The former network administrator was convicted of “hacking” the network because he would not turn over the administrative passwords when he left an employer. He’s being made a scapegoat IMHO. What of the incompetent supervisors who did not require him to document his work and why was one guy in charge of all that with no backup? What if he had been run over by a bus? Would the city have sued his estate? Nope. What’s the difference? He did turn over the passwords eventually and no harm was done except panic caused the city to spend $900 K in 12 days to recover control of the system. How did they manage to spend that much money if all that was required was a password? Now they want to send him the bill.
The moral of the story? Don’t ever work for San Francisco as a system administrator. I have managed a lot of networks and I have always left the passwords with my boss on the way out. What they do with them is their problem. So he was a twit. Is that worth four years in jail? Why did they have to keep him in jail for a couple of years during the trial? It seems to me the punishment does not fit the crime. Otherwise half the population would be behind bars.
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“He’s being made a scapegoat IMHO”
Not at all, Robert. He is being made into a horrible example of what can happen if you don’t toe the line. He must have been one of those Unix or Linux admins. He passed up an offer that he could not refuse, i.e. “Gimme the passwords or your life!”. Maybe he thought they were bluffing or that he had some right to refuse, saying his boss was not qualified to posess the passwords.
I find that a lot of IT weenies are cut from the same cloth and bask in the power that they think they have over others. It is likely that when he gets out of stir, he is never again going to be given such a position. That is a fitting end for him.
Warning: Stupid car analogy this way comes.
Thirty years after the first production automobiles were introduced, the system for managing traffic, servicing and management was well in place. Not so with computers. Why, oh why are people so stupid when it comes to computers. Is it that they hand their brain over to the computer because “computers are so smart”?
I hope Mr. Childs will find support of some kind with his predicament. There were unstated, hidden liabilities in his job description. I suspect many system administrators are also subject to similar liabilities.
We’ll never know the whole story even if he writes a book/makes a movie to pay his way out of the hole.
There are good bosses/bad bosses and good organizations/bad organizations. It’s hard to tell them apart during an interview. You are really up the creek when you have a bad boss and a bad organization. I have been in places where things were half good and one can survive by gritting teeth. Bad/bad is a no-win situation. It puzzles me that folk want their car, plumbing and heating to work smoothly but they create workplaces that breed despair. I think it has something to do with group-think. If it seems like a good idea at the time the mob can go with it no matter how disastrous things become later and decisions cannot be undone until the wheels fall off.