14 DAY TRIAL // Terry Childs, 44, the former network administrator who hijacked San Francisco's FiberWAN network last year, has recently seen a favorable turnover in his case when the judge tossed out three tampering charges. He remains accused of locking officials out of the city's critical network.
Back in July 2008, San Francisco authorities were put in a tough spot when they could no longer access their multimillion-dollar network called FiberWAN, which is used to carry as much as 60 percent of city data. The critical information passing daily through the network includes payroll files, jail booking documents and law enforcement records.
Then 43-years-old Terry Childs, who was working as a computer engineer with San Francisco's Department of Telecommunication and Information Services, was arrested for causing the lockdown and charged with four counts of computer tampering. The admin pleaded not guilty and his defense argued that his astounding performance made his co-workers look bad, which caused his superiors to try to get him fired.
Childs refused to hand over the master password to unlock the network, which he helped put together, for eight days, causing significant monetary losses to the city of San Francisco. Eventually, the disgruntled admin released the password to Mayor Gavin Newsom, who personally visited him in prison.
The authorities alleged that Childs set up three additional access points, possibly exposing the network to dangers. Additionally, they claimed that the former admin intentionally spied on his superiors and installed special software to alert him of changes to his personnel file. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, last Friday, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Kevin McCarthy dismissed those accusations, preserving only the charge of denying access to the network.
Terry Childs has been in jail since July last year and his bail is set at a staggering $5 million, five times more than the usual bail for murderers. The District Attorney's Office motivated the high bail by saying that Terry Childs is a flight risk, being arrested with $10,000 in possession. The former admin's attorneys claimed that he should receive copyright benefits for his work on setting up the network.