oO.. don't make the IT guy mad..

[Panama Red]

Somebody did in San Francisco and now the IT guy is in jail. But he won't give up his password!:eek: This could get ugly.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/14/BAOS11P1M5.DTL

[shadowpr]

Some insurance policy he took out.

And did I read that correctly where they said he was going to be fired cause of personal reasons? If so, I find a little humor in this.

[blue60007]

:eek: Dang....

[Panama Red]

Some insurance policy he took out.

And did I read that correctly where they said he was going to be fired cause of personal reasons? If so, I find a little humor in this.

Nope, PERSONNEL not Personal. Nothing personal about it. ;) I read it that officials were somewhat tight lipped because of his personnel record and attempts that had been made to fire him. Plus, he was keying in on anything that pertained to him or his personnel file.

[shadowpr]

Ah.

I need to read carefully next time.

Either way, still one heck of an insurance policy. Wonder if it was worth it.

[sdkfz]

Wonder if it was worth it.

Picture this... you are revieiwing job applications. This guy's comes up... hmmm looks good - worked in a IT group in a large city... whats this? He answered yes - Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Well we all make mistakes in our youth what was it?....Your next action after reading the description of this 43 year old's actions is to reach for the shredder...

Here is the link and then a quote from it when I went back to read it so it seems my above claim may be premature

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/15/BA4011PFJP.DTL&tsp=1

"He was hired five years ago, even after telling officials on a job application that he had a felony conviction. According to court records in Kansas, Childs was convicted of aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary stemming from charges filed in 1982. He was on probation or parole until 1987, records show." :eek:

[David M]

The solution is real simple. Threaten to give Terry a heavy jail sentence if he refuses to give the passcode and a lighter if he divulges the code. Judges, who assign sentences, have the power to do this. There is enough evidence to convict this person it seems. What Terry forgot is he broke the law in doing this and therefore has nothing on the city. The law though, has something on Terry. :)

[doubledragon5]

Don't hey have some type of technology to recover that password? or is that just in Hollywood.

[mbossman2]

Don't hey have some type of technology to recover that password? or is that just in Hollywood.

it depends.

My guess is that he trashed the password file on the AAA servers, leaving only his, then changed all the passwords on all the network devices and set the ACLs to challenge every network admission attempt.

To undo this would require going to each and every network device and reset them to factory defaults and then attack the servers and once all that is settled, rebuild from the ground up

[Force Flow]

"He was hired five years ago, even after telling officials on a job application that he had a felony conviction. According to court records in Kansas, Childs was convicted of aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary stemming from charges filed in 1982. He was on probation or parole until 1987, records show." :eek:

Just note,

He would've been 36 at the time of hiring and 15 when charges were filed. There's a lot of years in between there, and you don't necessarily know what the situation was that led to the charges, arrest and conviction.

Not that I'm vouching for him or anything, but it's something to think about.



On another note, I would've been interested to know what was going on in the personnel department (again, that "get the whole story" thing again).



On yet another note, it's interesting to raise the issue at how much trust is placed in the IT or tech folks in the private sector. They basically have access to *everything*. Stuff that most lower and middle management employees don't have access to.

Yes, you don't have to worry about the honest techs...but the dishonest ones? They could potentially swipe or lock up anything they like.

[mbossman2]

as an aside: being a convicted felon is not a legitimate reason to not hire someone.

[pam123]

Aren't juvenile records supposed to be sealed?

[shadowpr]

as an aside: being a convicted felon is not a legitimate reason to not hire someone.

I would say that depends on the crime and the job being applied for.

[mbossman2]

I would say that depends on the crime and the job being applied for.

the only reason that a criminal history can be used as the sole reason for not hiring someone is if a requirement for the job (security clearance, licensing or bonding to name a few) can not be granted/met due to a felony conviction.

of course the reality is that many people will see the conviction and determine that there is a better qualified candidate from the list of candidates.

[David M]

as an aside: being a convicted felon is not a legitimate reason to not hire someone.

I have to respectfully disagree bossman. Being a convicted felon is enough reason for the Coast Guard not to issue a Merchant Marine Officers license. That is federal law. It is in the CFR's. Its also enough reason to disallow someone from becoming a police officer. There are lot of other jobs out there that disallow the hiring of convicted felons. Personally, if I were hiring for an IT department, people who would have access to everything, I would not hire a convicted felon. You cant blanket label everyone but if you have the choice, you should probably pick the person who has the clean criminal record over the person with the felony conviction(s)....that's just common sense for any high security job.

[Force Flow]

Yet...this guy was underage at the time

[Panama Red]

Wed's update.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/16/BA4011PFJP.DTL&hw=childs&sn=004&sc=713

Not guilty plea and today's update.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/18/BAK111QRPB.DTL&hw=childs&sn=001&sc=1000

[pam123]

The Public Defender had a conflict of interest?

Uh-Oh, if the judge substantially reduces the bail next week we definitely weren't getting the whole truth.

[Force Flow]

The Public Defender had a conflict of interest?

Makes sense. If the defender is hired by the city, and the situation resolves around something that affects the city, putting someone on the defense team that's on the city's payroll has the potential to look after the city's best interests over the client's.

[pam123]

Conflict Of Interest for Public Defenders works like this :

Conflict of interest

Because conflict of interest problems could exist where multiple defendants participated in a single crime, such as a bank robbery or a drive-by shooting, only one person in a group of co-defendants will be assigned an attorney from a public defender office. For many defendants, it is in their best interest to testify against co-defendants in exchange for a reduced sentence. To ensure that each defendant is afforded his constitutional right to an effective defense, jurisdictions may have several public defender entities, or a "conflict panel" of private practice attorneys. This enables the court to assign each defendant an attorney from a completely separate office, thereby guarding against the risk of one client's privileged information accidentally falling into the hands of another client's attorney. Some jurisdictions, like in Los Angeles County, employ a separate entity for legal representation called the Alternate Public Defender's office. Any further conflicts are handled by court-appointed private attorneys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_defender

The fact that the city pays the Public Defender isn't the problem.
The fact that they claim the guy had an accomplice who was going to crash the system at a later date is (more than one defendant).
Since they made that claim, and then backed off of it after the Public Defender withdrew, the DA's office looks inept.
Going by what the private attorney, taking the place of the Public Defender as required by law, has said the DA's office has blundered from start to finish.
It's starting to sound like an awful lot of the claims released to the press just weren't based in reality (Can't call'em false till shown to be so in court.).

[Force Flow]

Just came across another aspect of the story, which looks like the city made a few bad calls along the way leading up to this: http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/08/07/18/30FE-sf-network-lockout_1.html

But, until this gets sorted out, it sounds like it will be a lot of he-said-she-said back and forth.

[pam123]

From the article :

If the details given to me in this e-mail are accurate, it would appear that this case is not nearly what it seemed originally


This is going to be one very interesting trial, if it gets that far.

[angie1313]

Either way, it's still pretty funny and no doubt giving other IT guys some ideas.... ;)

[pam123]

They have now been published in a public document by the D.A.s office.
No they didn't change them before they did it.

They just made Child's case for him.

Childs' lawyer argues that because of departmental incompetence, the mayor was the only person qualified to be handed the keys to the network.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/07/25/San_Francisco_DA_discloses_citys_network_passwords_1.html


Slashdot (/.) is preparing for the defense : http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/25/229229&from=rss