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San Francisco's Wireless Network Held Hostage by Disgruntled IT Technician

By: Justin Bourne

Posted: 07/18/2008

SAN FRANCISCO - IT Technician Terry Childs, 43, manufactured a master password this week to lock out everyone within the city's FiberWAN network after he was unceremoniously asked to leave his network administrator position for poor performance and insubordination.

Payroll files, emails and prison records are all housed within the system and authorities fear the irate IT man may have turned his clandestine code over to a third party.

Childs, a convicted felon, was employed by the city for five years and is still drawing his $127,000 a year salary.

Upon his most recent incarceration, Childs offered authorities a fake password and has yet to disclose the actual code. Childs faces seven years in jail for four counts of computer tampering, and was back in court yesterday. Currently Silicon Valley engineers are endeavoring to crack the illicit code.