IceComet

Apparently the practice of keeping nerds locked up in dark cubicles all day long, typing away and dealing with stupid IT questions has had a bit of backlash recently in San Francisco, CA and such a practice may need revisiting. The fear is no longer crazy postal workers, but disgruntled IT employees hungry for power over their drones of servers pent on taking over the world…if they can only get so far.

The events have played out as would a major blockbuster hit, except in an unlikely turn of events, it was not the Pentagon that was taken hostage but rather the City of San Francisco.Everything about this case (now that the man charged of doing it is in custody) has seemed rather odd up until this point, but they just got a little bit more strange as more details are being released and official documents filed.

In an article published by InfoWorld, we learn that the man charged with the crime (Terry Childs) finally gave up the passwords after locking city staff out of a private city staff network for a lengthy period of time…Mr. Childs was apparently only  willing to give them up to San Francisco Mayor - Gavin Newsom, though they were later discovered on a computer in his home. Apparently Mr. Childs, too busy playing World of Warcraft, was not paying attention while watching I.T Department empowerment movies; many which feature countless attempts at world domination/war/destruction and chaos, the pent up desires of many a social recluse, instead hoping for reform of what he called (in his words) “departmental incompetence”.

Mr. Childs, now the pariah of the IT world, and is now facing criminal charges and exile among his “clan” of disgruntled I.T workers for what is now a failed attempt at seeking control ,and fighting back against colleagues who ask stupid questions all day.

In an act seemingly ripped from the literary pages of the likes of The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, Mr. Childs offered the passwords to SF Mayor Gavin Newsom in a secret jail house meeting emphasizing that he is the one person who is qualified to have them, due to incompetence in the cities IT department, much in the same way Dumbledore was the only person who could be trusted with the sorcerers passwords. Perhaps Mr. Childs will opt to plea insanity on the basis that Gollum was trying to steal something off of the VPN, thus the network must be locked down! (or destroyed).

At any rate, the article (and the developing story) is almost a must read, and is very interesting. It speaks volumes to the respect most have of Mayor Newsom, and definitely reiterates the need to eliminate some of the red tape likely plaguing the city - the reason for his charge of departmental incompetence.