The network admin who froze up San Francisco City's
network has had most of the hacking charges against him dropped. A judge has dismissed most of the charges against a
former San Francisco network administrator accused of hijacking the city's
computer network he designed and maintained.
Terry Childs was convinced he was about to be fired “for
poor performance” so he wired up the network so that no one could use it without
his password. Police locked him up and the network slowly went dark
until the Mayor approached Childs in his cell to ask for the password. Childs faced three charges of tampering with the network
and a lone charge of denying city authorities access to the network.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Kevin McCarthy on
Friday tossed three tampering charges. The case is starting to look like the courts are
beginning to believe Child's arguments. His case was that he only wired up the
network in such a way to prevent people he thought were idiots from firing him
and stuffing up his work. He was also accused of electronically spying on his
supervisors and their attempt to fire him.
Childs' attorney has claimed that there was no destructive
intent and that Childs was merely protecting the network from incompetent city
officials who were trying to force him out of his job.