Disgruntled Engineer Hijacks San Francisco's Computer System 1082
ceswiedler writes "A disgruntled software engineer has hijacked San Francisco's new multimillion-dollar municipal computer system. When the Department of Technology tried to fire him, he disabled all administrative passwords other than his own. He was taken into custody but has so far refused to provide the password, and the department has yet to regain admin access on their own. They're worried that he or an associate might be able to destroy hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents, including emails, payroll information, and law enforcement documents."
This is why... (Score:5, Insightful)
...you disable his account *before* you tell him he's fired.
Re:Backups? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just hack *his* hack (Score:2, Insightful)
With the correct knowledge, it should not be too difficult to get back door access to their system again.
This seems to be more of a PR excercise on making an example (as they should) of this guy.
More and more reasons why people like us should have a recognised code of ethics.
Countdown... (Score:5, Insightful)
Idiotic new law in 5...4...3...
Tried to fire him? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Childs has worked for the city for about five years. One official with knowledge of the case said he had been disciplined on the job in recent months for poor performance and that his supervisors had tried to fire him."
How the hell do you "Try to fire" someone .. either you do it or you don't.
(And please .. no Yoda BS. If you go back and look at when Yoda was first introduced as a character he didn't do that cutesy backwards sentence construction. That came later. So I put it in the realm of Jar Jar - obnoxious character development)
Re:I had a dream... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, not all of us do. Especially those of us who don't do things that get ourselves fired.
Welcome to Information Terrorism (Score:1, Insightful)
Such a thing is incredibly easy to do, and frankly, I am shocked it does not happen more often. Truth is, most jobs, utilities, or companies operate a fine line between working, and being brought down. Imagine, if you will, a guy having his car towed due to a paperwork error, then the towing company charging him for the inconvenience. If he snapped, walked in and went all "Falling Down" on the place, who would be the victim in the situation?
To me it looks as if the city either was wrong about the firing, or dead-on accurate on him needing to be let go, but sloppy in the execution. He would have snapped either way, they should be thankful he did not do more damage.
This is why the boss of any company needs to be technilogically savvy, and not just rely upon his subordinates.
Re:This is why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Frankly (Score:5, Insightful)
what a selfish asshole (Score:4, Insightful)
ok, you're mad at your employer, perhaps there reasons for firing you are invalid
but taking it out on third parties, such as with locking up law enforcement documents that might decide the guilt of hardcore criminals: you're a selfish asshole for setting up that scenario
maybe you didn't deserve to be fired
but now you deserve to rot in jail for how you responded to your firing
Re:Just hack *his* hack (Score:5, Insightful)
If you need a recognized code of ethics to tell you that sabotaging your ex-employer's system isn't right, then no code of ethics can help you. Unfortunately this guy screws it up for all of the honest techs who work hard to earn the trust which they need for doing their jobs.
I smell a rat (Score:5, Insightful)
"At a news conference announcing Childs' arrest, District Attorney Kamala Harris was tightlipped about what his motive may have been."
I think there's more going on here than we're being told.
What no golden handshake... (Score:5, Insightful)
That director over there, he gets a golden handshake as he goes out the door... You want to keep him sweet because he knows where all your dirty secrets are and could cause all sorts of trouble for your operation.
The sysadmin, youre going to kick out the door becuase hes blue colar... Oh, wait a minute... He really does know where all your dirty secrets are and really can bring your operation to its knees. In fact hes far more dangerous going out the door than the exec... pity you didnt think of that.
Execs are heaved out the door all the time for being incompetent, but its done with kid gloves because theyre deemed to be potentially damaging... And they wear a suit.
Word of advice: if youre sacking somebody who can bring your operation to a grinding halt, make sure you you keep them sweet, regardless of the job they do for your organisation. Its simple business.
Re:Backups? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tried to fire him? (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey! Just because you hate Jar Jar doesn't mean you can take it out on Yoda man, that's just not cool. Besides, it's off topic, regardless of how close your phrase was to the dialog.
Does anyone know if he was Unionized? That would mean that the company 'tried' to fire him but didn't have the legal grounds and the Union backed him. Happens all the time.
Re:Frankly (Score:5, Insightful)
A reputation, based on people with a serious ideological axe to grind. Blind faith in the market producing magical efficiency gains is contrary to everything I have seen during my professional life, both in the public and private sector. From my perspective, I have never seen one bit of evidence to show there is any truth to it outside the imaginations of Tory politicians.
Furthermore, people like you who are so besotted with 'market forces' did attempt to introduce them to public services in the UK, and it has been an unmitigated disaster. The inability of internal prices to truly reflect the quality of services has resulted in huge waste, massive bureaucracy and a decline of standards. Now, the ideologues are at it again trying to push for a new round of 'targets' in the NHS. They never learn.
Re:Backups? (Score:3, Insightful)
Gruntled (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just hack *his* hack (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is why... (Score:4, Insightful)
Except a lot of times someone is fired they know that's it's coming. It's possible this guy had set this all up in the case he got fired, and then we he saw it was going to happen he put it into motion. Article even says they tried to fire him before and he created his super password as a security device to keep his job. Now I'm sure the real irony here is that if this guy probably actually did his job instead of all this mess he probably wouldn't have been fired. I mean, this is a guy that's going to be looking at pretty serious jail time, and probably a severe restriction on his rights when he gets out. I like my job, but not enough to do something that's going to land me in the pokey.
Re:Backups? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you sure it's a UNIX variant? I assumed it was big iron, and I am not sure those have cd-rom drive. What's more, if he choose a REALLY good password, brute force decrypt might take a *long* time...
They're coming down heavy on this guy... (Score:4, Insightful)
because
They're worried that he or an associate might be able to destroy hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents, including emails, payroll information, and law enforcement documents.
Yes - that's the reason.
Not because he showed up their complete incompetence and made them look like fools and now they want retribution. Protecting the public's right to privacy - yes, that's the reason.
Re:Countdown... (Score:2, Insightful)
Unlikely given that he's already committed multiple felonies worthy of setting bail at $5 million.
The make new laws when the guy they want to convict didn't break any serious existing ones (or they can't prove he did...), this case seems covered by the existing laws.
Re:Welcome to Information Terrorism (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I bow to his guts (Score:3, Insightful)
Responsibility is part of the sysadmins job. This concerns sensitive data and uptime of services. He failed.
Re:Tried to fire him? (Score:3, Insightful)
How to Fire an Incompetent Teacher [reason.com] (make sure you check out the PDF flowchart)
The Ten Worst Union-Protected Teachers [teachersunionexposed.com]
Re:Got to love damage assessments (Score:1, Insightful)
and if, because of his 'stunt', the lack of access to one of those
confidential law enforcement documents and jail inmates' bookings
allows a crime to be committed, what then?
Re:Just hack *his* hack (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think I've ever heard of a Live CD for MVS.
Re:Frankly (Score:5, Insightful)
In the scenario you descibre, the streets would become choked with dirty, unsafe buses and traffic would grind to a halt. This, in fact, happens.
Like so many market fundamentalists, you just can't see how easily your ideology falls flat on its face in the real world, or you would've seen the flaw in your own argument.
You are essentially laying all inefficiency at the feet of the 'state' - i.e. any actor that isn't an entrepreneur - and then using that as 'proof' that the entrepreneur is more efficient. This is what people smarter than you refer to as 'circular logic'.
Perhaps, when you've grown up, experienced the real world a bit and stopped reading Ayn Rands bullshit, you might get a clue.
Re:Got to love damage assessments (Score:4, Insightful)
You're quick to play the fear card, aren't you? Even considered a position in the Bush administration?
You can't use 'what ifs' to try and pin a more serious crime on someone. Its tyrannical, because essentially your 'what ifs' are subjective and thus you are using your own opinions to override the law.
Bizzare Sense of Entitlement (Score:1, Insightful)
Yet another "Engineer" with a bizzare sense of entitlement.
-No Ethics
-No Responsibility
-No Morals
Here it takes real training to become an "Engineer", it's not something any simple programmer or College dropout can do.
Charged with a crime like this? You will never work in "Engineering" again.
I'm not saying ethics and morals can be taught, but at least there is a direct reporting structure, and a board of ethics that can impost additional penalities, besides the obvious civil ones.
Revoke a simple programmer's license? yeah , right, in 1-2 years he can pull this stunt again, somewhere else.
Hint to you IT "Engineering folks", it's not "your" network, "your" PC or "your" data, it's the companies. Don't like the policy? GO work else where.
Re:I hear... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why yes, torture is only wrong when its done by some banana republic. Done right its the utmost expression of freedom, the american way of life and free speech.
Re:I had a dream... (Score:1, Insightful)
Professionalism would have been sending them an email. Changing files, no matter how unimportant, might even be illegal depending on your legal system.
Not on any Linux system (Score:3, Insightful)
> on any Linux system you can log in in init 1 (runlevel 1)
Anyone with even the slightest bit of security concern would put a restricted flag in the boot loader to prevent this sort of thing. The boot loader will then ask for the password to alter the boot command line. See RedHat docs [redhat.com] for a howto.
Re:ha (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, if we all had wings, we'd fly. Then reality sets in. Can't change the past.
I'm sure he was plenty stable until he became disgruntled, otherwise he wouldn't have ended up with the admin passwords, no?
Re:This is why... (Score:3, Insightful)
They clearly were correct in firing him (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who'd be an asshole like this, doesn't deserve to be in a position of responsibility. Anyone who would do something like this, regardless of the work situation, doesn't deserve a job that has that kind of responsibility. While your situation at work may suck, your boss may be an asshole, etc, etc this sort of thing is just unacceptable. Goes double when you are in the public sector and you will be screwing over people who have nothing at all to do with the situation.
Re:Frankly (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I'm sorry then, but it did sound like you were making an extreme market argument.
The idea of a middle ground between conflicting positions though is a position in itself. Its one that tends towards a maintainence of the status quo and can if over-applied stop a society making the changes it needs to in order to adapt and survive.
Re:Backups? (Score:5, Insightful)
That gets you into the operating system. Once you are there, what do you do? SQL databases can/should use passwords.
Web servers can/should use passwords.
Payroll systems MUST use passwords, with all data encrypted.
The above (and others) are where the problem lies, and no single user reboot will fix this.
Re:Frankly (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, if you'd come on over to the USA for a little while, you could have the pleasure of seeing it in the imaginations of our conservatives as well.
Not to say I haven't seen horribly inefficient and stupid government agencies on this side of the pond. But it seems to me that every time conservative politicians are let near a social program or government organization, we see something like the following:
[Senator] "This program doesn't work because it's inefficient! We need to hack away the fat!"
(attacks program with machete, leaving a mangled bloody corpse.)
[Senator] "See?!? It's still not working! Looks like we're just going to have to farm this out to my good buddy Ted."
[CEO] Hi. I just bought my third mansion and a private 20-seat jet with the massive reimbursement plan I just secured.
[Senator] Now that's what I call efficiency!
Wash, rinse, repeat.
TERRORISM?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Get fucked, asshole. The last thing this country needs is for butthurt pussies to define another ordinary crime as "terrorism" because they think a particular perp should be punished more "as an example" or because they're afraid.
This is not terrorism. It's an act of sabotage by one individual (who should undergo a psych eval) who should be prosecuted to the extent of the law, and to a lesser extent it's a failure of leadership for his bosses.
Re:Frankly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Backups? (Score:5, Insightful)
(windows systems too.. I mean it is a muni we're talking about..)
But yes.. physical access to a device trumps all. It's probably something like they only have -one- guy that knows what he's doing.. and he just went from being fired to Fed-pound-you-Penn
Re:I did it too, on a smaller scale (Score:1, Insightful)
We won't be asking you to come consult on any engagements. "Well, you sound competent and like you'd be a great team member for this project. Do you engage on /.? Yeah? What your nickname? DoctorFrog? Oh....." click.
Re:Tried to fire him? (Score:3, Insightful)
How can you "try" to fire somebody and fail?
You do it some place where there are rules that are there to prevent abuse. Of course, every rule that prevents some form of abuse probably enables another form of abuse.
For better or worse, not all forms of abuse are equal. Suppose the guy was a lousy employee; the rules that prevent political appointees from blackmailing political contributions and favor from government employees give bad employees the opportunity to cry "wolf". This mean that getting rid of bad employees is work and time consuming, which is bad. Is it as bad as letting politicians dictate who gets preferences for government services and contracts? Probably not.
Of course this means some bad employees lurk below the firing threhold for a long time. This isn't any different than the private sector, it's just that the rigamarole they can put you through means the threshold is a bit higher. Everybody carries employees they'd rather not have hired, but aren't worth the trouble of firing.
All this has nothing to do with the organization's failure to isolate the damage done by one untrustworthy employee.
Re:Got to love damage assessments (Score:3, Insightful)
He said "what if" and wanted a hypothetical answer, not 'he should get time because it might', which is what you imply he did.
Re:Got to love damage assessments (Score:2, Insightful)
Screwing with the computer systems that run city governments? That sort of thing could end up impacting emergency response, the payroll that goes to people that deal with murderers and rapists, and even the administrative requirements that have to be perfectly met while processing murderers and rapists. If you can't see how a city's information systems could directly or indirectly relate to life-altering, or financially ruinous turns of events for companies, individuals, victims, defendents, or a thousand other twists and turns - then you just aren't a big-picture sort of person. He went out of his way to deliberately prevent a city government from being able to do its job. It's not any different than a bomb threat in a court house, or torching a parking lot full of police cars.
Re:This is why... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I bow to his guts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I had a dream... (Score:5, Insightful)
.
or sued. or jailed.
or would rather not spend the remainder of our prime earning years shelving stock at WalMart or flipping burgers for McD.
Re:Backups? (Score:2, Insightful)
To any Stephenson fan, this sounds remarkably like certain points from The Big U.
As the avid reader will remember, fighting the Worm in an attempt to save the data was a losing proposition, a total wipe and reload was necessary to be sure of what software was actually there.
--The FNP
Re:What no golden handshake... (Score:2, Insightful)
The sysadmin has a computer network that knows no loyalties, keeps stringent records, and will happily spill the beans if someone thinks to check in on any skulduggery. He also knows damn well that he'll never work again if it comes out that he fucked his employer's network.
Unstable (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the 80's I had an analyst working for me that seemed to become more unstable as each day passed.
We had a big project that he was working on and making great progress but then he started feeling like the software he created was his and not the company's.
I talked it over with the regional VP as we did not have any reason to fire this guy but yet feeling more flaky with him all of the time.
Plus replacing him would set the project back months.
So I went in each evening (only lived a mile from the office) and made a backup of the files just in case.
The project was successful and in retrospect making the backups kept me sane and kept the pressure off of him that he would feel if I was nervous or watching him too closely.
It seems we attract those things we fear.
Dealing with brilliant but somewhat unstable (supposedly) individuals is a tricky balance and occasionally the situation can tip in the wrong direction.
Sounds like this case in SF tipped all the way.
Re:Backups? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Frankly (Score:2, Insightful)
If you spend enough (especially of someone else's) money you will eventually produce something.
Market forces breed the patience of a 5 year old with ADHD.
The reason everyone focuses on quarterly earnings is because the government requires quarterly reporting.
Re:Backups? (Score:5, Insightful)
Productivity? By a government agency?
This is not about productivity, it is about control.
Re:I bow to his guts (Score:3, Insightful)
It is not gutsy to do this. It is childish at best.
Gutsy and childish aren't mutually exclusive, you know.
Re:I had a dream... (Score:5, Insightful)
My temptation was excessively high. I got the shaft for no good reason, and I was told that either I'd resign or they'd sue me for some kind of breach of contract: they didn't want to have to pay my unemployment, so they made this threat...I can't even remember what it was about now, but I do remember that the PHB...
Oh wait, I remember, it was an Arcview [esri.com] application that had never gotten completed because the demographic data was hung up at the state level, and he kept calling it Arcserve [ca.com]. So yea, I'm sitting there listening to this fat idiot with the bad hairpiece threatening me with a breach of contract dealing with a Windows backup program which we didn't even sell.
What a moron.
Anyway the "contract" was a complete handshake agreement, no paper work, no actual project specs, nothing, and the ball was in the clients court anyway, and in my opinion, they had no real interest in it in the first place. Basically he was trying to force me out to isolate one of the partners (my actual boss), and he was a real asshole about it.
So I had a moment, when I realized I had basically unlimited access, where I was tempted. I'm not a fuckup like the guy in San Fran either; I could have set shit in motion that would never have been caught, and I knew the state their backups were in.
But I'm a professional, and while I never would have been caught, I wouldn't have felt like I could be trusted with the big systems, wouldn't have been able to sit in an interview and say that my personal integrity matters more to me than just about anything.
Re:I had a dream... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently, this is one of the more widespread fantasies employees at that place have.
Not to give anyone any ideas or anything....
I don't know what horrible abuses the workers telecom workers in parent's state suffer, but I'd rather be known as, "that guy who pwned our boxen after getting fired." than, "That guy who smeared poo all over the place after getting fired." ... Though being known as, " That guy who got a cushy job at Google or wherever." is far preferable to either.
please don't bring up that selfish bitch (Score:3, Insightful)
rand, the bitch who perfected the philosophy of selfishness
basic altruism trumps genius
every time
a solitary selfish genius is routed by a coordinated effort of retards working for the benefit of the group, every time
rand loses. her philosophy is inadequate to survive in this world
Re:Backups? (Score:5, Insightful)
Worst. Idea. Ever.
You should be ashamed of yourself, not proud.
I have an vaguely similar situation (Score:3, Insightful)
Box in the warehouse has a bios boot password. It is clearable, but there's a problem, the hard drives are 'locked' and are only unlocked by a code stored in the bios during later part of boot. And clearing the bios boot password also clears the lock code.
The guy who set it up drove his car through a red light and got his neck broken. He apparently didn't write down this password.
They ended up sending one set of the mirrored drives to a data recovery house.
Fortunately it was not mission critical, merely 'important' data.
So I'm sure it's doable to make the situation untenable 'on purpose'.
Privacy? (Score:1, Insightful)
And the government ASSURES us that they can gather all our data and keep it safe from compromise, misuse, or abuse.
Riiiiiiiiiiight.
Re:This is why... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't true for ALL state/government agencies, the problem is -
I used to work for the State (a very small state)
A friend of mine worked for the FDNY in their IT department, they knew what they were doing. It all depends on where you work and the quality of IT staff available for work in the area.
Re:Got to love damage assessments (Score:1, Insightful)
Betcha he'll be charged with a trumped up "terrorism" related offense.
And betcha more and more ordinary crimes fall under the terrorism category.
Comment removed (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Backups? (Score:3, Insightful)
All government policy wonks should take note of the inevitable reaction to stupidity.
Charming. (Score:3, Insightful)
Way to play into the hands of the beast. This stuff is set up exactly so that the ignorant can 'tip' past the critical threshold and become monsters.
If everybody thought like you, then we might as well be living under Saddam Hussein.
There are always better solutions than the ones which hot emotion dishes out as the fast and dirty answer. Just skimming the first few feet of posts, already half a dozen people have pointed out that with physical access to the system, it takes relatively little effort to crack a password.
Everybody I've met who I've had the chance to really discuss this with are usually only looking for an excuse to hurt people because they get off on it. There's a reason S&M is popular with some people, often in sexually repressed people, (i.e., Republicans). Torture NEVER truly has anything to do with the stated reasons. It's always about justifying the feeding of dark appetites, because in the dark recesses of the mind, it feels good to cause pain. This is what drives school yard bullies and psychopaths. Some people hide from this reality and do not admit it, others know it is true which gives them the choice to deliberately resonate on a different level and change into beings who are naturally repelled by the mere idea of torture, whereas others jump right in and become evil.
What do you want to become?
-FL
Re:Backups? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What no golden handshake... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sys admins are blue collar now? So what's the guy who digs ditches? No collar?
Re:Backups? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it just means you got lucky. Plenty of bad ideas work, that doesn't mean they're the best idea.
Re:Backups? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are being disingenuous at best. Are your roads in order, is the traffic calm and orderly? Do you have electricity in your home? Are you being raided by armed bandits? what about clean water, can you drink the water coming out of your faucet? What about the mail, is it being delivered?
Need I go on? You are suggesting local, state and federal government do nothing.
Re:Frankly (Score:3, Insightful)
Carefully Constructed Groupthink (Long) (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm intrigued by the carefully constructed character assassination that went into this article. I am disappointed others did not see how the information in this article was delivered in such a way as to shift all of the blame to the employee.
There is no doubt the employee did lots of wrong things that deserved dismissal. I am not arguing for his position at all.
Note carefully, that while the guy has the admin password, it's the source of the story that has shifted the blame entirely to the employee. By adding "we're afraid he's going to bring an IT Armageddon to the city of San Francisco!" to a very poorly managed situation, management is off the hook.
The story *should* be a cautionary tale. Where are the management procedures to prevent this kind of event? Don't ever discuss fragile IT systems, that are running mostly on blind faith. How about management's total incompetence in this episode?
Nope. Instead the blame conveniently shifts away from the OTHER responsible party in this story.
Let this be a cautionary tale for those with company IT "by the balls." Hopefully, you won't do some of the horrible things purportedly done by this fellow. You deserve to be fired if you make those kinds of bad choices.
Note how ridiculously easy it is for Management to publicly discredit you and bring your IT career to a swift end using anecdotal evidence. As this story so elegantly exemplifies, it is very common, and people would really do that to you and not lose a minute of sleep. You would have no forum with which to air your side of the story either...
My approach to bringing some balance to the situation is to make my IT role as transparent as possible. Which, means basically, lots of documentation.
Re:What no golden handshake... (Score:3, Insightful)
That director over there, he gets a golden handshake as he goes out the door... You want to keep him sweet because he knows where all your dirty secrets are
No, you keep him sweet because in a few years time he could be hiring you, or at least working with you directly - e.g. choosing to do business with your company rather than a competitor. That's extremely unlikely with someone at our level.
That, and the whole senior exec thing is one big old boy's club - why do you think so few of them are female?
Re:Backups? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Backups? (Score:2, Insightful)
He's either an authentic genius or a certified whacko.
And its usually hard to tell the difference.
Re:Backups? (Score:3, Insightful)
You should be ashamed of yourself, not proud.
Oh, boo hoo. I've made a binary patch to an executable we no longer had the compiler for and it worked fine. If you know what you're doing, it's perfectly safe. Thankfully in my case I just had to zero terminate a string early.
Modifying blobs in a database is only a problem if they're indexed. My guess is that no one would be foolish enough to build an index over a field full of executable code, much less figure out a way to use it.
Re:Backups? (Score:4, Insightful)
The roads where I live have ridiculous potholes - there's still an 8" deep one from when my parents moved into their current house 20-odd years ago. We get our electricity from a private (although admittedly regulated) utility. My neighbor's car was broken into last night, and a nearby town's water is unbreakable because of an E. Coli contamination.
But, I did get some mail yesterday! Is it the government that pre-approves me for all these amazing credit offers...?
Plan Ahead (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Backups? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Are your roads in order, is the traffic calm and orderly? Do you have electricity in your home? Are you being raided by armed bandits? what about clean water, can you drink the water coming out of your faucet? What about the mail, is it being delivered?"
I drive very little on the death traps I have for roads as I have a bicycle and a horse. Thanks to gas prices there is very little traffic anyway. As for electricity I generate my own and what little I get from outside I pay for. Armed bandits?? They lost and haven't had problems since. I have a well and water collection system and distill what I drink. The only mail I get is the odd bill and other garbage. I won't get into the waste of paying for other peoples brats to go to school/babysitter.
If you compare the level of taxes paid to the services received you'll find many of us, you know the public, are ripped off. I'm not saying government does nothing, just very damn little that's meaningful versus the money spent. They do plenty if you're talking about going in circles as slowly as possible. Just look our current troubles and you can see how well our tax dollars have been and are being spent.
Re:Backups? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's theory. In practice, you're talking power grid or water or mass transit or traffic lights or other very very essential things for a big city.
If YOU were on the spot to take such a decision, would you REALLY want to shut those down?
If so, can you give an estimate for how much time? You can't, 'cause you don't know what he's done to the thing. So, if it at least appears to be working well and you have no proof to say otherwise, would you really go ahead and pull the plug just for the sake of the theory, or wait some more, see how it goes? Maybe he'll cave in, actually he's quite likely to cave at some point and make a deal if he's not gone completely nuts.
LiveCDs don't work on domain accounts (Score:2, Insightful)
Something tells me that there is more to this (Score:3, Insightful)
Something tells me that there is more to this story.
People don't usually hold out like that after being arrested just because they don't want to lose their job.
My guess is that there is something politcal going on where there shouldn't be or shouldn't have been - he may be standing on principal.
Simplest solution for the future... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The perfect litmus test (Score:3, Insightful)
During World War II, the Allies allowed convoys to be attacked, ships sunk, people killed, in order not to reveal to the Germans that their codes had been broken. The TLAs would probably sacrifice all of San Francisco to keep their ability to crack AES keys a secret.
Did he really? (Score:3, Insightful)
I see a lot of claims that he did this. But all I see are claims.
- That he locked everybody else out.
- That he gave them a fake set of passwords.
- That he refuses to give them "the real one(s)".
And I don't see word one from him.
Is this what really happened?
I can imagine a number of scenarios where we'd see this external claim when, in fact, it's NOT what happened. For instance:
1) After firing the sysadmin they didn't like on the second attempt, management tries to change the passwords and fumbles it. They demand "the real passwords". He gives them what he has. It doesn't work. So:
a) They do a scapegoat operation on him to cover their own incompetence.
b) They're so incompetent that they don't even realize what happened, and honestly go after him for the crimes they believe he committed.
2) The system got pwn3d about the time they fired him. (Maybe just before, leading to the firing of the already-disliked employee. Maybe just after.)
And I could go on.
Now I have no reason to believe that he DIDN'T do it, either. (After all, it turns out Hans DID kill Nina...) But I see a government agency with a hung system doing a major smear job in the press, with lots of accusations and no details or evidence. And I see all the other posters taking as given that the accusations are true.
Let's reserve judgment until we hear what the evidence actually is, shall we? (If nothing else, they guy deserves a fair trial when it finally gets that far. It's going to be hard to find an uncontaminated jury at the rate things are going.)
Re:Backups? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are being disingenuous at worst. At best, you are ignoring copious known truths and years of data:
Need I go on? Or do you want some time to think up other areas of our lives where government has gone meddling with a promise of making things more reliable, fair, affordable and predictable?
There is a reason why I call Dominos for a pizza and not my local government. Government is an institution that protects the lazy employee and rewards those that never leave. The incentives are aligned with stagnation and waste. It is no wonder that we never see anything innovative, efficient and useful from our governments. The above poster wasn't claiming that government doesn't do anything, I believe the claim is that government doesn't do anything useful or efficient.
You have to create an environment of competition to weed out the crappy service. Roads, water, power, security are all examples where competition has been eradicated and government monopoly stagnates.
Re:ha (Score:3, Insightful)
This whole experience has shown me the benefits of a union
I've been in a situation similar to yours, and instead of pointing me towards union membership it pointed me towards only working for companies and people whom I respect and by whom I feel respected.