Katie Worth, The Examiner
2008-07-29 16:21:28.0
Current rank: Not ranked

SAN FRANCISCO -

Despite Terry Childs’ alleged hijacking of The City’s central network, which has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to resolve, it could take more than a year to fire him.

Though city officials would not comment specifically on the Childs case because it is a personnel matter, Matt Dorsey, spokesman for the City Attorney, said he “would not dispute” that it could take longer than a year to discharge him.

Meanwhile, the Recreation and Park Department — one of two city departments that remained locked out of their network after the rest of the system opened up — finally resolved the problem Monday and determined the lockout had nothing to do with Childs, Rec and Park spokesman Elton Pon said.

Childs, 43, was arrested July 12 after he refused to turn over the codes to The City’s central network, which he helped create. Prosecutors allege Childs had plotted to bring city services to a grinding halt by destroying its network, while the defense has argued Childs is a capable and ethical worker who was protecting the system from incompetent managers.

More than a week later, Childs surrendered the passwords in a secret jailhouse meeting with Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The City’s network continued uninterrupted despite Childs’ alleged tampering, but administrators would have been unable to access it to adjust anything or fix any problems had they arisen. Cisco engineers were contracted, and about two dozen city workers logged overtime hours to try to crack the codes.

Though the Department of Technology has regained control over the central network, a small firestorm erupted on the blogosphere during the weekend when it was discovered the District Attorney’s Office had attached a list of city employees’ usernames and passwords to a document it submitted to the court in the case.

Erica Derryck, spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office, said the office did not realize the codes listed were still functional at the time.

Since then, she said, all of the codes have been changed and, as an extra precautionary measure, the usernames and passwords have been redacted from the court file.

kworth@sfexaminer.com