By John Oates for The Register. This story has
been reproduced with permission.
Childs is in jail until he can raise $5m in bail. He is accused
of blocking all access to the city's network and routers by
resetting passwords. He initially refused to cough up the new
password. But on Monday afternoon Newsom visited him in jail and
persuaded him to hand over the necessary passwords.
After initial confusion, the passwords worked and city officials
once again had access to their own network. Childs is accused also
of installing hardware on the network to enable remote access.
Newsom said Childs was very good at what he did but had recently
"become a bit maniacal", the San Fransico Chronicle
reports. When first arrested, Childs refused to hand over
access passwords.
He has pleaded not guilty to four counts of computer
tampering.
Many have questioned why Childs' bail is so high and how he
apparently so easily gained complete control of the city's computer
system.
His lawyer will go to court today in an attempt to get his bail
lowered.
© The
Register 2008
