Accused Rogue Admin Terry Childs Makes His Case 397
angry tapir writes "He's been in jail for seven months now, but former San Francisco network administrator Terry Childs says he's going to keep fighting to prove he's innocent of computer crime charges. Childs was arrested on July 12, charged with disrupting the City of San Francisco's Wide Area Network during a tense standoff with management. Infoworld has also conducted an interview with Childs."
Re:Interview? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:CQ? (Score:3, Informative)
Central Queensland
Congressional Quarterly
or
A symbol indicating that the spelling is actually correct, believe it or not.
Does that help?
Re:Interview? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Equal Protection? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:CQ? (Score:5, Informative)
CQ or Cadit Quaestio [wikipedia.org] means "the spelling (or the simple fact) has been checked and double checked", so there's no need to check it again. As it was editorial markup, it should not have appeared in the published version of the story.
If something you mark as CQ later turns out to be wrong (because you haven't bothered to check), well that's egg on your face, isn't it?
what is actually claimed in the affivadit .. (Score:2, Informative)
Sep 10 2008 "The SF rogue admin Terry Childs installed a 'terminal server [infoworld.com],' which appears to be a router, on the city's network, but investigators haven't been able to find or log into it"
"Childs has become increasingly hostile at work and defiant toward certain managers and has failed to comply with standard work procedure, as described above by the only system administrator situation"
"On the late afternoon of Friday 6-20-08, Security Manager J. Pieralde was conducting an audit inventory of equipment at the OMP Data Center. As she proceeded with her work, she was confronted by Childs and Childs began taking pictures of her, using his SF Owned cell phone. Pieralde became so concerned for her personal safety that she locked herself in a room and contacted Director R. Robinson by cell phone, informing him of (S) Childs' behavior
"Over the last months, Childs has refused and not authorized or allowed any other system administrators to the FiberWAN
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"The Labor Relations representative, Mr. Leung, then informed Childs that because of his insubordination and his failure to answer questions by a superior of his insubordination and his failure to answer questions by a superior he was being suspended from his employment
" Childs' City owned work cell phone, pager, ID cards, and access cards were taken from him
"Approximatly, an hour later, a page was received on the pager and a check of messages revealed a message from one of the routers .
"Mr. Maupin was also able to determine that Mr' Childs had, in fact, intentionally configured multiple Cicso network devices with a command that erases [infoworld.com] all configuration date in the event that someone tries to restore administrative access or tries to perform disaster recovery. This command was created for military applications that require deployment of network devices in areas that may have the possibility of hostile forces that could get physical access to network devices
Does anyone else apart from me think this is technologically nonsense
Re:what is actually claimed in the affivadit .. (Score:4, Informative)
The whole thing stinks, but you never know until we see all the facts.
The picture taking incident could have been him flying off the handle like they make it out to be, or it could have been him taking pictures as cya insurance because he was concerned she might mess up (EIther intentionally or unintentionally) some mission-critical systems. One would wonder why she called a director, and not 911, if she was actually concerned for her personal safety. That makes it sound like, to me anyway, some of the hyperbole they were talking about in the article.
The thing about the router paging his work pager sounds like nothing. I see nothing out of the ordinary for an admin to set up a router to page his work pager if it has problems. How does this, in any way, signify him still having access if he no longer has the pager? He either has the pager (and is thus allowed to contact the network as an employee) or the pager is confiscated from him when he is fired (removing his access to the network). There may be more to the story, but that statement means nothing on it's own.
Re:Equal Protection? (Score:5, Informative)
Not only does the guy sound sane, it sounds as though he's got grounds to sue the folks who are trying to prosecute him. TFA suggests these incompetents were upset to find (1) a modem that had been in the admin's office since before he started working there, and (2) a modem set up to page him on any problems, and (3) a modem set up to handle emergencies.
Obviously, this was not handled well by either side, but I'm inclined to believe the guy in jail over the clearly incompetent managers.
Re:Equal Protection? (Score:5, Informative)
Bail in this case is $5,000,000. A bail bond would cost $500,000.
So much for the Eighth Amendment.
Re:legit modems? (Score:4, Informative)
It should also be noted that Childs handed over passwords [infoworld.com] to the Mayor while in jail.
Re:Equal Protection? (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and bail is refunded if you show up for court.
Not necessarily. I was arrested on a completely made-up charge a couple of years ago, and at the end of it all they kept 10% of my bail for no other reason than profit. It wasn't very much money compared to what I spent defending myself, or having to change jobs because of what the arrest did to my security clearance, but it still pissed me off.
On TV, the cops always interview the accused, to try to ascertain if they've got the right guy. Not necessarily so in real life. Never once did a police officer or prosecutor ever talk to me or look at the copious evidence I gathered in my defense. As far as their interaction with me, the process consisted of them showing up at my door at night with cuffs, then finally dropping the charges on the morning of the jury trial when the prosecutor realized they didn't have anything.
Re:Equal Protection? (Score:5, Informative)
According to Mr. Childs, the passwords were requested by his skip-skip-level boss, 2 HR people, and an unknown number of people listening in via speakerphone in an unscheduled meeting he was pulled into while onsite at one of the office locations. A Police detective was also standing by.
I can only hope the true story of what happens here comes out eventually.. but that is unlikely.
-e.g.
Re:Equal Protection? (Score:5, Informative)
You are an idiot. I suppose his landlord (if he rents) is just going to waive his rent? His insurance company isn't going to want their money? The rest of the world doesn't care why he isn't working. He still has bills that will need to be paid. His lawyer is undoubtably sending him bills as well.
Re:Equal Protection? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:He's not required to presume innocence (Score:4, Informative)
Because it's the state against an individual. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a way to try to rebalance a situation that's rather unsymmetrical: a state organization with enormous means at its disposition is accusing one person. When the state investigates, they can put thousands of officers at the job. They have the power to go anywhere, interrogate anybody, investigate everything.
The accused is alone. No matter how rich he is, he runs the risk of going bankrupt if he tries to match the state in its investigations. And he could go to jail if found guilty. Therefore, it's only fair to give the defendant the benefit of doubt in court.
It's a different situation when it's a citizen against another. I have the right to form an opinion on whether someone is guilty or not without giving him all the leeway a court needs to give, and I have the right to tell my opinion to anybody who will listen. It's not as if my opinion could send anybody to jail.
Re:Equal Protection? (Score:3, Informative)
I presume you dealt with a bail bonds corporation?
They are a third party to the whole situation, and their product is getting you released from jail if the court allows this, and sets a bail amount.
No. Bail wasn't more than about $1000, and my wife bailed me out with our money. The police kept the 10%. Like I said, it wasn't a large amount.