San Fran Hunts For Mystery Device On City Network 821
alphadogg writes "With costs related to a rogue network administrator's hijacking of the city's network now estimated at $1 million, city officials say they are searching for a mysterious networking device hidden somewhere on the network. The device, referred to as a 'terminal server' in court documents, appears to be a router that was installed to provide remote access to the city's Fiber WAN network, which connects municipal computer and telecommunication systems throughout the city. City officials haven't been able to log in to the device, however, because they do not have the username and password. In fact, the city's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services isn't even certain where the device is located, court filings state."
Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Power cycle it with a city-wide EMP.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Pay careful attention to the background music, as it will provide valuable cues on when to run.
Oh, please. Movies like that are soooooo 1990s!
In the new century we handle this sort of scenario with game techniques. You just save the current state of the world every few seconds, while sending your guy out into the field. There won't be any change in the music until it's too late for him, but then you just reload, activate all his power-ups, and go kick the red-eye'd mystery device back to where it came from.
Just be careful if the red eye is moving from side to side and you catch a glint of silver. Those guys from the sci-fi shows are trying to muscle in on our turf.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
It may also mock you with nonexistent cake.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
No, cool would be having the phone ring and the voice on the other end turns out to be Dennis Hopper:
Pop quiz, hotshot: your network's all screwed up! What do you do? What do you do?
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Informative)
An EMP disrupts electronics by inducing massive currents in the thin circuitry of the circuit boards and integrated chips. They're permanently burned. They won't power-cycle, they'll just fry.
Naw... if you really want to power-cycle it, just disrupt the electrical service to the entire city. You'd probably have to leave it off for a fair length of time, though, in case the device was on UPS.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Could it be related to this firehose [slashdot.org] entry?
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
Must Consult Someone Experienced
Minesweeper Consultant and Solitaire Expert
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget the obligatory RED and BLUE wires. Every small black box with lone onerous blinking red LED MUST have red and blue wires. Its a rule.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Modern rouge networked devices don't have red and blue wires. They vibrate. Usually it's someone's electric razor connected to the network, but ever once in a while, it's a dildo with an IP address.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
The real question, though, is this: If your alternate personality made the bomb, does your present consciousness have the subliminal knowledge of which wire defuses it?
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Interesting)
The real question, though, is this: If your alternate personality made the bomb, does your present consciousness have the subliminal knowledge of which wire defuses it?
Depends on when it was I guess.
Back in 2001 I did some emergency wiring work that had to be done in 72 hours at our shop.
Now, we are only there 10 weeks a year, so after the end of the 10 weeks it was forgotten about.
I was very sleep deprived and manic when I finished the job, and to this day I have NO idea how I did some of the connections I did. I just hope and pray it all keeps working. Some day some part of it will fail, and I'll have to re-do the entire building.
Note to self:
When sleep deprived, always work from the list, and write down what you did. One thing at a time, and document everything.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Interesting)
always work from the list, and write down what you did. One thing at a time, and document everything.
This seems sensible under all conditions. Being tired is no excuse for being sloppy.
I have a sleep disorder.
There are times when, for no real discernible reason, my brain decides that I will not be sleeping for a few days. Sometimes upwards of 100 hours.
When you have been awake for 4 days, (at least in my case) you get a serious case of "While I'm at it" syndrome.
Tasks that can not be completed in 10 minutes (or without getting up) are nigh impossible. I can still work, but I am extremely easily distracted and will often forget why I am in the room I was in.
Example: I went to the fridge to get some water, and decided that I should clean it while I was there, then decide to do the dishes since I threw stuff out of the fridge, then decide to do the laundry since I had no clean towels, and while I was in the basement doing the laundry I noticed that I needed to organize the basement and throw out old computer parts. Meanwhile, upstairs, my glass of water has long since evaporated, and the task I was doing before that is long forgotten.
Thus, when I get like that, I work from a list, and only what is on the list gets done, in the order it went on the list.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
I read about a server that was in a room, and the room had some modifications done to it, and they ended up drywalling the server inside the wall (i dont know know how they did it). It ended up being like 5 years later they had no idea where this PDC signal was coming from and they had to physically follow the network cable to the computer and found it.
I found the story, kind of:
Server 54 [sun.com]
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
And because of Murphy's law the drywalled server never overheats or has downtime, unlike its well-cared-for counterparts.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Interesting)
Not at all uncommon. I've got 3 fucking servers in my system room that nobody knows what they hell they are for. The are all running 2.4 kenels so they are as old as the fucking hills. Nobody knows what the passwds are to get into them so I can't log in and find out what they do. And naturally the previous systems administrator that installed them didn't document shit.
The only thing that is known about them is they used to do something important just nobody remembers what it was. Management is to afraid that they might still be doing something important and won't let me yank them out to find out what they do. So while management sits there with their collective heads up their collective asses these three servers sit there taking up space in my racks on my network.
When these thing do finally fall over I hope they are doing something important.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
and your not sniffing the traffic to these boxes why?
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Because I'm a fucking dumbass and didn't think about it....
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
Because I'm a fucking dumbass and didn't think about it....
You should apply for a job at the San Francisco IT department. I hear they are short an incompetent network administrator.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a huge admiration for your honesty. You are an exceptional person.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
With a username like "Lord Apathy", I'm guessing he isn't being paid enough to care that much.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
With a username like "Lord Apathy", I'm guessing he isn't being paid enough to care that much
And you would be correct.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Boot from floppy, optical media, network, etc. /mnt -o rw /mnt
2. mount [/dev/sda1|/dev/hda1]
3. chroot
4. passwd root [password]
5. ??????
6. PROFIT!
No yanking to do. A reboot and 5 minutes of down time. Bang. Dead. Done.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
For the love of God, Montressor!
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry, San Francisco, I'm afraid I can't let you do that.
Re:Onerous (Score:5, Funny)
it's a very big LED.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
It could be both onerous and ominous.
Re:Simple: (Score:5, Funny)
That's enough verbal onanism for one day.
The story keeps changing. (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I've read, his "hijacking" was limited to refusing to give the passwords to his boss whom he considered an idiot.
Given that they cannot hunt down a single device on the network, I'd have to agree with that assessment.
MAC address ... switch port ... it should be easy.
Re:The story keeps changing. (Score:4, Insightful)
2. Assuming that they have wireless on their network, there's no way to find wireless devices, since they can be put inside of locked buildings. Unless your name is "Superman", there's no real way to find exactly where wireless devices are, as far as I know.
Re:The story keeps changing. (Score:5, Insightful)
And exactly how would superman find it? Xray vision? How would he then know he found it?
Re:The story keeps changing. (Score:5, Insightful)
If Superman had any IT skills, he'd perform a traceroute to determine the devices gateway. Once the gateway was determined, block the mac address from accessing the network. If the admin of that device is worth his salt, he'll change the mac address and continue. They could then specifically enable allowed devices and forbid all others.
Forget finding it, make the network inaccessible.
City of SF Admins, if this proves to be your resolution, you owe me $150 for 1 hour of my time. Sorry, I do not bill in lower increments.
Re:The story keeps changing. (Score:5, Interesting)
They could always do something crazy like track the MAC to a port and go trace the cable to find the device, I guess that wouldn't make such a good story though.
If they're using Cisco switches and it's linked via copper then they could probably work out where it is without leaving their seats, use the inbuilt tdr [cisco.com] to find out how long the cable is, then use the location of the switch and a bit of common sense to work out where the device is likely to be.
If it's a terminal server then it's not likely to be hanging off a 3km long fibre somewhere in a duct under the city. It'll be within serial cable distance of all the other kit, more than likely in their main computer room with some bloody great octal cables hanging out the back. I suspect it'd take someone clued up approx 5 minutes to identify it as it will look rather different to any of their other routers purely due to the cabling run to/from it.
The more I read about this "ebil admin" story the less I believe any of it.
Don't mod that "funny". (Score:5, Insightful)
It appears that the idiot "boss" is attempting to generate support for the claim that this guy is a "problem" by paying unreasonable amounts to "repair" the "damage" he did.
It's difficult to "prove" that a guy did millions of dollars of "damage" ... without a bill for millions of dollars of "repairs".
Any competent network admin could map out the network and document it for FAR less than the hundreds of thousands of dollars that is being thrown about.
Re:The story keeps changing. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The story keeps changing. (Score:5, Funny)
I CAN find a wireless device It's called Radio direction finding, with the right gear you can do it, and I have located 802.11g devices with it. It's not hard.
so you may start calling me SUPERMAN.
Re:The story keeps changing. (Score:5, Informative)
and I do development on some software [airwave.com] that will use RF data from your existing wireless access points to triangulate and display the physical location of every user and device on your network!
So you can call me, uh, Jerry Siegel, I guess? :| that's not as impressive...
FoxHunt (Score:5, Informative)
2> It's easy to find wireless devices... I've personally been doing it since the 1980's.. it's called a fox hunt [wikipedia.org] here in the Chicago area. We used to get 1 minute of transmission every 5... with WiFi you can just ping the dang thing... how easy is that?
--Mike--
Re:FoxHunt (Score:5, Interesting)
There is an old, probably apocryphal tale from the days of Novel Netware and IPX of the forgotten server. A loan machine runs headless with a quiet fan and no lights in a corner of a room. New remodeling puts the server behind sheet rock and there it sits walled up and running for years. One day a power spike causes a head crash and suddenly a national billing system dies. It takes a tech tracing a cat5 cable into a wall to find it.
Re:FoxHunt (Score:5, Informative)
it was covered on /.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010409S0012 [techweb.com]
You're an 1D10T (Score:5, Informative)
1) They were firing the guy, so he was no longer in the employ of the city, so his boss, was no longer his boss.
2) You don't know what you're talking about. Every IP address on the network should be known. Either through DHCP or static IP address map. A ping sweep should reveal any IP address in use, that shouldn't be. From the ping sweep, one can arp the unknown IPs to get a MAC address, and do a lookup on the Manufacturer code to know what KIND of device the MAC could be. one could use NMAP to try to discover type of device as well. Then you start going to every port on every switch with rogue IPs hanging off it, and manually looking at what is attached at the other end.
As for wireless access points, if you don't have control over them, you pull the freakin plug. Unsecured Access points and open access points should be VLANed off from administrative networked, including not allowing VPN tunnels from unsecured and open wireless access point.
If the boss allows crap like that on the network, he is an idiot, and shouldn't have the Passwords and access codes to anything.
Re:You're an 1D10T (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You're an 1D10T (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, both of those are true (Mac, Ping). Even NMAP responses can be spoofed. However the likelihood of all three being done is not likely. However NMAP will reveal a used IP, and a mac table somewhere will identify what port it is hanging on. Packets have to be routed to it somehow.
And I agree with your last point. I'm a Libertarian. ;)
Re:You're an 1D10T (Score:5, Insightful)
>But everyone who supports more government ought to take a look at the incompetence here.
Im one of those crazies who doesnt support more or less government. Just better government.
Re:You're an 1D10T (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I had mod point for you.
Chances are that internal policies prevent the use of "hacker" tools to secure the network.
Again, the PHBs are idiots!
not necessarily wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
your employer's passwords are NOT yours, no matter how stupid you think your boss is.
Refusing to give out passwords to higher-ups is not always the wrong thing to do. If you are the network admin, and your job is to maintain security of the network, wouldn't it be reasonable to refuse to hand out passwords to people outside of the network administration roles?
Although I can say that an admin can make that choice at his or her own peril. After all, the higher-ups can always opt to fire the admin and replace him or her with someone who is willing to seek security of their job over security of the network they are paid to administer.
Re:not necessarily wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed.
If a boss I don't entirely trust demanded my password, I'd offer to upgrade his account to the same privileges at mine, but he'd NOT get MY password.
The reason is that if he does something stupid that will show up in logfiles, he can damn well do it on his account and get logged doing so ;-)
Admin code of ethics. (Score:5, Insightful)
What would you think of a doctor who, because some exec somewhere decided he should, pushed the WRONG medication / procedure to you?
Where does your ethical responsibility end and the boss's desires begin?
To me there isn't even a question. Fire me. Go ahead. I will get another job.
Re:The story keeps changing. (Score:5, Informative)
Your boss is your boss. Unless there's the chance that somebody could be physically hurt, your employer's passwords are NOT yours, no matter how stupid you think your boss is.
By the time his boss thought to ask for the password(s), he had already been fired. Any obligation he had to his boss had disappeared. The same goes for documentation and written procedures - I'm not going to document anything after I've been sacked. In this case the guy had been arguing for written procedures to be put in place, but no one in authority would sign them off as any failures would then be their ultimate responsibility. It should be the managers that are taking flack for this, as so often with IT cock ups.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
So that's a good point .. (Score:5, Interesting)
Who is actually the OWNER of the system? The boss? Isn't he employed by the same company as the sysadmin? Don't they both have an obligation to safeguard the OWNER'S property and interests? If the sysadmin refuses to hand over the password to sensitive equipment & systems to a (perceived) inept superior-- as long as that guy DOESN'T own the company-- isn't he actually performing his responsibility to the real owner? Which in this case would be the city, and the personification of the city would be the mayor-- and that's exactly who he DID give the passwords to. So it seems to me like he did precisely what he was supposed to do in terms of safeguarding the network and sensitive equipment. Of course he should probably be then fired for failing to keep backups, conops, continuity planning, etc. But that's a different matter.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The story keeps changing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Malice and stupidity. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is Slashdot linking to stories that paint the network administrator as a bad guy when he's so obviously surrounded by morons? These are the same people who published all of their user names and passwords [slashdot.org]. That puts the cost of this "hijacking" into perspective. The cost of trusting their employee with the powers required to do the job was zero.
Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to add that while the way he handled being surrounded by idiots was wrong, he was clearly surrounded by idiots.
No documentation?
No change control?
No diagrams?
What really rubs me the wrong way is how you haven't heard a single word from the admin and yet he is blamed for everything.
I worked one place where a guy with a great deal of responsibility died. (here today dead tomorrow kind of thing) His peers blamed *everything* on him simply because they could. This sounds like the same thing.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
What really rubs me the wrong way is how you haven't heard a single word from the admin and yet he is blamed for everything.
Well, every Stalin needs his Trotsky!
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Funny)
When I leave, though, I'm planning on EARNING the blame I'm sure to get :)
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Funny)
Old joke, many variants:
The new _____ finds a note from his predecessor: "There are two envelopes in the upper drawer. When you are in trouble for the first time, open the first envelope. When you are in a big trouble for the second time, open the second envelope." In a couple of years he got into trouble, opened the first envelope he got from his predecessor and read: "Blame everything on me." He did so and got out of trouble. A couple years later he got into a big trouble again and opened the second envelope. It said: "Prepare two envelopes..."
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
I took a gig recovering documentation and re-establishing procedures for a great admin who died as well. He really did great docs, but no one had ever used them, and they couldn't figure out the 'copy file piopoiop.dfj to the \asic\wer\2344\sdf.msdfn folder' sort of directions.
And the crew there immediately set to removing, replacing, and destroying all of his systems. He was a Novell hardliner (so was I), and when he was gone, his boss succumbed and the Windows bigots prevailed. Much taxpayer money was spent replacing perfectly functional systems. Mind you their clients were still running Novell, so there was some disconnect when they would get a request for support and start saying 'you have to upgrade (ha!) to Windows'. Their clients, for reasons best left undisclosed, could not upgrade. Both physically impossible and logistically impractical. Start with being 60-1600 meters below the ocean surface, and it only gets more difficult from there.
I'm a little surprised that SF hasn't worked this out. There are plenty of outfits eager to do what is necessary, for a fee of course.
And yes, finding a device is not impossible. Finding the connection to the network is the obvious first step. After that, well, kill it.
Unless it's hiding. That would be unfortunate.
ps- This guy, by many accounts, was brilliant. And a little off the wall. Goes together.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Funny)
Their clients, for reasons best left undisclosed, could not upgrade...Start with being 60-1600 meters below the ocean surface...
Good job, tightlips ;)
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Funny)
Their clients, for reasons best left undisclosed, could not upgrade...Start with being 60-1600 meters below the ocean surface...
Good job, tightlips ;)
I knew Atlantis was somewhere.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Interesting)
What it would have (if it is similar to how I use them, and yes I am a WAN specialist) is a phone-line for dial in access in case of emergencies.
See MRV's InReach [mrv.com] product line for more information.
...though it could have a MAC address on the network, just saying it doesn't have too, and if it is "mysterious" and / or put there maliciously, in all liklihood will not, or it will be spoofed to prevent detection.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Could be an IBM 3174 like device too, running SNA. Fact is, the article and and court filings aren't clarifying any of this and leave the door open for mass amounts of conjecture and sensationalizing, both in the media and on Slashdot. Which, of course, is exactly what everyone is doing...
Re:Malice and stupidity. (Score:4, Funny)
Why can't he be a bad guy AND be surrounded by morons-- you know, the old "bad guy surrounded by morons" routine...???
Re:Malice and stupidity. (Score:5, Funny)
You mean like the VP of the United States? That has been done before.
Re:Malice and stupidity. (Score:5, Funny)
Why can't he be a bad guy AND be surrounded by morons-- you know, the old "bad guy surrounded by morons" routine...???
Dark Helmet: Who is he?
Colonel Sandurz: He's an asshole sir.
Dark Helmet: I know that! What's his name?
Colonel Sandurz: That is his name sir. Asshole, Major Asshole!
Dark Helmet: And his cousin?
Colonel Sandurz: He's an asshole too sir. Gunner's mate First Class Philip Asshole!
Dark Helmet: How many asholes do we have on this ship, anyway?
[Entire bridge crew stands up and raises a hand]
Entire Bridge Crew: Yo!
Dark Helmet: I knew it. I'm surrounded by assholes!
[Dark Helmet pulls his face shield down]
Dark Helmet: Keep firing, assholes!
Re:Malice and stupidity. (Score:5, Interesting)
There do appear to be a lot of morons involved in this scenario, and Childs was one of them. Basically what he said was "I am smarter than all of you, so I will do things my way, and trust me, you'll be better off."
Either I have bad luck or I keep on finding people who think exactly that way. We have even had meetings where all agreed on a specific solution to the problem. Right after my boss say well we are going to do it this other way, we know better. Even if the other way was a better solution.
Some people have egos that are way too big fir their own good. I am not saying I am perfect. I use solution that I know work. If there are better ones please show me. I have no issue changing my way of doing things for a better one. I know a lot of people who will not change. Even when a better way is show to them.
MAC search (Score:5, Informative)
Um, do what any network admin does with a rouge device. Search out what port its MAC address is connected to and then start tracing the cable?
I'm fairly certain most all current managed switches allow for this. Even with unmanaged ones you can hunt down which unmanaged switch it is connected to and snoop from there.
Re:MAC search (Score:5, Funny)
I'd think that a red device would be easy to spot in a server room.
The City of SF is undermining its case! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:MAC search (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently this was why he refused to give out the admin passwords - he thought, and so far, it appears that he is correct, that they are all morons.
Re:MAC search (Score:5, Informative)
How, then, can they use the management functions of the equipment if they can't get to it?
Terry Childs provided the passwords [wired.com] to the mayor on July 22. The city "...[was] able to regain complete control of the network," according to the deputy director of the Department of Technology Information Services.
Re:MAC search (Score:5, Insightful)
I learned early on, that most people don't see the difference between a $12 hour high school geek and a $75 hr network administrator. All most people see is that both do roughly the same job and there is $63 hour difference.
Most of the time, the $12 hr guy is doing most of the same work as the $75 hour guy. The big difference is when crap like this comes up, the $12 hour guy can spend years trying to figure out what the $75 hr guy can figure out in 5 minutes.
Even when the $12 hr guy screws up, the response is "But he was cheaper". It is cheaper to keep a $12 hr guy trying to keep crapware off a computer, rather than a $75 hour guy who doesn't allow crapware in the first place.
The point I'm making, is that a $75 hr guy is worth it, but only to people where time has real value. People who place no value on TIME, don't care about anything other than $ per HR
to quote bash.org... (Score:5, Funny)
<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.
Re:to quote bash.org... (Score:5, Insightful)
The admin might not be stupid he might be an ass
1) He placed a rouge device (his personal property) on the SF network
2) He set all the network devices on the network to lose all info on a reboot
3) He will hand over the passwords (after jail) to all the devices except the rogue
You can make equipment hard to find ( mac masquerading comes to mind )... I'm only adequate in terms of networking but I am pretty sure someone who is really good can play a mean game of hide and seek. Who knows *what* he was doing with that device? and were I the network admin I would have to *on principle alone* rebuild everything after this guy left..
Re:to quote bash.org... (Score:5, Funny)
He placed a rouge device (his personal property) on the SF network
My guess is it'll be next to his guyliner
Re:to quote bash.org... (Score:4, Funny)
What is this fascination with red devices? Should I start painting my network gear red?
Re:to quote bash.org... (Score:4, Funny)
I still don't understand why everyone keeps saying the rogue device is red.
Re:to quote bash.org... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if this one is just a complete misunderstanding. One article says that they were set to lose configuration files on "reset". That's pretty typical -- if you have some device you don't have the password to, you can do a full factory reset and get it back to the default password, but that also wipes the configuration files. He might have told his incompetent bosses that, and they thought he meant they'd lose the files on a reboot instead.
Anyway, if this guy is what they're making him out to be, they need to completely wipe and reconfigure the network anyway; it's the only way to be sure he didn't leave a few presents for them.
This is a job for nmap (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey! Fyodor! They need your number! [insecure.org]
Fyodor spent much of this summer scanning tens of millions of IPs on the Internet (plus collecting data contributed by some enterprises) to determine the most commonly open ports. Nmap now uses that empirical data to scan more effectively.
Zenmap Topology and Aggregation features were added, as discussed in the next news item.
Hundreds of OS detection signatures were added, bringing the total to 1,503.
Seven new Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) scripts were added. These automate routing AS number lookups, "Kaminsky" DNS bug vulnerability checking, brute force POP3 authentication cracking, SNMP querying and brute forcing, and whois lookups against target IP space. Many valuable libraries were added as well.
Many performance improvements and bug fixes were implemented. In particular, Nmap now works again on Windows 2000.
With just nmap, my old buddies at Farm9 could have sussed this out in a few hours. I think they are still around - as Red Siren / Getronics. [getronics.com]
Ahh. I miss running netcat at 3 AM!
Siding with the network guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, the more I read about this story, the more inclined I am to believe the network admin.
He may be incredibly bull-headed and lacking social self preservation techniques, but he may have been technically right.
Re:Siding with the network guy (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the fact that they're contracting outside Cisco experts now suggests nobody else there was technically competent enough to manage the network.
The fact that the network stayed up and running without a hitch, while he was in jail and nobody else had access, suggests he did know what he was doing, and refusing to allow anyone to access the routers to make changes seems to work quite well to keep the system working.
The fact that his supervisors are moronic and useless is no small thing, either.
His actions were extremely stupid, but I fail to see why this idiot's relatively non-disruptive actions rise to the level of criminal prosecution.
The scene when they find the server (Score:5, Funny)
As Indy deciphered the symbols, he found the correct sequence of tiles to push. The huge stone door slowly opened. Indy grabbed a torch and headed inside. At the end of the long room, there it was on the throne: A massive server. It was archaic, and it appeared to be attached to a punch card reader. Along the sides of the room, there were two rows statutes of archers pointed at the center. Indy made his way slowly to the monitor and keyboard of the server. He brushed away the dust and hit the spacebar. The screen turned on slowly and it displayed:
SCO Server 1.0
Your license has expired. You owe use $699.
>_
Suddenly the archers rotated positions and were aimed at Indy.
"Oh boy."
Sparcstation In The Wall (Score:5, Funny)
Just remember. (Score:5, Interesting)
You think they've learned anything about the gear since then? No wonder they're having problems.
Where to look... (Score:5, Funny)
No power outage in the Terry Childs case? (Score:5, Informative)
http://weblog.infoworld.com/venezia/archives/018376.html [infoworld.com]
An insider claims that the power outage that Terry Childs was accused of using to sabotage the San Francisco network was not a planned outage.
TAGS: Problems, San Francisco's FiberWAN, Terry Childs
If you've been following the Terry Childs case to any degree, you probably know that one of the key allegations keeping him in prison on $5 million bail is that he had willfully planned to cause the network to fail during a planned power outage at the DTIS One Market Plaza Datacenter on July 19th. According to credible information I've recently received, that power outage was only going to affect the cubes and offices in that building, but not the datacenter itself.
Thus, there never was a plan to power down the network core. Thus, there's no way that Childs could have tried to engineer the failure of the network during this planned power outage, since the network core would not have lost power.
[ Follow the Terry Childs saga with InfoWorld special report: Terry Childs: Admin gone rogue. ]
The evidence supporting this claim comes from someone certainly in a position to know: Ramon Pabros, the DTIS Datacenter Supervisor himself. Pabros has been employed by San Francisco's DTIS for a surprising 41 years. He's been the Datacenter Supervisor since 1984. He's been running datacenters for the City of San Francisco since Ronald Reagan's first term, the introduction of the Macintosh, and the second season of The A-Team. It's probably safe to say that he knows what he's doing.
According to my source, he will testify to the fact that he discussed the power outage with Childs several weeks before the outage, and at least 10 days before Childs' arrest. He will also state that Childs specifically asked for confirmation that the datacenter itself would not be affected, and was reassured that it would not lose power.
With this statement, the City's allegations that Childs planned to cause the failure of the FiberWAN basically collapse.
Now, I'm admittedly a stranger to San Francisco politics, and am certainly not a lawyer, but if the DA was going to make these accusations against Childs, shouldn't they have talked to Pabros? If the OMP Datacenter was not going to lose power on that date, then this charge against Childs is essentially the same as charging someone with planning to burgle a store that doesn't exist.
But then again, this is the same DA's office that placed valid group usernames and passwords into the public record, and an IT department that ran public, unprotected websites containing internal emails, core network details, as well as usernames and passwords.
I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised at all.
UPDATE: It appears that Pabros has just announced he will be retiring, effective next Wednesday. I can't help but wonder if one event has anything to do with the other. I do know that there have been a number of odd layoffs from San Francisco's DTIS in the past two weeks.
Posted by Paul Venezia on September 8, 2008 08:48 AM
Road trip (Score:5, Funny)
There are now dozens of cars packed full of cheetos cheap laptops and foul smelling individuals travelling near, or perhaps at the speed limit, towards san francisco. They're full of people thinking the same thing, "Shit if they can't find a wired device, they sure as hell can't find a wireless one!"
Reminds me of a high school prank (Score:5, Funny)
The problem was, that all you had to do to get all the bells on campus to ring was to wire the loop back into the mains.
We took a clock from the darkroom in the photo lab, and ran two wires through the face plate. We then ran another strip of wire along the minute hand, so whenever the minute hand swept by a certain point on the clock every hour, it would complete the circuit for about 30 seconds and ring every bell on campus.
We then hid this contraption under a pile of wood in the attic of the wood shop. Right after convocation when I could no longer be expelled, I ran into the building and turned it on.
Apparently the bells rang off and on mysteriously for most of the next month of holiday until they managed to follow the loop and find the device. Good times.
The new WarLords (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm reminded of a conversation I had some 25 years ago with a co-worker IBM mainframe technician. IBM management was incensed that uneducated morons turning screwdrivers could make 70k a year. Back then as much as what they were paying top MBA stuff shirt types. They were on a mission to get salary levels down to "reality" paying these screwdriver wielding monkeys what they were (in their minds) really worth.
Attitudes have changed but not a lot. 93% of companies that loose their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year. 50% filed bankruptcy immediately (National Archives & Records Administration in Washington) [google.com]. One can't say the same thing about those over paid MBAs.
It may be awhile before IT matures into a "profession" like doctor or lawyer however I personally believe we're holding the keys. The world can't function now without us.
-[d]-
More technical info on the device (Score:5, Interesting)
"From what I can see, it's a device running Cisco IOS that was accessed via telnet. I could generate an identical screenshot to the one entered into evidence in about five minutes using an elderly Cisco 2924-XL Ethernet switch -- a device that's certainly not a terminal server. It's completely unclear to me how they could have possibly come to the conclusion that this is a "terminal server" -- the evidence presented to the court certainly does not support that theory."
Venezia also uncovers additional technical errors in the prosecution's case, which appears to be unraveling [slashdot.org] with the recent news that the DTIS Datacenter Supervisor Ramon Pabros will testify on Childs' behalf [infoworld.com]. Since coming forward, Pabros has announced he will be retiring from the DTIS, effective Sept. 17. Coincidence?
Re:Please - It's San Francisco or simply "The City (Score:4, Funny)
No no. "The City" is quite clearly "The City of London". And no where near San Francisco. (I wonder if they use Cisco hardware though, which might make the San Fran - Cisco more apt)
Huh? London is only about 142 miles SE from San Francisco and with a population of about 2000 people barely qualifies as a city, let alone "The City" moniker.