When network admins go bad...

[mdlbear]

... or at least go weird.

Sorting out fact from fiction in the Terry Childs case | InfoWorld | News | July 30, 2008 | By Paul Venezia

It's been nearly three weeks since Terry Childs was arrested on four counts of computer tampering and sent to jail on $5 million bail. In those three weeks, this event has taken turns to the strange, and wound up firmly in the land of the absurd. From bombastic claims in the press to midnight visits by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to pages of functional usernames and passwords entered into the public record, this case has certainly proven engaging.

Lost in all the drama is what actually happened. How could a large city government apparently lose control of its network, and how could its own characterizations of the system be so questionable?

Comments

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

This may be the question Childs wanted answered/investigated. He just picked a way that the general public won't understand.

Heck, I've worked on government systems where I just wanted to phone up the media and say "Do you realise how SCREWED this setup is?"

[mdlbear]

More to it than that. Read the full article, if you haven't already -- Childs may have had legitimate doubts about things, but he went way over the line trying to protect "his" network, and the city went way over the line reacting. Weird all around.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

True. Sysadmin groups around the net were going "Uh, dude, there are better ways."