[TillE]

who locked San Francisco out of its main computer network for 12 days

Childs claimed he never intended any harm, but did not trust his superiors with the passwords. He eventually gave the passwords to then-Mayor Gavin Newsom in a jail cell visit

This doesn't really pass the smell test as just some silly misunderstanding. Twelve days to hand over the information?

[wccrawford]

He refused to hand it over to anyone except the mayor due to his interpretation of the rules he was under. Had the mayor showed up in 5 minutes, he would only have held them for 5 minutes.

He claims his ethics prevented him from doing anything other than exactly what he did. And if he really felt that only the Mayor could be trusted with the password, he was honor-bound to hand them only to him.

The entire system not only allowed him to get into this situation, but it practically forced it on him thanks to budget cuts and ridiculous decisions. Not that he was complaining at the time.

It will serve as a good reminder as to why you should not only act ethically, but demand that your bosses act ethically as well. It was unconscionable that they let a single person have this much power over their network. Had he died, they would have had a hard time getting that password back.