and all I think all we know for certain is that we don't know anything for certain yet.
Re:The more I read the less I know... (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree completely.
There seems to be a lot more going on here than what we see.
The conspiracy side of me thinks that there's something fishy going on in the department. He found out and got fired because of it. Except he acted fast and hijacked the network. Hence why he only gave the password to the mayor...
Re:'the only person he felt he could trust.' (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:'the only person he felt he could trust.' (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone having spent that much effort creating a network - and succeeding - would become paranoid and protective of it. I challenge anyone to invest so much in any project and then happily see it messed up by people who are less competent.
However the situation is still messed up, the City should never have allowed one person to take on so much responsibility, and at the first sign that he was becoming indispensable, they should have moved him to another project.
If someone is essential for a project, replace him as soon as you can...
In fact the whole story is a good case study for outsourcing - a small, competent network firm would have done as good a job, and treated the incompetent managers simply as clients, not bosses.
The blame lies squarely with the City, not Childs.
Re:Do I understand this correctly? (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect "unauthorized" in this context might well mean "Childs".
It's not unheard of to have dialup access to a network device, in case you're locked out from the network facing side; I don't know if someone who is as, apparently, paranoid as Childs is would give them self such a fall back though.
Just out of curiosity... what if he isn't? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:End of the days (Score:5, Interesting)
What was the point of holding back for so long now. Now he just lost the last hope for his negotiation.
Or, he wasn't holding back in order to negotiate, but because he wanted to get the opportunity to tell all of his grievances to the one person who he thought might have the power and wherewithal to "fix" the situation. From reading about the motions that his lawyers have filed in court, it seems that Childs is willing to risk going to jail just to be able to publicize the hard time he's been having at work for the past couple of years. In fact, he might have willingly accepted or even pursued the prospect of prosecution because he knew that he would then have a public forum to air his views, and possibly embarrass his bosses (which, despite their best efforts, he has).
Possible to crack? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Do I understand this correctly? (Score:4, Interesting)
The case hinges on No Service Password Recovery commands Childs allegedly configured onto several Cisco devices, as well as dial-up and DSL modems the SFPD has discovered that would allow unauthorized connections to the FiberWAN.
Mr. Paranoid Admin with a God complex had big freakin' huge vulnerabilities on his precious network?
It sounds to me like Mr. Paranoid Admin was so paranoid that people had started to do what they tend to do when Mr. Paranoid Admin is so paranoid they can't get anything they need done.
They'd started to work around him.
Net result: All sorts of little unauthorised connections popping up.
In being too paranoid, you wind up creating exactly the situation you fear the most: a network with lots of uncontrolled, unknown systems appearing creating security holes where none previously existed. Doesn't matter how many fancy "no unauthorised access" features your infrastructure has, sooner or later someone's going to succeed in working around them. The last thing you need to do is give them an incentive.
Re:The more I read the less I know... (Score:1, Interesting)
If this is the case, he really messed up. He dealt with it in completely the wrong way. Now he is in jail and at the mercy of the conspirators. What he should've done is left a way to maintain access to the computer... And leaked what ever they were doing using wikileaks. He probably acted in the heat of the moment and let the adrenalin do the thinking.
The Fountainhead (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The more I read the less I know... (Score:2, Interesting)
What a bad analogy. (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's try this one instead:
You're responsible for maintaining a nuclear reactor. Your manager, who has no idea how to actually runs the reactor comes in and demands to be given all of the necessary keys and passwords to the reactor. The reactor is currently working flawlessly, and there is no obvious reason for your manager to need access to the system.
Do you:
A. realize that this could be very bad for the company, and protect the company by refusing to turn over access to an unqualified person?
B. turn over access to the access to an unqualified person, and just hope that they don't do anything which results in anyone's death, or your working 16hr shifts for the next 3 months straight.
I would argue that choosing "B" could be criminally negligent, and that A is the better choice, however, he should also immediately go to HR and explain why he's violating the order.
In this particular case, he might've saved the city of San Francisco millions of dollars in lost productivity from someone getting access who had no clue what they were doing.
Re:Just out of curiosity... what if he isn't? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it possible that as a administrator of a SAN/Network, he saw some significant security issues, and when he presented them to his supervisors was slammed for reporting the problem -- including being fired? I know from experience the feeling: Management does not like to know that they've screwed up, and will fight kicking and screaming rather that admit that they've done something wrong.
Not that you need it, but I'll second this from my own experience. Still job hunting for that matter. Grr.
-Matt
Problems with article summary and /. response (Score:1, Interesting)
First off, the "case called into question since an insider came forward" bit is bunk. I read the insider's article - there was NOTHING in there that justified what Childs did. Hell, quotes from the article include "Ultimately he has no one to blame but himself" and "As for Terry's character, I can imagine this happening. He takes great personal and professional pride in his work -- to a fault. He can be very defensive if someone suggests there's something wrong with the way his network is set up, and that's been a problem for us (as his customer) a couple of times. Terry has a bad temper."
Second, this man is in no way justified in what he did. Threatening the infrastructure of a city (especially one as large as SF) is inexcusable. If you have problems with the management, you go to a newspaper. If you think the management is criminal, you call the local prosecutor's office. You don't hold up critical government functions. Yes, the management should have taken steps before now to ensure Childs wasn't the only one with access to the network. Childs' response was that of a spoiled, immature brat who doesn't comprehend that administration != ownership. He deserves jailtime - and if you don't think so, ask any SF government employee who might not have gotten a paycheck, or any courthouse that might have had to postpone hearings.
Re:Falling Down (Score:4, Interesting)
How many laws have you violated when it suited your purpose? I'd be willing to bet you do it a lot more often than a public person like a Mayor.
Re:'the only person he felt he could trust.' (Score:5, Interesting)
"Your mental illness is not real."
Mine is very real. I doubt you've ever spent 6 months in a hospital trying to tell people that human beings are being infected by a computer virus. (note: the computer virus was real, and i was the only person who could actually get it off the machines, because it was infecting the BIOS and had 'symptoms' like going to the desktop in the middle of a full screen video game, that other people dismissed as being 'real')
To this date, with medication I still am hazy on if computer viruses can infect human beings, on a bad day, i look for malware in every OS on every computer i have, with every tool available to me, including many useful FOSS tools like dban which allows complete erasure of the drive...
"You are the product of a society that is unable to deal with stress and disappointment."
I'll give you that, but you've never gone 6 days unwilling to eat food or drink tap water because it's poisoned, luckily this symptom has been dealt with with medication.
you've probably never hidden in a basement with aluminum covering you to block the mind control waves either. related to this is using a FM radio from the 1980's and 3 cell phones, wrapped in aluminum foil to see if they really block broadcaster waves. While you're still slightly concerned about the type of high energy particles that can go through entire mountains...
"Have you ever looked at mental illness in other countries. It is tiny compared to the USA."
That may be, in a rural environment, telling people about stuff i was worried about every day and shit my family would likely instead of taking me to a doctor, that they couldn't afford would just humor me, and try to keep me eating foods and drinking water. Also, I would likely die at a much younger age, because of the lack of medical treatment overall. Not being treated by doctors is not the same as 'not having mental illness.'
"You embody the problem with the world today. A lack of conviction and discipline that has spread like wildfire."
Except my mental illness is real, my doctor even increased my medicines last week, because he though i was having too many symptoms with just 1 medication.
"Go on with your drug induced normality. You will not be mourned."
If only the drugs actually caused normality. Mine do not, i still have paranoid thoughts ever single day, they're random and unpredictable, and medication only does so much. I don't hear voices, i don't 'see things' that other people don't see, i don't walk around calling people names that i don't recognize, as if i was in a dream, and i don't wind up in a hospital writing notes about everything that i'm worried about thinking that magically if i write it a system administrator of the universe (it's all just a simulation in a computer after all) would be able to deal with the problems if i simply wrote enough notes...
I have 4 boxes of various paperwork including my 'note' writing phase.
you sir, have never been mentally ill so you know not what it is like. you've never been convinced, with you were in a hospital that another mental patient could read your mind, and control you for not looking at the pictures of their family when they asked you nicely to look at the photos.
Re:What a bad analogy. (Score:5, Interesting)
"In this particular case, he might've saved the city of San Francisco millions of dollars in lost productivity from someone getting access who had no clue what they were doing."
I've worked with this type before. Damn, I've *BEEN* this type before.
Maybe, maybe not. Sounds like this admin was convinced that the rest of the crew were dangerous idiots. Maybe he's unusually paranoid. I vote for paranoid. Just as dangerous as being right, for different reasons. Imagine serious problems occurring while he is in jail. His propable response might be "See? You need to let me out of here so I can fix this and prevent disaster". Suuuuure... I imagine the authorities will swing the door open and let him out to 'fix' things.
If for no other reason, this poor admin is incompetent in a novel, or NOT novel way. He has no competent backup. A kidney stone, myocardial infarct, or even a knee replacement would leave him out of commission, and SF exposed to loss of network. Sheesh. You back up data, you should back up staff as well, wherever possible, and this is clearly in the realm of 'possible'. Even 'essential'.
Of course, the funniest part of this to me is where he claims he can only trust Gavin Newsome. That's F-U-N-N-Y!
Re:meaning no disrespect to the guy... (Score:4, Interesting)
If I was working on designing and building a network, and I had it all up and running perfectly, should I destroy it because my boss tells me he has a better way ? What if I was a db admin who had already implemented a whole organisations internet requirements using (my|postgre)sql when a retarded buzzword compliant boss decided I should use access instead ? Should I delete everything and re-implement using access, or should I keep what I've done and start again separately with the access, so that when it all falls to shit I haven't lost anything ?
It's hard to implement two network designs concurrently, so it becomes one or the other. Why suffer the complete waste of time involved by starting again for the sake of a damn fool manager ? Better to hold out for as long as you can, so that there is a chance of getting the correct solution adopted. If they want to sack you for NOT doing something detrimental to the system, then that's their own stupid fault. If you do it their way and get fired anyway (because their way doesn't work), what have you gained ?
This guy wasn't holding anybody to ransom, making extortionate demands of his employers, or killing fluffy kittens. All he has done is refuse to give the keys to someone else's Ferrari (which he is ultimately responsible for) to a 14 year old crackhead joyrider.
This seems to me to highlight the difference between good employees and time wasters. A good employee will always have the interests of the employer at heart, and will assume ownership of problems using those interests as a basis for operation. A time waster turns up every day, does their "job" to the letter, no more, but frequently less. They don't care about the end product or the delivery of such. They just do the hours and take the money.
I know which camp I fall into, as I am used to being an employer and an employee. If I give someone a job, I would prefer they did it intelligently to achieve the best result as outlined in the requirements, not just do what I tell them, because if I have to tell you what is required for every little nuance, then I may as well have done the job myself.
Would you really just hand over the keys to a system that you spent years building, to someone who outranks you but has no idea of the power contained in having access to those keys ? For all you know they might leave the passwords on a post-it note on their monitor.
Final point - the civilian sector is NOT the army. You don't HAVE to comply with idiots above you, grow a pair and stand up for what's right. If you ARE right, then nothing too bad will happen. If you bend over for anybody with a title then you might get a title in the future, but at the cost of having any respect, self or otherwise. While it is only a movie, Crimson Tide demonstrates the principle quite well.
Re:Just out of curiosity... what if he isn't? (Score:3, Interesting)
Reading a lot of comments about him being a nut job. My question is - what if he isn't? Is it possible that as a administrator of a SAN/Network [...]
Wait, you lost me there.
As a recovering sysadmin who ran a Cisco network covering 8 time zones myself, I feel comfortable saying that admins of my acquaintance range from a little crazy to a lot crazy.
You have to be at least somewhat obsessive to worry about all those niggling details and tiny inconsistencies that can bring things crashing down. A big helping of paranoia is entirely necessary to stay two steps ahead of anybody wanting to break into your network. And it's hard to say you have a good sense of proportion if you're really going to spend your nights and weekends maintaining gear used by chumps who don't care and don't thank you while working under clueless dolts who don't have the foggiest notion of what you do.
I still have plenty of friends who do that sort of work, so I speak with respect and love here. But when people ask me why I refuse to do sysadmin or network admin work anymore, my ha-ha-but-serious answer is, "I got better."
Re:Political Fiction 102 (Score:3, Interesting)
This reminds me of the man who got sent back to jail because the parole dept of SF didn't like that he overpowered a home invader and shot the invader's partner in self-defense, since parolees can't have posession of a handgun. Sigh.
Re:Falling Down (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you suggesting that people who are pro-gun are automatically anti-gay?
Seems to work that way. However the reality is that a large number of you'all, seem willing to write off other people's freedoms (both those that are and those that should be) just to be able to protect yourself if the government decides to start treating you the way that you allow it to treat others.
Re:'the only person he felt he could trust.' (Score:5, Interesting)
well there were times where i questioned things, but there were entire weeks, where i blacked out all memories completely, to top things off i had very little contact with other people, other than via the internet, and at night when my dad was home, on the weekends when mom was home i apparently had a few very weird conversations, that upset her... as for myself, i refused to even go to a evaluation for the job service.... i was very wary of people, especially doctors, even though the thoughts are often classic paranoia, and i knew that the thoughts were so overpowering... I was like 'i have to get the virus off the computer' and all i did was basically nothing useful because i couldn't stay coherent long enough.
i forgot to mention, one day i was convinced by turning the 'power' off at the main breaker, i could stop the virus from infecting things, unless they had battery power....
my mom eventually talked me into going into a hospital, and i spend my 2 weeks at that hospital trying to get out of the hospital, afraid that there were people there infected by the virus... i wound up hopping to a lot of different hospitals, and finally group homes, when medications seemed to be helping, but i was eventually changed to new meds again, when i had a 3-day relapse.
they tried me on a lot of different medications. I saw a lot of different people with different mental illnesses. someone else suggested that stress can cause problems, but not all mental illnesses can be treated just by living a low stress life style. it's true i did have stress, had lost like my 3rd job in 1 year, stress from spending too much time in online RTSes trying to win. but then why didn't the symptoms go away, over 4 months while i wasn't doing any of those things? they didn't go away until i was medicated...
it's nice some people can self treat mild mental illness by not doing stressful work, it's even in the movie office space... for myself, medication was 100% necessary.
Re:'the only person he felt he could trust.' (Score:3, Interesting)
I've always thought that religion was a plague to society, but then I've often noticed that a lot of folks who've had to deal with mental illnesses do better with religion and or faith, compared to those without.
I have read elsewhere that it is fact that mentally unstable individuals need a figure of authority, and religions and faith provides that, which makes it easier for people to handle their problems. Of course, it might also be the reason why some dictators can do so well by cultivating a cult of crazy assed followers, but I digress.
Either way, hey, if it helps you, go with it. I've known several folks with paranoid schizophrenia and really bad depression issues who turn to faith and religion in times of trouble. Interesting, that.
Re:Integrity (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sorry, but What Terry Childs did was the exact opposite of integrity. In trying to defend his special little toy, he has thrown away any claims to professionalism, integrity, or maturity.
If he's right--and he may well be; if his managers are ALL massively incompetent, then he has a number actions to choose from. He can try to reason with his managers, go above their heads, or eventually walk away from the job. That's right, if you can't do your job properly in any given environment, and you can't change the environment legitimately, then your responsibility is to leave, not secretly change the locks.
Hey, my manager is incompetent too!* Why don't I hack into the security system and disable his card access? After all, it'll make things better!
There are so many assumptions required here;
1) Terry Childs is telling the truth about his situation
2) He is correct in his assessment of it
3) He has pursued all possible options
4) He is skilled at communication (a surprisingly large number of 'incompetents' come around when things are explained to them properly)
5)
*Disclaimer: My manager is actually very competent, and a good guy to work for. This example for illustrative purposes only. Offer void where prohibited.
More info on wired (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:'the only person he felt he could trust.' (Score:3, Interesting)
I've always thought that religion was a plague to society,
Its not religion itself thats the plague on society; its *monotheism*.
Monotheism encourages the kind of thinking where you and only you can possibly be correct; there is only one *truth* and that is your 'god'.
Monotheism is evil. And the so-called 'gods' worshiped by monotheists are evil beings; just read their own scripture!
Re:'the only person he felt he could trust.' (Score:3, Interesting)
I grew up with computers. it's a bit hard to get rid of something i use every day... where would i get my music without a computer to play mp3s or internet radio? don't say FM radio, because that has way more commercials than internet radio, and mp3s have no commercials... CD-players are a very simple computer, but a computer none the less...
I could live without internet, more easily than i could live without computers... the internet is the scary part even behind a nice hardened firewall.
Re:'the only person he felt he could trust.' (Score:4, Interesting)
while i agree this guy might not have lost complete control, from my own experience, yes someone with paranoid schizophrenia CAN lose complete control over their actions. it's a very rare symptom, that only occurs with the very worst people, who stop taking their meds, or have gone untreated, or perhaps have 'self' medicated with alcohol. (alcohol as a depressant, can in some small way mitigate some of the symptoms of psychosis, just as some anti-depressants can Cause symptoms of psychosis)
there was one particular day, where i have absolutely no memories of what i did, but apparently i kept saying 'i'm so hungy, i'm starving' i was in a AFH not a group home so they actually gave me more food than they should have, that night when they finally realized i was having hospital bad symptoms (despite medication) i threw up on the way to the hospital, i had over eaten to the point of vomiting...
complete lack of self control, it is a possible symptom of a mental illness that can effect as many a 1% of people. now, if the guy really had a complete lack of self control, he's probably not going to be able to get himself an attorney that would be able to use witness testimony to save his butt... anyways it's a rare symptom of a rare mental illness, and psychosis can result from stress as well, and this guy was under a lot of stress. if it was the stress that made his symptoms, then he should seriously consider a different line of work, when he gets out of prison. and considering he's white collar, and the jail systems are over crowded anyways, he probably won't even be in jail for more than a year or two anyways.
Re:Falling Down (Score:3, Interesting)
Let me diagram my post for you.
The D.C. law said you couldn't have handguns. The courts said this law violated the constitution. The constitution wins, you get guns.
The California law said gay people couldn't get married. The courts said this violated the constitution. The constitution wins, I get to get married.
I'm just pointing out that we could just stop being bitter and enjoy our freedoms. Really, it was kind of a light and frothy post.
Re:Falling Down (Score:3, Interesting)
No, he's a nutjob because the person he believes is the only one he can trust in the whole city is a politician. What's Newsom going to do? Allow Network Admins to adopt their FiberWANs?
He's an overworked, underappreciated guy who is flipping out in the style that only Network and Sys Admins can. He believed that his domain was more than just some routers and lit-up fiber to service a bunch of people who won't even think about what it does for them.
So, he has the enable password and now he's made them sweat it. Truth be told, they deserve it, but he should have taken his ass and gotten it out of working for the government a long time ago. Nothing more masochistic than working directly for a government if you actually want to feel you are going to make any sort of difference whatsoever.
He's suffering from delusions of being a savior, but what is he saving - the Network from the evil managers? So who the hell cares if the network breaks? He can get them to rehire him as an overpaid consultant at 150 bucks an hour to fix it. He was supposedly well-regarded in the department, so he'd probably have a lot of traction to make that kind of move.
That's how you show them, by making them pay and pay and pay for being idiots. And if he really cares about the city, he can make a donation or something from his newfound riches. Eventually, they will hire some cost-cutter who will tell them that they can outsource to India, but first they need to learn to write documentation and generate backups. And they will listen, because consultants always have credibility, because why else would you be paying them millions?
All he's doing is fucking up his own life and it won't make a bit of difference one way or another. He might be a superb admin, but he's just as dumb as his managers otherwise.