SAN FRANCISCO – Terry Childs envisioned the ultimate revenge on his bosses, prosecutors claim – the meltdown of the city's computer network at the flick of a switch.
And it would come not directly at the hands of Childs, but during routine system maintenance at the building that houses the city's technology department.
The alleged plot was discovered before the computer network that handles law enforcement documents, payroll records, officials' e-mail and other sensitive city records was shut down for scheduled maintenance last weekend, an action that would have vaporized numerous files because of a booby trap Childs had installed, prosecutors said in court documents filed this week.
Childs, 43, has been jailed since July 13 on four felony counts of computer tampering after he allegedly locked his bosses at the technology department out of the system and refused to hand over the password he had created.
In arguing against a defense request to lower his $5 million bail, prosecutors said Childs had set up more than 1,000 computer modems in locked cabinets and other hiding places, including at least one in a room at the Hall of Justice that police didn't know existed, to tinker with the system without his bosses knowing it.
Childs didn't hand over the access codes to the computer system until a jailhouse meeting with Mayor Gavin Newsom on Monday, two days after the network was to have been taken down for the routine maintenance.
“He had a malicious intent to destroy the entire network,” prosecutor Conrad del Rosario said.
Childs' lawyer, Erin Crane, called the allegation “spurious” and said Childs is the victim of bosses who resent his expertise.
“When they couldn't get rid of him,” they created a false image of a “rogue employee” out to terrorize the city, Crane said.
According to prosecutors' court filing, Childs' actions first came to authorities' attention the evening of June 20 when the city's new chief of network security, Jeana Pieralde, conducted an audit of the FiberWAN network.
His bosses already were worried Childs was being increasingly hostile toward supervisors and had taken over a room and installed a bank of computers, prosecutors said. They didn't know exactly what he was doing.
Childs was upset no one had told him of the audit and he used his cell phone to photograph Pieralde. Frightened, she locked herself in an office and later reported the incident to police.
Crane said Childs was angry Pieralde was “(going) through his things” and had photographed her because she was taking away a device that didn't belong to her.
A supervisor in the technology department, Rich Robinson, also filed a police report about the incident and quoted Childs as saying, “I'm ready for you, Rich.”
Childs denies threatening anyone, Crane said.
On July 9, after supplying his bosses with passwords to the system that turned out to be false, Childs was suspended.
The following week, with system administrators locked out of their network and Childs sitting in jail, a consultant advising the city discovered Childs had rigged the network so files would be erased if someone tried to figure out what the proper password was, prosecutors said.
Childs had created an ability to track anyone who tried to get into the system, kept his e-mail server and had been using the modems locked in storage cabinets to create a private network, prosecutors said.
On Monday, when Childs supplied three user names and an access code to Newsom, officials learned they could use them to get onto the system only at a computer in a room at the Hall of Justice that even police technology experts didn't know about.
Investigators said they continue to be concerned about the modems hidden away in locked filing cabinets in public buildings around the city. The consultant, Anthony Maupin, told prosecutors that city officials estimate there are 1,100 such modems. Childs could still gain access to the network through any of them and create more mischief, prosecutors say.
