A dispute over administrative passwords for the City of San Francisco's computer network landed Terry Childs, a city administrator, a four-year prison sentence for violating California state laws against hacking. Childs, who was convicted in April, was found guilty by jurors of breaking the law by prohibiting the City of San Francisco from gaining administrative control of its own network.

The July 2008 incident centered around Childs' refusal to give San Francisco's passwords to his superiors for a period of twelve days. Childs would not transfer control of the FiberWan network to Richard Robinson, his supervisor.

Childs claimed that Robinson, Department of Technology and Information Services Chief Operations Officer, was not qualified to have the passwords for administrative network access. In his defense during the trial, Childs stated that he was just doing his job. Gavin Newsome, Mayor of San Francisco, finally received the passwords.

Childs, sentenced by Judge Teri Jackson, will be able to apply the time he has already served in a county jail, 755, days, to his new sentence, making his remaining time in jail possibly as short as four to six month before he could be paroled. The maximum sentence for his crime is five years in prison. Childs may also owe the city almost one million dollars for the money it spent trying to gain access to the network for which Childs held the password.

Richard Shikman, Childs' attorney, stated in an email that "He clearly is not a hacker..."The case stands as a metaphor for both human folly and human achievement," Childs asserted. Prosecutors, on the other hand, alleged that Childs craved power and resisted management.