Mayor Gets Back Keys to the Network

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The IT guy that was jailed last week for holding the city of San Francisco’s multimillion dollar wide area network hostage has given the mayor the passwords needed to access the system.

On Monday afternoon, he handed the passwords over to Mayor Newsom, who was "the only person he felt he could trust," according to a declaration filed in court by his attorney, Erin Crane.
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lol more like "hey mayor, I'll give you the passwords. Now please hand out a pardon to let me out?"
 
Sounds to me like this guy did all the work, while his boss' took all the credit and tried to screw everything up at the same time.

Dumbassed city government employees? Who would have thought!?!?!?
 
He was just overprotective of the network and trusts no one else to do it. The only fault of the city is poor oversight of what he was doing. They should have demanded that more than one person have access to parts of the network.
 
... or more likely, nobody else was qualified to do what he was doing.
 
"None of the persons who requested the password information from Mr. Childs... were qualified to have it," said in a court filing.

Wow, this guy seems like a total dick to work with.
 
After reading the full article explaining how incompetent the management and fellow employees were, it sounds like the guy was just a dedicated employee who got screwed.
 
Exactly.

Government in general is completely incapable of running and organizing SIMPLE events. What makes ANYONE think that they can design, deploy, or maintain a complex network?

The people in government jobs DO NOT LIKE smart people. They want control of everything, even if they don't have the slightest idea WHY they need it, nor have any idea HOW to control it.
Anyone that has any experience working for government agencies knows this to be true.
 
orkan = Childs?

They pay for the network it is theirs and not his. End of discussion. If Childs paid for the network, then that is another story.
 
My company does work for government on a daily/weekly basis.

You go ahead and side with them. I could care less.

Every single facet of government I've worked with is so disgustingly stupid, I'm suprised they find their way to their office from the parking lot every day.
 
BoogerBomb said:
orkan = Childs?

They pay for the network it is theirs and not his. End of discussion. If Childs paid for the network, then that is another story.
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Easy words to say when you are not in the situation. Sorry like saying to a fat person "well if you stop eating so much, you will lose weight". The fact is, most IT staff that work for governments are under stupid amounts of pressure to make something that never breaks with little money with supervision from people that think they are gods of computers because they bought a Mac.

This event should spark conversations not only about one person have to much responsibility...but also how managers interact with those people.
 
The reason government is so horribly inept at everything they do is because the consequences that exist for every business out there, are simply non existent for all government agencies.
 
BoogerBomb said:
orkan = Childs?

They pay for the network it is theirs and not his. End of discussion. If Childs paid for the network, then that is another story.
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Management generally has no clue about the day to day workings of the network in most cases and in my own experience the majority of people with titles similar to mine don't deserve it. Hell I spend the first two years after a new hire monitoring every damn step they make and fixing all the shit they break. Now would I hold back the keys to the castle if my boss asked me for them? Nope, it's painful to fix the aftermath.. but it's not my fault either.
 
Which is why this problem exists in the first place.
NOBODY stands up to dumbasses in government. Its easier to just sit back, and let it get destroyed, and then get paid AGAIN to fix it.

This whole topic sickens me to the point of nausea.
 
You know you're in a dire position when the only person you can "trust" is a politician.
 
Was this guy arrested for commiting a crime, or was he being held hostage? It sounds like the latter to me.
 
By law you must surrender password to a computer network to those who own the network. Most places have a team that eliminates your access while you are being fired and escorted from the premises by security.
 
BoogerBomb said:
By law you must surrender password to a computer network to those who own the network. Most places have a team that eliminates your access while you are being fired and escorted from the premises by security.
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Besides that burning bridges just blackballs you in the community, management changes a lot and the technically adept will be welcomed at another company. I've been through multiple mergers/buyouts/wholesale purchases of larger networks.. sometimes you are a bigger fish sometimes you are a smaller, publicly humiliating your bosses only screws you in the long run.
 
orkan said:
Which is why this problem exists in the first place.
NOBODY stands up to dumbasses in government. Its easier to just sit back, and let it get destroyed, and then get paid AGAIN to fix it.

This whole topic sickens me to the point of nausea.
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Getting someone fired for proper cause yes.. I've done it before. But taking a stand like this situation makes no sense as a network of that size has plenty of vendor support. Too many critical elements for one dude to make decisions over.


You have to take a step back and think what if I get hit by a bus? Have I built, documented and secured my network so that it can be taken over within a reasonable timeframe? If not you aren't worth the title or the paycheck and this guy had a pretty nice paycheck.
 
No one thought to run password recovery? It would have been a pain, but hey they would have been able to continue on without having to send the major for the little sit down chat.
 
WldWzl said:
No one thought to run password recovery? It would have been a pain, but hey they would have been able to continue on without having to send the major for the little sit down chat.
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"No Service Password Recovery" was on..

from cisco.com:

Background

ROMMON security is designed not to allow a person with physical access to the router view the configuration file. ROMMON security disables access to the ROMMON, so that a person cannot set the configuration register to ignore the start-up configuration. ROMMON security is enabled when the router is configured with the no service password-recovery command.

caution Caution: Because password recovery that uses ROMMON security destroys the configuration, it is recommended that you save the router configuration somewhere off the router, such as on a TFTP server.
Risks

If a router is configured with the no service password-recovery command, this disables all access to the ROMMON. If there is no valid Cisco IOS software image in the Flash memory of the router, the user is not able to use the ROMMON XMODEM command in order to load a new Flash image. In order to fix the router, you must get a new Cisco IOS software image on a Flash SIMM, or on a PCMCIA card, for example on the 3600 Series Routers.

In order to minimize this risk, a customer who uses ROMMON security must also use dual Flash bank memory and put a backup Cisco IOS software image in a separate partition.
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The guy has basically screwed over his own career, doesn't matter if they don't press charges and go "light" on him. he might get severance and his pension if he's lucky but he won't be getting his job back. He's proven very publicly that he can and will go rogue, up to disobeying the people in authority above him, it embarrassed the politicians and his bosses so there's gonna be payback, bigtime.
His motives, whether altruistic or not doesn't mean a whole lot in this situation. To those people who think he was justified because nobody else knew as much as he did, that's flawed logic, why should the city rely on him to decide who is qualified?. Maybe nobody in the country is qualified in his view. You're deliberately challenging the leadership of your organization, you want to think that you'll win by locking them out of their own network? That's a form of blackmail.

I would very be surprised if any large organization would let him near their networks as this whole thing will stick in the minds of many employers.
A smarter person would've covered their ass with the appropriate paperwork, left the needed documentation and quit. At least he would've had his rep intact and his integrity as well.
 
There's only ~16,000 CCIE certified techs in the world. Am sure he'll be able to find a job elsewhere. He might end up taking a pay cut going someplace else though.
 
I can't even IMAGINE being a CCIE and sitting in a room with a bunch of other government employees. That would be similar to being evander holyfield and fighting in the special olympics.

I'd probably go insane. Perhaps he did, a little bit.
 
Am I the only one that is half-hoping the San Francisco network goes on the fritz tomorrow after these guys start messing with it?
 
From what I read earlier, management knew that he was the only one with the password and didn't do anything about it. I don't think he was as rogue as people are making him out to be. Sounds like he was more dedicated than most people. He might have been a bit of a prick but he knew what he was doing, he cared about the job and everyone around him seemed indifferent to how well the network ran. Sounds like management are the ones who should be doing time in the big house.
 
orkan said:
I can't even IMAGINE being a CCIE and sitting in a room with a bunch of other government employees. That would be similar to being evander holyfield and fighting in the special olympics.

I'd probably go insane. Perhaps he did, a little bit.
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Heh, considering I've probably had more experience with government than the vast majority of people on here, you're statement is dead on.

Even though I was basically a "grunt", it seems I had a better head on my shoulders than most of the people in IT at the government agency I worked for. Sadly enough, the one I worked for was probably one of the more competent ones. I'll put it this way, even though I was just a grunt and didn't work in the IT area, the people in my section would come to me if they had a computer problem long before they would contact IT. They did this because I would normally have the problem figured out (in case it was user error) or fixed in usually a couple of minutes. If they had called IT for the problem they would have had to wait at least an hour, then an incompetent imbecile would show up with no clue what to do at which point they would either call someone else or go back to their area to get someone else that might have a clue what was going on. Finally, after a few hours, the problem might be fixed. In most cases, the problems were easily fixed within a couple of minutes by me.

I don't claim to be an IT guru or anything of the sort. I know what I can and can't do. I would not make a single change unless I knew exactly what it was going to do and I never messed with any type of networking outside of adding a new network printer and setting it to the default printer when a new one would be installed because the old one died. If I thought the problem was something out of my scope, I would immediately tell the person to contact IT to let IT deal with it and apologize for making the person wait on IT because I either didn't know the solution or I wasn't 100% sure the solution wouldn't cause any problems.

That's just the basic story. I won't even get into the idiocy I was forced to experience when I had to have some new software installed on my system.

I was also part of several test groups for new software systems or changes to older software for new functionality. Because of this, I dealt with IT people a hell of a lot more than the vast majority of my coworkers. I also have a hell of a lot more computer and network experience than them as well. Just having to listen to the stupid problems coming from the IT people was terrible. It seems like 3/4 of the time they had no fucking clue what the hell was going on with their own network and there was practically no redundancy in personnel in place in case someone was sick or on vacation.

Government and technology mix about as well as oil and water.

I don't know the whole situation and I doubt any article even remotely explains it properly so I won't judge the guy as absolutely right or wrong. However, I can see where he was coming from even if he handled it the wrong way.

 
Wow, lots of generalizations about public employees here. I'd imagine that most of you have never even dealt with a government IT department. I do IT for a small city and we do a VERY good job considering all the limitations placed on us.
 
orkan said:
Exactly.

Government in general is completely incapable of running and organizing SIMPLE events. What makes ANYONE think that they can design, deploy, or maintain a complex network?

The people in government jobs DO NOT LIKE smart people. They want control of everything, even if they don't have the slightest idea WHY they need it, nor have any idea HOW to control it.
Anyone that has any experience working for government agencies knows this to be true.
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this is absolute truth
 
If someone hired me to take care of a network, regardless of the size, and put its security, reliability, and uptime in my hands, I'd be in jail right now just as that IT person is (unless he made bail or something). If they hired me and told me my top priority was the upkeep of the entire mission critical network, you can be damned sure I'd be running it as though I truly were "God" and I'd have it locked down enough so that no one else was able to rummage around in it.

I've dealt with enough stupid fucking people in my life and my 25+ years in the computer support industry. Put some of those stupid fucking people one step up and give them some authority and then the situation gets infinitely worse.

The previous comments about governments and the need to control pretty much every aspect of everything is dead spot on. Governments should govern, not control. Big difference there... too bad only a few of us seem to grasp the concept adequately. :D
 
This guy was flat out wrong in the way he acted. The city was negligent in that nobody knew about the passwords or had documentation. But I have to agree with some of the prior posts. The network was not his and not even the job was his. The city pays him for his skills. If he does not like it, he has the choice and right to quit. I had done so under similar conditions. Two week notice in hand signed and ready to deliver. They decided to change management instead, and my position became much better. I never considered holding any hostile intent. It's their network. If I had quit, I'd give them every password there is, and let them wreck it on their own. And we do keep a master password file in the event I am hit by the bus.
 
Things like this bring out the liberals among us... thats for sure.

Government can do no wrong in their eyes. ... and of course... NOTHING is anybody's fault... unless the finger is being pointed at the government. Then they find someone to blame in a quick hurry!
 
orkan said:
Things like this bring out the liberals among us... thats for sure.

Government can do no wrong in their eyes. ... and of course... NOTHING is anybody's fault... unless the finger is being pointed at the government. Then they find someone to blame in a quick hurry!
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orkan, I think your take on Mr. Childs and his managers is spot on, but saying liberals believe a government can't do anything wrong is not true. I lean conservative so there's not bias here but your statement shows you don't know the first thing about politics. Just ask Dennis Kucinich.
 
Well I may not know anything about politics. I'll concede that point, because politics and politicians DISGUST ME.

... but I work with government at all levels on a daily/weekly basis, and that makes me more familiar than most.

If I ran my business like these governments (city, state, and federal) ran their business... I'd be OUT OF BUSINESS in 30 days.
 
Here's the deal as I see it. Say I work as an IT network admin and I'm the only person in my department that can actually administer the network as a whole and not break it. My job relies on it. Now, someone asks for the password to the network so they can change something in it when they feel so inclined and without my supervision, I'd say no. If ordered by upper management and I refuse I could be fired, forced to give up the passwords and when the dipshit that wanted the passwords in the first place borks the entire network get dragged through the mud and used as a scapegoat or I could outright refuse and try to bring the situation to light so that everyone would see that the network is intact, running and that after giving the passwords to a third party I can't be blamed for any breakage of the system later by said dipshit.

It's a no-win situation. On the one hand you stand the risk of being branded incompetent by the allegations of the guilty parties because you can't prove that the system ran fine when you handed the passwords over, it's your word against theirs and on the other you end up looking like some nutjob with delusions of grandeur even if you're just trying to cover your ass and keep the network running. Either way the results are the same, you're completely boned.
 
Rabid Badger said:
Am I the only one that is half-hoping the San Francisco network goes on the fritz tomorrow after these guys start messing with it?
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I am!

I know exactly how the Childs feels. I have a hard time giving passwords to companies IT staff that I've built the network for. The reason is usually "I just want to look around", so I give them Read Only access, then they get pissed because they can't change anything. It's not just government agencies, any company in general does this.

It eventually ends up in them mucking up the entire network. Then I have to come back and fix it. Not to mention charge them a boatload of money. It doesn't always happen that way, but it does most of the time.
 
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