[126085] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Terry Childs conviction
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (James Hess)
Thu Apr 29 21:49:55 2010
In-Reply-To: <9120.1272586508@localhost>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:49:18 -0500
From: James Hess <mysidia@gmail.com>
To: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 7:15 PM, <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu> wrote:
> So if you want to make an analogy, it's more like taking the keys away fr=
om
> a drunk so they can't drive. =A0Good luck finding a DA who will indict yo=
u for
> grand theft auto for taking the keys to prevent a DWI.
According to news reports in this case it was not a charge of theft,
but a charge of criminal Denial of Service. The service denied
being the ability to administer their network devices by their
authorized admins: in this case that Childs had been ordered by
people with management authority over him on various occasions to
provide some access to equipment they owned, and he had refused on
all occasions, or deceived them by intentionally providing
incomplete or useless access details.
It was well within management's authority to demand this, and not in
violation of any laws (not equivalent to DWI).
It may be of concern to some individuals, but the operational impact
to well-managed networks should be zero. Make sure the collective
management of the organization that owns the network has a means of
directly conveying full access at all times to any user they
authorize, that is provided on demand, or that there is a clear
password policy that ensures that administration cannot be denied
to authorized users ?
"Theft" of keys does not equal theft of vehicle, and restraining
someone who is not acting rationally and is intent upon committing a
crime, directly endangering lives, is completely different
Courts might take a much more dim view towards a valet/driver
re-assigned to a different job refusing to surrender the keys to the
owner's new valet, out of fear the vehicle might get treated in a way
they considered poor or reckless.
--
-J
