I haven't written much about the Terry Childs case recently, mainly because there's not much to tell. Childs is still in jail, his bail is still set at a ridiculous $5 million, and he still hasn't had his day in court. It's been nearly 18 months since his arrest for refusing to hand over administrative passwords to San Francisco's city network.
In that time, three of the four charges against him were dismissed, yet numerous motions for bail reduction have been denied, presumably because the judges are terrified of what they don't understand, and the DA is playing that up. Regardless of what you might think of Childs' culpability in this whole saga, I don't think there's anyone who could think that spending 18 months in a city jail without a trial is in any way a reasonable situation. Anyone involved in this case within the San Francisco city government and prosecutor's office should be deeply ashamed at how this case has (or hasn't) played out.
[ InfoWorld contributing editor Paul Venezia has led the way in reporting the bizarre case of Terry Childs. Consult our InfoWorld special report for a complete index of that coverage. ]
So what's the holdup? I wish I knew. It's probable that the DA has done no homework on the technical issues in play here and is instead more than willing to use the Frankenstein offense: It's different, so it must be killed. On the other hand, maybe the city did figure out just how ridiculous the whole scenario is but was too far down the line to pull back the reins and is continuing with the prosecution just to save face.
But almost guaranteed is the fact that the DA wants this to fade into obscurity and then get it over with. In the meantime, Terry Childs will spend yet another Christmas in jail.
But this Christmas may be different from the last -- opening statements in the case are set to begin on Monday, and reportedly Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, will be called as a witness. You may recall that Childs gave the passwords to Newsom shortly after being incarcerated. That will certainly be some interesting testimony.
If you've been following this case at all, you'll recall that in the summer of 2008, this blog was filled with speculation regarding public statements made by the city and the general lack of a technical foundation. It then proceeded to get worse, with some comments seemingly made up out of whole cloth, put forth by those who lacked even a basic level of understanding of the technical nature of the case. The "1,100 modems" comment certainly comes to mind. That's died down considerably, probably because they would've had to hire a fiction writer to keep up the initial pace.
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Download now »Thinking from the technical point of view one might hope this case shines the light on how security is not taken seriously and commonly and routinely misunderstood by upper level positions all the way to the city hall office but just like politics and the military, the person on the bottom of the food chain always receives the trap of injustice. It will take more that Mr. Childs to change the powerful chains of command that exist not only in city employment but private and military chain of commands.
Mr. Childs desperately needs a private law firm deeply versed in the technical aspects of engineering. All engineers will closely watch this case because the reality is that this could happen to anyone working in this industry anywhere in the world.
Finally the only fairytale hope for Mr. Childs is that he is dismissed of all charges and vindicated when he sues the city of san Francisco for more that 10 million and wins.
I do sincerely hope that Terry Childs becomes independently wealthy as a result of his mistreatment in San Francisco. What I am concerned about as this has unfolded is where is the State and Federal governments to protect Terry's rights? Where's the ACLU? The $5 million bail amount is grievously excessive and is in gross violation of Terry's 8th Amendment rights. Isn't someone out there concerned about this?
I too, am glad that someone is keeping tabs on this travesty.
As for the comment by TheBiggere, don't be so quick to judge. I am an admin and I have had the privilege of being brought up to date on a problem my team was never involved with AND being blamed for it all in the same meeting. We all have reason to worry, my friends.
My point is that there are really two issues here. Everyone seems to be considering them as one.
1. Authorization
2. Change management
It would appear that the person asking for the creds in this case did have the authorization to do so.
Whether the admin and/or you have a working change management process is a different question. Anyone who works in any area of IT makes significant decisions on a daily basis. Simple professionalism tells us that we need to document those changes such that when things go wrong, we have our a$$es covered. i.e. when someone comes into the room and blames you for taking down the corporate network, you pull out the email that documents their approval to do something that you recommended that they don't do.
I can't say that I'm closely familiar with the case in the article, but again, it seems here that the real issue wasn't addressed. The problem appears to be one where someone does have the authority to ask for the creds, but is not deemed to be of sufficient skillset to handle the keys to the kingdom. If this is the case, Mr. Childs should (and may indeed have) been pursuing that issue, not pissing everyone off by simply refusing to provide the creds.
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