

Terry Childs Found Guilty In SF Computer Tampering Trial - UmYeah
http://www.ktvu.com/news/23283217/detail.html

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ghshephard
Actually, a reasonable article. Particularly the followup with a juror who was
a Network Engineer (Chilton). I like the following statement:

"Chilton, however, said Childs' supervisors at the Department of Technology
were also to blame. He said they "did everything wrong that they possibly
could," citing "ineffective management and no formalized policies and
procedures" for dealing with employees in such situations."

As one who manages a fairly large team of Network Engineers, I find it hard to
believe how painfully absent the city's management must have been to let
things go as far as they did. Clearly the city wasn't using two-factor
authentication, vaulted enable passwords, or nightly backed up configs (Rancid
or role your own) - all of which are pretty bog standard network-manager
checklists.

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tptacek
Terry Childs sounds mentally ill. Was that raised in the trial?

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madair
What a mentally ill conclusion to jump to. If this opinion is founded on news
and blogs, its _not founded on very much at all_.

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pyre
I can't quite grasp the message that you're trying to send here. Is this
supposed to be a jab at 'the media?' Or is this supposed to be some sort of
pro-mental-health message?

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madair
Doesn't it seem mean-spirited for a well known individual to jump to a
conclusion in a public forum that a person suffers from mental illness due to
their behavior, all descriptions of which likely only comes from blogs and
newspapers?

And no, this is not a jab at the media. Not sure if you've ever been the
subject of media coverage, but I can tell you from personal experience that
it's enlightening to discover how little of reality is represented in the
news. It's just a fact of life.

~~~
fname
_Doesn't it seem mean-spirited for a well known individual to jump to a
conclusion in a public forum that a person suffers from mental illness due to
their behavior, all descriptions of which likely only comes from blogs and
newspapers?_

Without knowing the person in question, what else is there to go off of beyond
news and blogs? Seems to me he was stating his opinion based off those sources
and I came to the same conclusion.

~~~
madair
And that's the point.

The limited information mostly points to a person under extreme duress and
clearly offended by his management. How is it not a personal attack to
conjecture in public about mental illness? Because it's apparently unintended
as a personal attack? Hmmm, I'll just swing this club around in a crowded
room, hope I don't _accidentally_ hit someone.

In these circumstances questioning mental stability essentially questions a
persons entire ability to reason and reasonably rationalize.

Is it that under duress and in a perfect storm of personality conflict,
someone must be mentally ill to break down or behave in a way that appears
irrational? I guess it could be, and damn, if someone doesn't agree with me,
that's a pretty good sign too ;-)

