Wednesday, July 23, 2008

THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM

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MECHANICS ARE DRIVING YOUR CAR WHEREVER THEY WANT

THE TECHS ARE TAKING OVER THE SYSTEM
AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

Weird Little Nerds Think The World Revolves Around Them

The scary part? It does. As demonstrated by the ongoing crisis in San Francisco's municipal data networks, the little weenies who spend their lives tapping out "code" are firmly in command. By simply imagining that they are in charge, without troubling themselves to verify that notion, city administrators have allowed one possibly (typically) sociopathic geek to take over and sabotage their entire city.

Apparently, this douche bag was the only one in the entire city government to have the master passwords for the system. In other words, nobody could get in, or get anything out, if he didn't want them to. And if the disgruntled little dweeb decided to trash the entire system and all the data on it, no one could stop him. So he did.

We're talking city records here: Property records; tax records; birth, death & marriage records; payroll & contracts; personnel & medical files; plans & inspection records; the whole sweet patootie. Your tax dollars at work, Shakeypeople.

To gain some insight into the mind of a dork, check out the comments posted to this story in the SF Gate. About half are the same sort of malcontent that pulled this on the city. And all of them claim to be SYSADMINS. You know, those malicious gnomes who run computer networks. Like this one. Shhh... Did you hear something? Ah, it was probly nothing...

SF GATE
"Inside the mind - and config - of Terry Childs"

I worked with Terry Childs at one time and I did not have much of a problem with him. He seemed to be a good guy but liked to take shortcuts and as usual with most of the WAN crowd if it has green lights on it we are good to go. He was very hands on and if he had problems with someone like people on the short bus trying to take over I would say he felt backed into a corner. I do not like people touching my work nor my laptop nor any of my network if they are not qualified to even plug in a toaster. I am sure he felt the same. '

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"Tech rigged S.F. computer meltdown, prosecutors say"

Terry Childs envisioned the ultimate revenge on his bosses, prosecutors say - the meltdown of the city's computer network at the flick of a switch. And it would come not directly at the hands of Childs, but during routine system maintenance at the building that houses the city's Technology Department. '

EFLUX MEDIA
"San Francisco Regains Control Of City Network After Mayor's Visit"

The San Francisco city has regained control of its computer systems after Mayor Mayor Gavin Newsom paid a secret visit to imprisoned IT expert Terry Childs. At the meeting which took place at the city jail, Terry Childs made the mayor’s day and gave him the modified passwords. Meanwhile, Erin Crane, Terry Childs' defense attorney, claims that his client was trying to protect the City's IT systems from incompetent city hall officials, who were in fact trying to make him leave his job, by damaging the system and preventing Terry Childs from maintaining it. "None of the persons who [previously] requested the password information from Mr. Childs ... were qualified to have it," she said in a court filing. '

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Labels: COMPUTER SECURITY, DISGRUNTLED SYSADMINS, DWEEBS, GEEKS, GOVERNMENT DATABASES, NERDS, NETWORK ADMINISTRATORS, PSYCHO-TECHS, SAN FRANCISCO

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2 Comments:

Anonymous said...: After the initial reports, more facts came to light in the case of Terry Childs.

--He was hired in 2003 by the City to administer the network.
--He appears to be the sole employee of the City who met the qualifications set by the City to administer the network.
--A specific duty of his job was to secure the routers by setting passwords in the routers.
--Another specific duty of his job was to change the passwords regularly.
--The City has repeatedly stated that it would use the CCISDA information security policy as the basis for its security policies.
--The CCISDA policy specifically forbids sharing your password with co-workers, including your boss and only allows the department head to determine who should or should not have access to anyone else's password.
--The department in this case is DTIS and the head of the department is Chris Vein.
--In early June of 2008, Terry filed a formal complaint against a DTIS supervisor.
--On July 9th, 2008, another employee of DTIS, Deputy Director Rich Robinson, demanded Terry's password although he had no written authorization to have it and did not meet the qualifications set by the city for administering the fiber WAN.
--Rich Robinson suspended Terry on that date, however Terry was not fired and was still an employee of the City.
--After being arrested three days later, Terry volunteered the password to the Mayor.
--The network was never sabotaged, it continued to function throughout.
--The password controlled administrative access to routers on the network which direct information traffic over the network.
--The routers could have been reset at any time and the admin password would have been returned to the default. The routers would then need to be reconfigured.
--City officials have stated that they did not know how to configure the routers. The one City employee who did, Terry Childs, had been suspended and jailed.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/07/30/31NF-terry-childs-fact-fiction_1.html; 8:21 AM, August 15, 2008
Cosa Nostradamus said...: .
Yeah. OK, Terry.

I already said, or linked to all that. But it still doesn't excuse your behavior. You're a worker, a subordinate, a civil servant. Your boss tells you to do something, you do it. You have a problem with your boss, you go to his or her boss. You don't hold the entire city hostage. Get it?

As to character & history, from the article you linked here:

---' What occurred over the next two weeks remains a mystery, but at some point, DTIS officials demanded that Childs relinquish the usernames and passwords used to access the FiberWAN network devices, and Childs refused to do so. He was suspended for insubordination on July 9.

In the court documents, the city stated that Childs was placed under surveillance and was arrested on the evening of July 12 as he was parking his vehicle near his home in the suburb of Pittsburg. At the time of his arrest, he was found to have $10,000 cash on his person and receipts showing that he had traveled to Sparks, Nevada, where he had looked at renting storage units. Following his arrest, police searched his house and workspaces. Police turned up 9mm and .45 caliber bullets, but apparently no weapons.

The possession of ammunition may have raised flags with the police, because 25 years ago, at the age of 17, Childs was arrested and convicted of aggravated burglary, and spent four years in a Kansas prison. In 1995, prosecutors said, Childs was again arrested in Kansas and charged with aggravated assault and carrying a concealed weapon. The case was reduced to misdemeanor weapons possession. '---

In future, use a nick if not your real name.
.; 5:45 PM, August 15, 2008