If there is one thing to be learned from Mr. Terry Childs, a talented network engineer who was jailed due to computer tampering, you better be careful at who you choose to have administrative rights as far as network access and security is concerned. Apparently for some reason, Mr. Childs has refused to turn over the administrative passwords for the larger part of the San Francisco Department of Technology FiberWAN.
A petty issue with a run-in that he had with his agency had was said to be the cause of it all. But while that may sound off-topic, he has been tagged as becoming unstable and apparently this has lead to his being charged with four felony counts of computer tampering. The bail was set at $5 million dollars which most people including his lawyer said was crazy.
Let this be a lesson that the power of technology, once it goes to the wrong hands, may be entirely catastrophic. While technology breakthroughs are something to look up to, it remains that the people behind them have to be likewise trusted. Better yet, it would be best to have the technology guy and an authorized executive have access to make sure that nothing of this nature would occur as well.
Childs was said to be maniacal at the start so you have to wonder, why did you entrust the guy with the passwords and rights to the network security? Surely this was already a problem at the start and now that it has escalated towards paralyzing most of the operations only one man who is obviously psychologically disturbed holds the key to it. No wonder the bail was set at such a crazy amount of $5 Million!