Techie Botched the Last Thing They Did Before a Holiday
The Register, Monday, May 4th, 2026
A council IT worker accidentally left an unauthorized DHCP server running on the network before taking a week off, causing chaos.
A UK council technician named Teague left an old ISDN router configured as a DHCP server connected to the network just before taking a week-long holiday. When he returned to work on Monday, the router began distributing IP addresses in an incorrect range, disabling network access for thousands of council workers who arrived that morning. His colleagues spent the entire week fixing the resulting network outage, and Teague received a severe reprimand for the incident. The story serves as a cautionary tale about properly testing and disconnecting experimental network equipment before taking time off.