Terry Childs, the SF City Hall's network engineer who almost brought the city a stand still after withholding crucial passwords, was found guilty of felony computer tampering on Tuesday. KTVU reports: "After nearly three days of deliberation, the jury Tuesday afternoon found Childs -- who had worked for the Department of Technology since 2003 and built the network -- guilty of one felony count of computer tampering with an allegation that the losses from the crime exceeded $200,000." Childs faces two to five years in the pokey. Mayor Gavin Newsom, if you recall, had to personally visit Childs in jail to retrieve the passwords. more ›

San Francisco's latest crime-fighting technique, ShotSpotter, a listening/recording device that can pinpoint the locations of discharged gunfire in San Francisco's most at-risk neighborhoods, has seen its Mission district unveiling temporarily halted. According to the Ex, Terry Childs, the IT nerd who almost took down San Francisco via a lockout, caused the delay. It seems the "communications system on which [ShotSpotter] relies has yet to be restored," or whatever. Anyway, the ShotSpotter's third installation is TBA. (Examiner) more ›

With a whole lot of charm and little bit of pluck, Mayor Gavin Newsom managed to get the much-needed passwords from former IT nerd Terry Childs during a jailhouse visit last night. If you recall, Childs, City Hall's former network administrator , has been incarcerated since July 13 after failing to handover the correct security codes to his bosses after getting the boot. Newsom, it seems, had a secret meeting with Child last night, one so intimate that neither the District Attorney Kamala Harris' office nor the knew about it. Childs remains in jail with several felony computer-tampering counts on his head, with a reduced bail set at 5 million. more ›