To use your analogy, though, this is a soldier on guard that made up his own password and won't let anyone know what it is. Which is not particularly helpful when you have legitimate traffic that would like to pass through but can't because no one knows the password.

But frankly I don't think it's a particularly valid analogy. ;-)

The thing that is odd to me is that if someone locked any of us out of our own boxes and refused to give us access, we'd all be spitting tacks.

Childs locks an entire city out of their own boxes and I'm reading "Hey, the boxes didn't crash, so no harm done!" Do you guys really believe that? Would you defend someone who locked you out of your own system, even if they said it was for your own good? Would you say "Hey, the box is still up, so it's fine that I'm locked out!"? I really don't think you would.

I just can't defend the guy. He was an ass, he caused his own problems when he could EASILY have avoided them just by not being an ass, he admits that he caused his own problems and that it wasn't worth it (in the last Childs slashdot article linked) and frankly if he did this crap to ANY of the guys defending him here, they'd be the first ones demanding his head.

Yes, his managers could have handled this better and probably were asses as well. The boss being an ass-hat doesn't cancel out Child's ass-hattery.

Oh well. It's easier to grandstand and defend him when you aren't the one affected I suppose.

Personally I pity his coworkers who now have his huge undocumented mess to deal with. As far as I am concerned, you could take his entire admin style and write it up as a counter-example of what to never, ever do or allow to happen to your systems.