Jul 17 2008Disgruntled IT Administrator Comandeers San Francisco City Network, Gets Arrested, Sticks It To The Man By Refusing To Give Up Password
Terry Childs, 43, is acting like one and refuses to give up the password he created that is effectively blocking all access to San Francisco's new multimillion-dollar network. Why did he do it? Possibly because he was on the verge of canning.
Childs has worked for the city for about five years. One official with knowledge of the case said he had been disciplined on the job in recent months for poor performance and that his supervisors had tried to fire him. "They weren't able to do it - this was kind of his insurance policy."Officials also said they feared that although Childs is in jail, he may have enabled a third party to access the system by telephone or other electronic device and order the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents.
As part of his alleged sabotage, Childs engineered a tracing system to monitor what other administrators were saying and doing related to his personnel case, law enforcement officials said.
Damnit Terry, the city paid you $149,269 last year, just do your freaking job. I'd do anything for that kind of money, including, but not limited to: work, selling all my internal organs except the kidney, televangelism, and turning tricks in the back of a hybrid. I'm telling you, eco-friendly johns are a growing market. If the Prius is a rockin' don't bother knockin', you have to wait your turn or pay $5 to watch.
Way more in-depth article link follows.
S.F. officials locked out of computer network [sfgate]
Thanks Romeo, now lets do something similar to Skynet before it's too late.
Reader Comments
1. Svetlana - July 17, 2008 11:16 AM
hackers! first.
2. The Imaginary Reviewer - July 17, 2008 11:23 AM
The guy is a modern day hero. No, wait, I'm thinking of someone else.
3. Richthegringo - July 17, 2008 11:28 AM
They should try "password"....i bet that's what the password is!!
4. Julian - July 17, 2008 11:31 AM
@3
its probably either "password", "qwerty" or "123"
5. grihm - July 17, 2008 11:33 AM
I bet he could hack the Gibson.
6. 1337Hax0r - July 17, 2008 11:45 AM
It is probably encrypted by a 512meg protocol including filtered by tier 2 binaries creating a un-beatable password.
did they try nothing? The best password is not having one, if people keep putting in words to figure it out they will never guess it is blank (alt 0160) not space but blank.
7. Uncle Eccoli - July 17, 2008 12:07 PM
I love it!!
8. Crashlander - July 17, 2008 12:10 PM
"Ah ah ahh, you didn't say the magic word!"
9. Popadopolis - July 17, 2008 12:16 PM
That's kind of like how I got disgruntled at my last job and burned the building down with everyone inside. I was the janitor, so no matter how much they begged from the other side of the door, I refused to give them the key. They eventually stopped asking.
10. Icon - July 17, 2008 12:21 PM
#6, now you're just making shit up.
11. Just Jack - July 17, 2008 12:25 PM
Fuck that. I have hacked plenty of shit in my day, but you don't crap where you eat. If you are getting paid to shephard someone else's data then you have an obligation to not pull bullshit stunts like this.
This useless piece of shit gives Net Admin's a bad name, and I hope he is blacklisted from I.T. forever.
12. JaC - July 17, 2008 12:37 PM
I see this ending badly when he gets sent to "Federal Pound Me in the A$$ prison".
13. sonicfrog - July 17, 2008 12:44 PM
I thought this was one of the funniest stories I've read all year. I'm doing a "San Francisco Held Hostage - Day __" post everyday on my blog until this is resolved.
14. Just Jack - July 17, 2008 12:51 PM
While we're on the topic, those douche-bags that wrote the script for Jurassic Park can kiss my ass too.
"I know this. It's Unix" hack hack hack
Fuck you, you little blond bitch. Maybe you can hack an MS box with pretty pictures for a GUI, but if that was a Linux box you would still be there TODAY trying to crack it.
Goddamn it.
15. gerald - July 17, 2008 1:04 PM
Well if you haven't worked for city or state goverment then you don't know what he's been subjected to. He did just do it for meaness. Sounds like he was being screwed with and figured he show them that he wasn't as useless or insignificant as they thought......insurance policy is always good......Rock On!
16. gerald - July 17, 2008 1:09 PM
and on a side note....Did they try Admin / Blank.
17. Trevor - July 17, 2008 1:11 PM
Being an administrator for two Fortune 500s for the past 12 years I have to say this has crossed my mind more than once. Then I come to my senses. Being angry at others for your own lack of permance is childish. Worse, if you tamper with the network, you can land in jail and look like a complete ass in the newspaper. It's just a lose/lose proposition. This guy needs to sit in jail for a while.
18. F@gs - July 17, 2008 4:11 PM
You IT douchebags getting all high and mighty... this is fucking hilarious!
19. Just Jack - July 17, 2008 4:42 PM
Yeah, it's fun and games until it is YOUR shit that gets trashed.
Dickhead.
20. MoreThanMeetsTheEye - August 4, 2008 1:30 PM
@11 Just Jack,
"If you are getting paid to shephard someone else's data then you have an obligation[...]"
A government employee, in my opinion should also have an obligation to verify someone's authority to have access before handing it over, and an obligation to not grant access to anyone who poses a threat to the system.