By Thomas K. Pendergast
Prosecutors allege that a top engineer and administrator held San Francisco's central computer network hostage, while a defense attorney claims that the defendant was perhaps just a little overzealous in doing his job.
Terry Childs, 45, of Pittsburg, CA, is a former San Francisco Department of Technology administrator accused of withholding passwords to the city's main computer network in 2008. The city alleges that he commandeered the city's new FiberWAN network, which he was in charge of engineering and implementing.
This network centralizes what had been separate networks from different city departments and now includes the city's Police Department, Sheriff's Department and payroll system, among others.
"This is a network that spanned the entire city and the entire city relied on it," prosecuting attorney Conrad del Rosario told the jury during opening statements.
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