Sysadmin has blocked access to the San Francisco city network

Once again, the question of how harmful it is to close the entire control of a large system to one person with exclusive powers.

The nightmare in which San Francisco municipal workers have lived for the past ten days is over. City authorities gained access to the FiberWAN city network, which contained hundreds of thousands of official documents. The system administrator Terry Childs, who blocked the network on July 13, handed the password personally to the mayor.

Terry Childs worked in the IT department of the municipality for five years and was not in good standing with the management, although his colleagues, who considered him highly skilled networking specialists, liked him. Childs was reprimanded for poor performance, and even wanted to be fired. Having learned about the plans of his superiors, the 43-year-old sysadmin took control of FiberWAN, banning access to all administrators except himself.

via lenta.ru

At the same time, of course, there is an alternative version of the incident, according to which Terry was the best, diligent and polite sysadmin. And the evil boss just decided to sneak off him, and for this purpose made him several indicative and unreasonable reprimands.
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However, in any case, in a new society, more and more dependent on computers and networks, the problem becomes when a person gains power over a large system, controlling a small part of it. And big names like “computer terrorism” are beginning to overgrow with very specific events.

And finally, I want to say. Citizens, employers, do not give exceptional authority in the hands of one person, no matter how great an expert he is. Even if he is loyal and quite satisfied with his work, remember that tomorrow he can easily get under the milk tanker along with all his knowledge and passwords. And please do not forget about the correct attitude towards the employee, including in the process of his dismissal.