I'm one of the few confused by the tone
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| flufferbeer Jan 19, 2011 2:06 AM EDT |
@tuxchick and your many supporters reading this Is this a satire AGAINST those managers? Against the suit-and-tie corporate systems and their M$ BSA backers ingrained in IT? A defense FOR SysAdmins possibly going awry like Terry Childs? Overall, What is the exact purpose of this rant, What prompted the writing of this, and How does this all relate to Linux and FOSS? You've lost me on this. Maybe everyone else just gets it; I don't. 2c |
| dinotrac Jan 19, 2011 7:44 AM EDT |
Seriously?
It's really pretty clear. Get a good cup of joe, and re-read with eyes wide open. You'll see: Quoting: I suppose it's appropriate for an audience of managers who want cheerleading for bad management more than good information. Quoting: This was a Fortune 500 company. Which apparently means they're too incompetent to figure out a way to soften the blow Quoting: This myth of the anti-social difficult geek is just that-- a myth. Quoting: I am tired of worker bees taking the hits for crummy management. |
| flufferbeer Jan 19, 2011 12:17 PM EDT |
@dinotrac
I see that it's not that clear to you too.
Seems to me that tuxchick's case study with Terry Childs kinda came out as trying to excuse the excusable ( or NOT! ) actions as SysdAmin out in StFranCisco. Your selective quote asserting that anti-social geeks being a myth is just that, supports that other possible reason for the rant, I suppose. Again, Overall, What is the exact purpose of this rant, What prompted the writing of this, and How does this all relate to Linux and FOSS? Maybe another person reading tuxchick's rant is ALSO not privy to this too. Time for the next person to better try clearing up this mess of questions.... even better, the omniscient author herself :) Thanks -fb |
| jdixon Jan 19, 2011 12:41 PM EDT |
> What prompted the writing of this, Have you read the article she was responding to? |
| dinotrac Jan 19, 2011 12:42 PM EDT |
@fluffer - Nothing in TC's piece comes comes remotely near excusing Terry Childs. I am thoroughly perplexed as to how you could read her entire piece and come to that conclusion. Question: Where are you from? Is this potentially a problem of local idioms, English as a second language or some such thing? |
| phsolide Jan 19, 2011 12:50 PM EDT |
All I can say is "Get your tinfoil hats back on! Those ComputerWorld Folks are stealing my thoughts, and they're probably stealing yours, too!" See, I'm trying to write the next big Dan Brown-style techno-thriller. And they just stole my plot! The first 4 paragraphs of the ComputerWorld article summarizes most of my plot! How did they get it, when I haven't even written it down? Easy: they're STEALING MY THOUGHTS! Where's my tinfoil hat!?! |
| dinotrac Jan 19, 2011 1:03 PM EDT |
@phsolide - I apologize for stealing your tinfoil hat, but I was in a bind. You see, I needed to make dinner, and I had promised my family french-style chicken in a pot, using a very nice recipe from America's Test Kitchen. All went well until time to shove the whole thing into the oven. Here's the problem: To ensure that all of the moisture stays inside the cast iron Dutch Oven, you place a piece of foil between the body and the top. We were out of foil and you're hat was just sitting there. FWIW: dinner was very tasty. |
| gus3 Jan 19, 2011 1:20 PM EDT |
I will argue in defense of Terry Childs. His bosses were totally incompetent, and demonstrated it during the trial by submitting in open, unsealed evidence the entire list of usernames and passwords on the system in question. The net result was that the system had to be brought down for multiple days, while the new admins re-established secure authentications. The system came down as an indirect result of the actions, not of Terry Childs, but of his accusers. He held them in contempt, and they demonstrated during the trial why they were worthy of it. "I am John Galt": http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/read.cgi?id=20100806&ti... |
| tuxchick Jan 19, 2011 1:33 PM EDT |
flufferbeer, I was aiming for angry and snarky, with bits of sarcasm. The article I responded to was all fearmongering about evil scary geeks, and how being more punitive and restrictive is how to keep those nasty little troublemakers in line. I have read reams of material on the Childs case, including some of the trial transcripts, and I cannot see anything that makes his actions criminal, and certainly not deserving of four years in prison. I have special contempt for anyone who thinks that throwing a person in prison is not a big deal, or that criminalizing anything they don't understand is acceptable. And for managers who rather would ruin a man's life than admit they messed up. The other examples of Evil Rogue Admins demonstrated more management incompetence than good rationales for treating employees like dirt. |
| dinotrac Jan 19, 2011 1:35 PM EDT |
@gus3 -- The fact that is bosses were incompetent schmucks, and, by the evidence, liars -- as were the prosecutors --- does not excuse Childs. He did bad things. He may not have deserved what he got -- a sentence based on trumped up charges and outright lies, but he was a bad (not to mention stupid) actor. Riddle me this, Batman: what person with more than 3 IQ points makes an issue of himself with his employer who happens to be a government agency with ample access to police authority when he has fellow workers' id badges, ids and passwords at his home? |
| skelband Jan 19, 2011 4:42 PM EDT |
Does anyone have a good precis of the Terry Childs case?
I couldn't find a good summary on the web at large. As with a lot of these cases, if you read around the media, most articles seem incomplete and contradictory. I'm pretty much interested in finding out specifically what he was indicted for. |
| dinotrac Jan 19, 2011 4:51 PM EDT |
@skelband --
This one's not too bad: http://www.cio.com.au/article/255165/sorting_facts_terry_chi... |
| gus3 Jan 19, 2011 5:41 PM EDT |
Quoting:what person with more than 3 IQ points makes an issue of himself with his employer who happens to be a government agency with ample access to police authority when he has fellow workers' id badges, ids and passwords at his home?Being a jerk, however reprehensible that may be, is not a crime. Insubordination is not a crime; its only legal remedy is termination of employment. San Francisco just needed a scapegoat for their poor oversight. They took out their frustrations on Terry Childs. He exposed their incompetence, and that can never go unpunished. Publicizing usernames and passwords to a government-owned system, is a crime. So why did nobody charge Childs's superiors with compromising the security of government-owned property? |
| dinotrac Jan 19, 2011 5:49 PM EDT |
@gus3 -- I didn't say it was a crime. I said he was a bad actor and stupid besides. He deserved to get fired, not jailed. |
| skelband Jan 19, 2011 7:20 PM EDT |
@dinotrac - thanks What a very sad story. There are two issues that I glean from it. 1) Childs became obviously obsessed about his system to the point of paranoia. He may or may not have been justified but I have met administrators like this and they do become corrupted and blinded by their responsibilities that they do not see the bigger picture. As an educated man he should have foreseen the risk to the city by their sole reliance on him. He apparently did not, or didn't feel able to do anything about it. 2) The way the city reacted to the situation was bizarre. Having escalated a delicate situation to the level to which it got, it beggars belief that it would go into a court obviously wanting to nail this guy with a venom out of proportion with what actually went on. What I can't fathom though was what motivated the actions in court. All they need to do was sack him and sue him for the passwords. What on earth was all that other stuff about? My spider sense detects a big city ego driving that process. |
| dinotrac Jan 19, 2011 7:28 PM EDT |
@skelband -- Correction: Big city ego coupled with a tiny city mind. |
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