IT Admin Locks up San Francisco's Network

[cato2]

IT Admin Locks up San Francisco's Network

A network administrator has locked up a multimillion dollar computer system for San Francisco that handles sensitive data and is refusing to give police the password, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday.

The employee, 43-year-old Terry Childs, was arrested Sunday. He gave some passwords to police, which did not work, and refused to reveal the real code, the paper reported.

The new FiberWAN (Wide Area Network) handles city payroll files, jail bookings, law enforcement documents and official e-mail for San Francisco. The network is functioning but administrators have little or no access.

Childs, who remains in custody, is accused of improperly tampering with computer systems and causing a denial of service, said Kamala Harris, San Francisco's district attorney, on Monday afternoon.

"The bail has been set at $5 million, and the exposure in this case if he were convicted on all counts would be seven years in prison," Harris said.

Harris said it's unknown why Childs tampered with the system. The Chronicle, however, reported that Childs was disciplined recently for poor performance. Childs worked in the Department of Technology for San Francisco, making close to US$150,000 a year, the paper reported.

City officials told the paper that Childs may have caused millions in damage while also rigging the network so that other third parties could monitor traffic, posing a huge data security risk. He is also alleged to have installed a tracing system to monitor communications related to his personnel case.

(Robert McMillan in San Francisco contributed to this report.)

Report: IT Admin Locks up San Francisco's Network (PC World) by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

[Anth]

Thats the problem with computer systems. Once you let someone admin a network, you have to keep them happy because you know they can bring your entire operation to its knees. Its not just in big systems like that, but can also happen on web forums. It would be extremely simple for me to bring down a site I help run and leave the admins unable to fix it, but I'm not that kind of person at this moment in time...

[Bluehawk]

Originally Posted by Anth

Thats the problem with computer systems. Once you let someone admin a network, you have to keep them happy because you know they can bring your entire operation to its knees. Its not just in big systems like that, but can also happen on web forums. It would be extremely simple for me to bring down a site I help run and leave the admins unable to fix it, but I'm not that kind of person at this moment in time...

Doesn't anyone other than me wonder why in the world such a thing is possible, given all the people and time spent thusfar on designing software and systems?

[cato2]

The premise is that keeping the access to the administrative side limited will protect it, also allows for abuse by the one left guarding it. There is a slim chance that the manufacturer has access to the hard frame. But this person sounds like he would have changed all access.

[Anth]

Its because you need people to run any system and those people have to know how to operate it. When you know how to operate it, you instinctively start looking for shortcuts and that leads to people working out how to modify the system for their own specific requirements, be they nice or not. The guy in the article modified the system he uses so others can look in, and he'll have worked it out in the way I've just mentioned.

To put it in another sense, look at Trackpads. In its basic form, Trackpads is standard forum software that can be used perfectly well in an unmodified form. However, not many people like the standard style so they've worked out how to make it look more appealing to their audience (eg the military theme here). The stock software doesn't have a gallery or blog system in it, so people have learnt how to modify the code to add that functionality to the point that the software developers have released their own blog system that uses features originally used in various "non official" versions.

It is human nature to want to improve things to suit our own requirements. If it wasn't we'd probably still be sat around as Neanderthals.

[cato2]

I understand what you are saying, having taken the certification from Cisco for CCNA.

I think you might find this book of interest.

Synopsis

Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name was "Hunter"—a mystery invader hiding inside a twisting electronic labyrinth, breaking into U.S. computer systems and stealing sensitive military and security information. Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own, spying on the spy—and plunged into an incredible international probe that finally gained the attention of top U.S. counterintelligence agents. The Cookoo's Egg is his wild and suspenseful true story—a year of deception, broken codes, satellites, missile bases, and the ultimate sting operation—and how one ingenious American trapped a spy ring paid in cash and cocaine, and reporting to the KGB.



Barnes*&*Noble.com - Books: The Cuckoo's Egg, by Cliff Stoll, Paperback, REVISED

[Bluehawk]

Naive question of the decade:

Since software and hardware has been developed to do all these amazing complicated things, then why on earth has nothing been devised so as to 100% prevent the kind of thing this thread is about?

Having a technological glitch (e.g. the phone lines going down, or a satellite failing, or a disc malfunctioning, or a hard drive burning up) is understandable and never 100% preventable. But, can we not do something about the craziness?