in brief San Francisco officials are reportedly trying to find a device on the city's computer network that was allegedly left there by an IT worker who was jailed for refusing to divulge passwords to the city network.

San Francisco network administrator Terry Childs was arrested in July on four felony charges of taking control of the city's computer network and locking administrators out. He remains in jail on US$5 million bail despite giving up the passwords to the mayor in a secret jail cell meeting a week later.

The device, which appears to be a router providing remote access to the city's fibre wide area network, was discovered on August 28, said a report by the IDG News Service.

However, officials didn't know where the device was located and didn't have the user name and password to access it. When they tried to log in, a message was displayed that said the system was the "personal property of Terry S. Childs," according to a screenshot officials filed with the court.