Disgruntled SF City Tech Worker Takes Over City's Computer Network
from the those-disgruntled-workers dept
Every few years or so, we see a story about some disgruntled tech worker who has planted some sort of trojan in a computer network that lets him shut down or destroy the network. The latest just happens to be an employee from the city of San Francisco, and the computer system happens to be its new multi-million dollar system. Even though the guy is now sitting in jail, he's apparently refused to hand over the administrative password needed to regain control over the system. Right now, it appears that he's been able to lock other top administrators out of the system, and officials are afraid that he's actually opened up access to someone else (though that might just be fear mongering). As for what's on the system? "Officials' e-mails, city payroll files, confidential law enforcement documents and jail inmates' bookings" among other things. Just a reminder that while insiders may not be the biggest threat to computer networks, they can still be a threat.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: admin password, computer threats, disgruntled, hacking, insiders, san francisco
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Admin rights bitches!!!
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Secure all system and facility access points BEFORE you hand out the pink slip.
Hey, Bob! Guess what? You're fired. Why don't you spend a few hours of unsupervised access to our systems and data while you clean out your desk?
Dumb asses
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No shit Mikey
Say thanks to your politicians approving increased visa quotas for H1B slaves, your corporate CEOs hiring those poor slaves to live their "american dream" (5 of them in a SF 1-bedroom appt) and to your mass-media (like this shitty blog) crying about shortages of qualified tech folks in this country
There was a shortage at one time indeed - 10 years ago
Boy, was it a good time !
Unfortunately good times never last
Stay away from IT folks
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Re: No shit Mikey
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Re: No shit Mikey
Now, what was that patent you owned again? I'll promise not to laugh, again, when you attempt to tell us that we wouldn't understand it when it's clear we more than understand you, your internal workings and pretty much anything you could possibly dream up since it's very obvious that you can't come up with anything beyond simple vulgarity and trollish behavior.
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Re: No shit Mikey
I'm in IT, software development specifically, and things are great. Maybe you should spend some more time succeeding and less time complaining? There is nothing here for you to complain about. This is a news story, which is amusing to IT people. Move along.
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Re: Re: No shit Mikey
Your employer must be amazed when they actually get work out of you.
Please provide us with some more of your witty insight, it's almost dinner time and the nausea I experience from your posts is sure to curb my appetite. Whooo-hooo weight loss and bulimia here I come.
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Re: Re: Re: No shit Mikey
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Re: Re: No shit Mikey
???????????????
And I have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn
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Re: Re: No shit Mikey
Who have been replaced by idiots who generally cannot understand what I say, or read thier script in understandable English.
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secure access
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Read this earlier today
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Re: Read this earlier today
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Re:
Wait, what? Since when is locking someone out of their system the same as murdering someone? You need to calm down and think about that for a moment. If anything, this is more like a building manager being fired and taking all the keys with him. At this point, that's the level of maliciousness.
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Re: Do not hack the World.
that is the best quote of this whole thread. there should be street signs on every corner with that on it.
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No problem. I think it is highly amusing, but also very wrong on many levels. I would view this more as terrorism then I would murder though.
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Laugh my ass off
They probably just took him off of tree watch - and he didn't want to come down. HA!
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HIGH larious
Oh and this quote from the article: "City officials said late Monday that they had made some headway into cracking his pass codes and regaining access to the system." Really? Some headway? It is either cracked or not. LOL
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He's a trrurist!
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You don't work in the bay area as an IT guy with that pay :D
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Re: One thing wrong
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I don't see his salary as out of line for a senior techie with 10-15 year experience and living in a major metro area.
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It usually means they wanted to downsize without having to pay unemployment compensation so they needed some pretext for firing him.
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Lack of access
And, no, I didn't bother to read all the replies, if this has already been addressed.
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Re: Lack of access
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Waterboard him!
Drown him! He's a witch! Drown him! DROWN HIM!
Until he talks! And then drown him some more! He's a witch!
He's a witch! Drown him!
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wow can't believe what i'm reading
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proof...
Not the guy who did this, but the other admins who, with physical access to the machines, can't get in.
So root access is disabled - these machines only have one drive? No reset on the network?
Any halfway competent admin could get into a machine in less than 10 minutes, given physical access.
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Re: proof...
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Hmmmm?
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RE: Lack of access
I think all the other admins have banded together to make the city sweat for a while. A couple of days from now, they'll come up with an "unconventional solution" and look like heroes. Then they'll be asking for their own raises without getting arrested :)
Actually the more I think about it, I think it's a conspiracy, they probably set this guy up ;)
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Seriously??? I mean...REALLY?!?!?!
Yeah...Either the other admins are playing dumb...or they just plain ARE DUMB.
Hey San Francisco...Pay me...I'll fix this for you. :-)
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Re: Seriously??? I mean...REALLY?!?!?!
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Re: Re: Seriously??? I mean...REALLY?!?!?!
Hey San Fran Pay me!!
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Re: Re: Seriously??? I mean...REALLY?!?!?!
..A
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All Your Shit Is Belong To Us!
San Francisco = pwn3d
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Not the best choice for the tech worker
In fantasyland, where the consequences for gridlocking a major metropolitan area's system are getting your account deleted, what he did is funny. IN the real world, where his life is essentially over (since nobody will ever hire him for tech ever again and the next time he sees daylight will be 2028) what he did is stupid.
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Re: Not the best choice for the tech worker
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'poor performance' in Government Real Life
He probably spent 30 minutes a day doing what was required to perform his actual job and the other 7.5 hours browsing the internet or playing games, some 'manager' who actually has to sit around doing nothing for his full 8 hours got upset and decided that he couldn't possibly be doing his job if he had so much 'free' time.
Or, the manager's nephew/son/relative just graduated from College with a bachelors in Computer Science and the manager decided that they would be a better System Admin than this individual. Since it is almost impossible to fire a civil servant without documentation showing that they are not performing adequately in their position, the first step in getting rid of people is handing out performance reviews showing 'poor performance', even it it's not true (truth doesn't matter to government, only the fact that it's documented) they can then document additional minor issues related to the 'poor performance' and eventually build up enough paperwork to actually fire the individual (if the individual doesn't leave as soon as they are given their review of 'poor performance', since they know it is a load of carp and can usually see where things are going).
Yeah I'm a cynical SOB, but I've seen enough to know that government doesn't work like the 'real world'.
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Re: 'poor performance' in Government Real Life
You correct about the inter-policial workings of Government though. Just being protective can be construed as being difficult. Bruise an ego, make an enemy, that's government.
..a
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The Next World Dictator ..
The next world dictator will be a Network Administrator!
Bill Wilkins
Melted Metal Web Radio
www.meltedmetal.com
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Reality stranger than fiction
If a city is in effect managed from a central location and there are insufficient access controls in place, how easy is it to hijack a whole city? Pretty simple in reality.
Fortunately San Fransisco is not Brussels as portrayed in my fiction novel. Roadworks starts with a similar premise but the IT infrastructure controls all transportation and the city is soon brought to a complete standstill while terrorist have the leasure of demanding whatever they want, in the case of Roadworks it's humanitarian aid to Africa.
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re: Terry Childs
The report that he "forgot" the passwords is completely erroneous. The passwords have been reported to have been provided to the police, but the police were unable to login. Any Cisco admin could tell you why the police could not login, but thats another story.
I have read no where except here, that Terry Childs was disgruntled. I have read that he was arrogant, defensive and protective of the network, but this comes as no surprise to network admins that have had to deal with the incompetence of both managers and peers.
Without a doubt, Terry is being railroaded by the city administration for providing a network that even today the city touts is business as usual.
Now, a Fibre/Wan administrator, does NOT run the mail servers, or data servers. They route the network traffic that these systems use. This is very different because it is in a network layer beyond the normal tcp/udp layer of traffic. These are the actual routes the network uses and are configured at the routers.
I have read nowhere that Terry actually locked out a mail server, or data server. I read that he locked out others from tampering with the network.
Some of these comments are blatantly written by people with a lot of opinion, but no real clue. There are NO backup tapes on routers. Terry Childs was the core network admin for at least the last 5 years, and all of the peer departments were aware that certain configuration changes required him to complete personally. Often there are NO personalized usernames on routers. So he wouldn't have an account you could lock out. Please read a cisco manual before you make such idiotic statements.
I believe this is going to be an uphill battle for Terry to help the judge understand the difference between someones local server, a remote linux box and what a real Fibre/Wan administrator does. Just reading these comments here shows me that all too often people will jump to the wrong conclusion based on bad information rather than doing just a little research themselves. (There was no single system he locked the city administrators out of ..its the core network routers which CAN be reset with trivial ease if you have physical access to them)
Sigh..Adam
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